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posted by martyb on Monday July 21 2014, @01:34AM   Printer-friendly
from the Fake-Your-Way-To-The-Top dept.

Businessweek brings us news of How to Get Ahead by Speaking Vaguely. Projecting power is incredibly simple: just communicate in abstractions. Details convey weakness.

In one of the seven experiments, participants read quotes from a politician who described an earthquake as killing 120 and injuring 400; later, when he simply said it was a national tragedy, subjects thought he was a better leader.

An author of the study, Cheryl J. Wakslak (University of Southern California), cautions however against meaningless business jargon — words such as "ideaate" and "deliverables" that some workers resort to when trying to seem impressive. "Being completely vague will just make you sound stupid," she explains. "Bulls———is best when it has a kernel of truth in it."

The report was published this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and the full report is available at Using Abstract Language Signals Power (pdf)

 
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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by meisterister on Monday July 21 2014, @04:10AM

    by meisterister (949) on Monday July 21 2014, @04:10AM (#71704) Journal

    Upon creating industry-leading documentation division through a gut-feeling forward-thinking utilization of our exceptional eye-brain synergy, we brought to the table a competitive, value-add, cloud-based communicative synergy to provide valuable insight into industry-wide discussions.

    --
    (May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Funny=1, Total=1
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    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 2) by cafebabe on Monday July 21 2014, @05:32AM

    by cafebabe (894) on Monday July 21 2014, @05:32AM (#71719) Journal

    There's too much synergy there. You'll over-synergize.

    --
    1702845791×2
  • (Score: 5, Funny) by AnonTechie on Monday July 21 2014, @09:23AM

    by AnonTechie (2275) on Monday July 21 2014, @09:23AM (#71759) Journal

    These links might be very useful to corporate bullshitters:

    Web Economy Bullshit Generator: http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html [dack.com]

    Business Jargon Generator: http://www.mwls.com/resources/jargon.htm [mwls.com]

    The Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator: http://emptybottle.org/bullshit/index.php [emptybottle.org]

    --
    Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 21 2014, @11:14AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 21 2014, @11:14AM (#71780)

      +5 Informative & Funny