GCI London

I thought to myself, ‘this would make a good post for the blog’ so went about tracking the article down on The Telegraph’s website, Factiva and all the usual places but to no avail. Instead of letting it drop, I Googled Professor Furnham and fired off a quick email asking him if he could help me out. Within 5 minutes I had a very nice email back with the full article….it’s times like this you just love the Internet.

So here it is:

Breaking the code

There are many reasons why the English are called “perfidious Albion”. Our treacherousness is that we are seen to speak with “forked-tongue” whereas to us, it is simply that Johnny Foreigner doesn’t understand polite language usage.

All skilful people have learnt graciously to accept hideous presents; to comment on appalling dress-sense with tact; to applaud a dire performance. Through irony, wit and inflection it is not difficult to both save face and also give feedback. But you need to know the code.

So “We must get together for lunch sometime” is best understood by replacing sometime with never. And how, politely, to disagree with someone on the sconsible offences of politics, religion or the opposite sex? Many choose from: “How interesting!”, “If you say so” “ I don’t disagree entirely”.

Then there is the preface to feedback on incompetent work: “You have obviously worked hard on this”, “I appreciate your contribution”, “ Help me understand how you saw the problem this way”.

In the world of business the codes are usually simpler. So there is positive spin where ‘stress’ becomes ‘challenge’ and ‘a problem’ ‘an opportunity’. ‘Leveraging resources’ means working all hours.’ “I will never lie to you” means ‘The truth changes often’. “ I really appreciate your contribution” but means ‘you have been wasting your time and effectively contributed nothing’. Blame storming as it is now called means many people have to find ways of protecting themselves if their whole project goes badly wrong.

So the strategy to find some naive person and say: “I really appreciate your being in on this one” or “We want you to champion the project” or “Help us syndicate the problem”. “Please note and initial the document” means we have it in writing that you agreed.

Temporary job titles may be coded: “Individual contributors” means some poor sod who does all the work; “Manage Special Projects” is a sidelined, derailed senior manager pulled out of doing any more damage; “Co-ordinator Eastern Europe” ,likewise.

One can also take an approach from different departments. Thus, “to put on a marketing hat” means to lower ethical standards; “to bring in health and safety at this point” is to ensure the whole thing is scuppered; “to take a financial rain cheque” means it will never be funded. Other common need careful translation. “You need to be more flexible” means you have to do it my way; “You need to be more proactive” means it’s too late to get help now; “Your ideas are a trifle premature” means they threaten me too much; “You appear to be suggesting a paradigm shift” means that is stupid and wrong.

There are many polite ways to block anything. “That approach is on hold”; “You don’t seem to appreciate there are bigger issues at stake”; “ We have tried that and it didn’t work”. Single phrases can be borrowed from marketing speak. So “value-added” is expensive, “energy saving” is under-powered; “low maintenance” means simple, unfixable and disposable when broken. “All new” means you can’t get parts and is liable to breakdown; “rugged” means ugly, heavy and badly designed. “Additional features” means unnecessarily complicated and difficult to operate. “Breakthrough” means quirky, odd, not proven yet. “Testing phase” means constant failures. “Ethically sourced” means sub-standard andexpensive.

Management and marketing speak are new tongues. Americans love new verbs. So you anonymize and idea and absorb the success of others by assmosis. You bird-table discussions in groups. You bottom-fish for cheap stocks and you cybernate ideas. To eat at your desk is to work al desco, while to tell stories of past success is to anecgloat. A clocksucker is a unproductive, incompetent worker and a contrarian someone who (productively) goes against the flow.

And never forget the power of the acronym. It’s a CLM if you don’t CYA because of your CPB. It’s a career limiting move not to cover your ass if you get caught conducting personal business . “He always talks BDNs but really he’s a BHNC” (He talks big damn numbers but is all talk and no action: big hat no cattle).

The report is bs (not, naughty: it stands for bloated syntax). A C change is a change at the top often because the CEO has been a C-gull with the habit of flying off and leaving a huge mess for others to clean up. And then the annoying advertorial, and co-opetition.

To have fun with language is one thing. To obfuscate or confuse is another. All secret societies have their own lingo. Indeed all groups seek to pass on messages that are unclear to out groups. We sugar the pill too….and it leads to mysterious codes. Lexical cryptography, not perfidious Albion.