Great article by Simon Caulkin in Sunday’s Observer about how ‘management-speak’ leeches the meaning out of business communications. The sort of language Caulkin discusses is exactly the sort of language that I loathe, and which blogging in general abhors.

[M]anagement’s parallel universe is supported by a comprehensive literature in which imaginary concepts and attributes are earnestly described and referenced, as if they really existed. ‘Passion’ and ‘delight’ are such parallel concepts. So is ‘excellence’ (well to the fore on the Gate Gourmet website).

Worse than management-speak is marketing-speak, which is even further divorced from reality. When businesses use words that are fundamentally at odds with the every day experience that we have of them, when they talk themselves up to the point of risibility, that’s when people just turn off, put them in the ‘deluded wankers’ category and move on to much more down to earth sources of information, such as blogs.

When will managers and marketers realise that we know they’re talking shite? The only people fooled by management-/marketing-speak are the manager and marketers.