Your feelings about this answer to why DEI doesn't work

@faery Thanks for that! That is the most clear answer yet. I think you have shed light into the authors idea. I was thinking along similar lines with uncousious bias. But perhaps that was too narrow.

@JimboSaturn It's a form of defensive hypocrisy, and so it's designed to be confusing on two levels. But don't worry, your inherent intelligence is intact and functioning well.

@faery How hard was it to explain it to me without insulting me lol

@JimboSaturn Who, me? Did I insult you?

@faery No no! You explained it perfectly! Just the original writer couldn't explain it to me without referencing my lack of education.

@faery It deflects attention from the point that organisations and system do not create themselves. When things succeed or fail, it is by what people do - not "systems".

People create their administrative systems, policies and so on, and act on them. The system may be brilliant or an utter mess, but it is still made and run by fallible human beings.

@ArishMell Correct. People create systems of bias and then blame "the system".

@faery I simply took on the business-school type talk rather than the specific purpose.

Genuine technical, legal and financial terms are fine but that lot is none of those.

I have seen any number of these strange ways to say simple things over the years, in so many contexts, by managers trying to sound clever; and that paragraph is another example of that trait.

@ArishMell In business school, I actually took business English where the most simple words and language was promoted.

@JimboSaturn Really? I wish many of the writers I've encountered had been taught the same!

@ArishMell Yes because in the real business world, managers and directors need direct clear messages. If you are an analyst like me, you have to be "snappy" and my commentary must be concise, brief, and impactful. This means using as few words as possible to explain things. People don't have time to read long emails, hell they barely have time to read emails at all. The leadership need to understand things as quickly as possible.

@JimboSaturn The most common traps seem to be cliches and misplaced technical terms.

I stopped listening to one manager's presentation because despite the future tense she was "going forward" so often it became an ear-worm blocking the real message. I stopped paying attention and mentally planned my weekend... going forward.

Misplaced terms by people who don't really understand them, include peculiar uses of exponential, seismic and epicentre. This habit undermines the speaker's credibility.


Oh, and pure propaganda: One of my former employers tried to adopt The Very Latest Fad, called "TQP", announced with a glossy leaflet and very embarrassing publicity video. These praised TQP's lofty ideals without suggesting how it might operate. It faded away, then our primary customer demanded we adopt that awful management-control "standard" ISO900x, whose ideology was contrary to TQP's anyway.


In events like radio interviews and special-interest programmes, I've always found senior judges and military officers among the best speakers, to be concise, etc., as you describe. Further, a judge has to be comprehensible to everyone in Court, not just the lawyers but also people who may not be very well educated.

@ArishMell Oh that language still plagues Canadian businesse too.

Fad words:
Leverage
Synergies

They use language like "in order to afffect a postive change in organizational efficiencies" when they could just say "to increase organizational efficieny"

My favourite is when mass restructuring happens, they assign it a name like "Project Sunrise" which really means they are going ot fire a bunch of people. Of course we called it "Project Sundown lol

@JimboSaturn I'm sure you know all about that, having ran a business or being in possession of a management degree, or are you trying to pretend your own ignorance is enlightenment?

@JimboSaturn A friend of similar mind tells me she had great fun at one Very Solemn Meeting when someone started waffling about "synergies".

She asked, "What are 'synergies'?" and eventually discovered it simply means "co-operation".

Her response, she related, was something like, "Thankyou! Now I know what you are talking about. Umm, if it means 'co-operation', how can you have 'synergies' - plural?"

The unfortunate speaker couldn't really answer that.

@Therealsteve What is your point? I hate sloppy English. I prefer concise language, thrift in words. How is that ignorance?
I work in the real coporate world where concise and brevity is necessary. I've worked as an analyst for 22 years now and I do have a business degree. Not that I care. In my experience, education doesn't necessarily make you a good worker.

@ArishMell Can't say I've ever come across a manager use that word, nor the word used in my degree. I see him using it, though. I thought he disliked "fallacies", and the "strawman" fallacy comes to mind.

@Therealsteve We were musing about silly language in the corporate world that peeves us. It had nothing to do with you or any argument with you. My examples were not a strawman used against you.

@Therealsteve Which word? "Synergy"? I don't think it's very common but it does appear now and again.

The "syn" part just means "together", so I suppose the whole word is meant to mean "energy together".

I.e., "co-operation". :-)

@ArishMell Synergy has gone out of style. I'm trying to think of the new buzz word at my work.

Velocity. We are implementing these changes with velocity.

I don't mind synergy, but they overused it.

@JimboSaturn Haha which you decided was only relevant days later, whilst also viewing very fundamental 2nd year degree terms and ideas as "word salads". You aren't fooling anyone with that.

And "I hate sloppy English". I've been paying the respects to you, thus far, of not commenting on your abysmal "command" of language.

"I work in the real coporate world where concise and brevity is necessary.".

*where concision and brevity are fundamental requirements".

"Where concise and[...] is necessary" makes no grammatical sense. Neither does a simple typo cause you to miss an entire suffix and mess up the currency of an adjective. And you make such a mistake whilst claiming to hate sloppy English.

You aren't fooling anyone with your claims of any education, Jim.

@Therealsteve Boy someone is butthurt. You must be a really well loved person at your "school".

My words did make sense and had nothing to do with you and our arguement. The truth is that I am in the real world where blow hards like you don't get far.

@ArishMell It's not "common" in the slightest. This Jim has no education whatsoever, but likes to pretend he does. It's a wishy washy word he's heard before, and is reporting on himself with his claims of how others use it. (They don't).

@Therealsteve What word synergy? Well if you were in the business world you would know it is , or was at least here. Like I said it's fallen out of favour. We'll just have to wait for the next one after some numbskull like you reads some "business theory" and tries to look smart by bringing out a new buzzword.

@JimboSaturn Of course they had nothing to do with the argument. None of what you said has, as you are incredibly uneducated and often times struggle to form a coherent sentence.

And oh, yes I am well loved, actually. I got these comments when I took part in a group activity with some of the children from one of the medical education units I lead. I'm responsible for all the units in the state, and so it's nice to get this after just a few visits to one of them.