Learning to Speak Human is Tough

It’s been well over a year since I quit the corporate chapter of my life but corporate-ese still sneaks up.

If I am not careful, a statements like “a synergy of these concepts is a low hanging fruit and that juice is worth the squeeze” end up in my drafts and final copy.

And frankly, what a fascinating concept.

What’s in the language?

Somewhere a group of people decided that the only way to project professionalism is to use phrases and words in quite unusual combination that no normal human would ever utter. Similar to legalese, that newly established language quickly separated those who know from those who do not.

I remember working with small businesses that got contracts at large corporations and having to explain and translate what corporate clients actually say in their emails.

The entry level jobs is where you learn the language. But past that you expected to speak it fluently, with a certain level of flair, confidence and seriousness.

The language, very action and battle oriented, differs from usual industry slang and technical terms, because it uses the normal words, just combined differently.

But what does corporate speak do to brains?

If language defines our thinking pattern, then being fluent in corporate, especially once it starts spilling into your everyday written language, has to have an impact.

There are certain traits I keep catching in my writing:

Saying a lot while a simple sentence would do

“At this point in time, we are running into challenges requiring to take a deeper dive into the data” vs “We have a problem and need to look at spreadsheets”

Separating yourself from the event/thought/process

“It has been determined that suggested approach will require resources beyond the current allocation” vs “This was a bad decision”

Overstating the importance of the fact

“We need to be laser-focused on driving value and fundamentally transform the business model” vs “We need to focus on results, this ain’t working”

Faking positivity

“This will be an exciting opportunity for growth and improvement” vs “This really going to suck”

Faking answers

“We are still in early exploratory phase and socializing the ideas with potential stakeholders” vs “We have no clue what’s going on”

Common thread

A common pattern in all these examples is equating communications with bleached out humanity to professional and status signals.

My own language started to shift more rapidly once I moved into management positions.

On a certain level that makes sense - it’s implied that manager responsibility should align with the business. And it is much easier to say “We are rightsizing the operations” vs “We are firing y’all”

I would imagine it creates a separation mechanism similar to what doctors experience - you cannot react to every patient from purely human perspective and remain in the career without burnout.

Now out of corporate for good, I want to start speaking like normal people.

Coming back to humanity

Ironically what’s helping me to start speaking as a human again is both using and not using AI.

I am using AI to review my drafts and provide editorial feedback with the specific prompt instruction to catch all and any “corporate speaks”. I am happy that the instances are becoming less common.

I am not using an AI to check grammar and correct my writing. Partly because Grammarly became too opinionated for my taste (perhaps I want to form the sentence that way? And gasp to use a passive voice?). Partially because it’s just not as important to me now and “suggested improvements” often have corporate taste.

The irony of using machine (AI reviewer) to catch and shred the language of another machine (corporate) is quite strange.

But I am curious to see if breaking out of this shell and speaking like a human again will change my brain, my personality, and how I view the world.

It will be fun to find out.