OK, the real title of this post is ‘Landscape of ideas vs categories of actions. Tapestry of behaviours vs. culture. Your language will shape you’. Which, I have to say it was a mouthful. And you were just about to ignore it.
So thanks for reading a bit more. Look, I am worried about language. These things above: ‘Landscape of ideas vs categories of actions. Tapestry of behaviours vs. culture’.
These may be extreme examples of a ‘substitute’ (are they, really?) but the truth is, management language, and its dialects, are not terribly poetic. Beauty has been banned from corporate language. We are supposed to be unemotionally dry in case we catch the human aspect contamination.
“We will accommodate your concerns, if we have the bandwidth to do so, at this juncture, that is, so that we can leverage your ideas, at the right level of granularity”. Mr Martian Manager said.
Not even an uneducated Martian would write like this. But we do. It’s called Management Language.
Can we please have beautiful thoughts, instead of ‘right to the point’? Perhaps a tapestry of behaviours? Call me what you want, but I prefer landscape of ideas.
It’s hard to be moved by management language. Even motivational speakers motivate you via language tricks, jokes well-placed and a bit of shouting. That is why there is an industry of ‘after dinner speakers’. That is why I never do after dinner speeches. I can’t compete even with a bad Rioja.
I am very unfair with all this, I know. And, by the way, I don’t exclude myself from the temptation of dryness and the use of jargon.
Some humanity shots can be brought to our day-to-day business environments by not forgetting that the robots have not taken over yet, and that if you talk like a mum, or a dad, or a sister, of your best friend, or the guy at the newsagents, we all will live longer. Increase collective longevity by being human in the workplace. Thanks for the contribution.
A dose of detox is injected every time we talk like humans, not business school graduates. Give the blockchain what is the blockchain’s, and Joe what is Joe’s.
Every time I try to write non-business stuff, my brain looks for the double malt. It’s hard. I need to go to the mental gym.