Descended from Doublespeak, CorporateSpeak is a subject that I have learned to love, mainly for the endless amusement that it offers when the latest euphemism-ridden email makes its way down the corporate food chain. I used to think that I would parody the communication style in response, but it would be way too easy - as a colleague of mine pointed out last week, it is no challenge whatsoever.
Daniel Pink has written about this subject recently in the Daily Telegraph. I also found this blog posting on the subject at 37Signals.
CorporateSpeak is one of the key reasons why many senior leaders in large corporations have limited credibility. Its use reinforces suspicion that the leaders live in a bubble, a parallel universe where plain language has been discarded, replaced by a bizarre language that obfuscates, de-personalizes all decisions and diffuses accountability. The net result is that most readers of CorporateSpeak communications briefly scan the communication, either laugh out loud or shake their heads, and promptly consign it to the trash bin. Whatever objective lies behind the communication remains unfulfilled. Of course, that assumes that the objective was to actually say something useful. The cynic in me wonders if the underlying objective is indeed to say nothing, while justifying the existence of the "stone tablet" style of communication.