Public Affairs Blog

I Don’t Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore

December 15, 2011

A great piece written by social entrepreneur Dan Pallotta examining management speak. This appeared in the Harvard Business Review on Dec. 5, 2011.
I’d say that in about half of my business conversations, I have almost no idea what other people are saying to me. The language of internet business models has made the problem even worse. When I was younger, if I didn’t understand what people were saying, I thought I was stupid. Now I realize that if it’s to people’s benefit that I understand them but I don’t, then they’re the ones who are stupid.
There are at least five strains of this epidemic.

Abstractionitis
We have forgotten how to use the real names of real things. Like doorknobs. Instead, people talk about the idea of [...]

I Don’t Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore

A great piece written by social entrepreneur Dan Pallotta examining management speak. This appeared in the Harvard Business Review on Dec. 5, 2011.
I’d say that in about half of my business conversations, I have almost no idea what other people are saying to me. The language of internet business models has made the problem even worse. When I was younger, if I didn’t understand what people were saying, I thought I was stupid. Now I realize that if it’s to people’s benefit that I understand them but I don’t, then they’re the ones who are stupid.
There are at least five strains of this epidemic.

Abstractionitis
We have forgotten how to use the real names of real things. Like doorknobs. Instead, people talk about the idea of [...]