Yes, believe it or not, Business Bullshit is the title of a recently published book, written by André Spicer and published by Taylor and Francis. I confess I haven’t read it, although I was fascinated when I heard Spicer interviewed on Radio National, and was also intrigued when I read his review in the 22/12/17 edition of The Guardian Weekly (GW).
The GW review begins with Pacific Bell’s response to a deregulated market. They hired an organisational development specialist and spent $40 million taking staff through 10 two-day sessions to learn concepts such as “the law of three”, “alignment”, intentionality” and “end-state visions”. There were two unfortunate side-effects from this investment: it was virtually impossible for anyone outside the company to understand this new language, and it led to lots more meetings.
Spicer: Words like “intentionality”, “ideation”, “imagineering” and “inboxing” … have become a kind of organisational lingua franca .. in the same way that freemasons use secret handshakes – to indicate their membership and status.
Spicer implores us to refuse to use empty management-speak in order to have better functioning organisations and more fulfilling lives – and we at AnD Leadership consulting can but agree!
