02/06/2024

The Animal Instinct that Drives Workers to Adopt Corporate Jargon

Jargon is useless, according to researchers

People are constantly "double-clicking" topics, "pinging" colleagues and "aligning on learnings." This word salad is maddening – so why have workers thrown up their hands and embraced it?

Corporate Erin invites you to "re-drill down, re-reset and stick to client logistics." Introducing herself as the "manager of managerial logistics for Management McManagement", she's a caricature – a TikTok persona created by actress Lisa Beasley – meant to poke fun at nonsense corporate jargon.

Satire aside, Corporate Erin represents the very real influx of cringe-inducing business language popularised in fields including tech, finance and consulting. Whether workers are "circling back," "double-clicking" or "running it up the flagpole," experts say this jargon is mostly meaningless. Still, it has become a key way of establishing oneself in corporate culture, and most knowledge workers are using it in the office to keep up.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The BBC.