
I Don't Understand What Anyone Is Saying Anymore - azazo
http://blogs.hbr.org/pallotta/2011/12/i-dont-understand-what-anyone.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
======
albertsun
I understand this critique, but I also think there are times where jargon,
abstract expressions and acronyms make communication a lot faster and clearer
for people who share the same context and domain knowledge.

Trouble is, if you don't have the domain knowledge it's really hard to tell if
what you're listening to is really condensed, specific info or meaningless
blather.

A lot of times I might say something like "we did data analysis with Python,
NLTK and R. The stack is on EC2 running Django with memcached and varnish
serving up json and the frontend uses jQuery, underscore and backbone to
render it"

To some people, that's a ton of info. To others it probably sounds like
gibberish.

The same even applies to the "valley-girl" talking. It sounds like meaningless
half-sentences to someone listening in, but to people who know all the social
relationships being discussed there might be a lot of information going back
and forth.

~~~
tedunangst
"we did data analysis with Python, NLTK and R. The stack is on EC2 running
Django with memcached and varnish serving up json and the frontend uses
jQuery, underscore and backbone to render it"

We performed the data analysis using a combination of dynamic programming
languages and synergistic components, running on a high availability multi
tiered substrate framework while simultaneously utilizing a web space language
to deliver content rich user content.

~~~
aroberge
Nice reformulation. It would be right in some contexts ... but, to me (and I
am not a programmer by trade nor do I work in the field), the original quote
is explicit enough that I would trust the person saying it to know what they
are talking about, whereas your reformulation would, in many contexts, sounds
like what someone would say when they really have no clue (think "pointed-
haired" boss).

~~~
dgreensp
I think that's the point of the reformulation: there's jargon and then there's
substance-removing abstraction.

~~~
alexqgb
Not knowing the meaning of the first formulation, I can still safely say that
it was produced by someone who knows precisely what he's talking about. That
breeds confidence.

The latter sounds like wall-to-wall bullshit. Not to say that the words don't
have meaning, just that they're parked in that infuriating zone favored by
people who would generally prefer that you didn't actually understand what
they were saying.

If all this represents an especially clever or elegant solution, wonderful -
talk about that in a way that makes the elegance clear. Or provide the hard
information that the first formulation conveys, so that a trusted advisor can
evaluate it. Just don't slip into the bullshit zone. Not if you want to
maintain goodwill, trust, and confidence.

And for what it's worth, smart humans are very good at detecting the
difference between actual technicalities, and bullshit. It's got little to do
with the domain. It's got a lot to do with the demeanor and tone of the person
speaking.

The first formulation makes me want to hire the guy. The second makes me want
to fire the guy.

~~~
_dps
I'm not sure how you can "safely say ... [he] knows precisely what he's
talking about" while admitting "not knowing the meaning." I think perceiving
it as "breeding confidence" is precisely the reason why many business
situations where experts' actions must be managed/approved by non-experts
result in a flood of impressive-sounding jargon.

The deluge of specificity creates a _posture_ of expertise; however,without
knowing what the specifics mean you can't possibly evaluate it for truth.
There are many equally impressively structured but semantically ridiculous
statements, such as "We host our servers on NLTK, serving up EC2 to a browser
frontend running varnish and memcached."

~~~
alexqgb
It's more subtle than that. Looking past the technical terms, the first
formulation is very distilled, and cites a specific action. It's an elegant
expression. The second one uses fluffery like "performed" instead of "did".
And that's what sets off the BS detector.

~~~
doktrin
I think you missed the point.

Why do you perceive statement #1 to be factual? If you have no domain
expertise, you have no way to evaluate it. _DPS's example sounds -identical-
to someone without domain knowledge, and yet is comically absurd.

~~~
Dylan16807
But that example goes well beyond meaningless buzzword boasting into flat-out
lying. This is a bit of a different problem and it's a lot easier to fact
check factual statements, with or without domain knowledge.

------
jrockway
I don't have any trouble understanding people when they say something like
"I'm in the sort of sustainability space around kind of bringing synergistic
value-add to other people's work around this kind of space." They're simply
saying nothing. I remember watching some cartoon where some aliens are
watching humans converse and they interrupt by saying "ritual gum flapping
time is over". That's all this is: ritual gum flapping. When two people flap
their gums at each other for a few minutes, it increases their comfort with
each other and that social comfort helps keep society glued together.
Sometimes conversations are about exchanging ideas, other times they are
purely about socialization. In this case, the conversations aren't about the
ideas, they're about having a conversation.

It may seem pointless, but a lot of being human is pointless.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
Making a presentation to others (the context of TFA) is not about
socialization, it is about exchanging ideas. If you aren't communicating well
there, you are failing at the primary objective.

I do agree there are contexts where the information transfer is not important
(the ritual gum smacking). Good communicators can identify which is which and
act appropriately.

~~~
jrockway
Are you sure? I think business presentations are 99% getting your name out
there and 1% teaching people valuable information. I've been to them and I'm
not sure how anyone could pay attention to the content because it's very very
slow-moving and boring. But now I know the presenter. Hence, it's obvious that
this is a social ritual rather than something that makes objective good use of
everyone's time. (The audience members attend so that other audience members
will remember them too.)

(We recently had some company-wide meeting that was a few hours long. I
realized that I could have read an essay version of the "presentation" in five
minutes. 1 hour and 55 minutes times 300,000 employees makes presentations a
pretty fucking dumb way of sharing information, if the only purpose is in fact
to share information.)

~~~
tedunangst
Company wide meetings are so that nobody can claim they didn't get the memo.
It's not just about sharing information, it's the implicit threat that
everyone knows the information has been shared with you. Lots of other ways to
solve that problem, but apparently herding everyone in the same room is the
accepted default.

------
jpdoctor
I think the author missed one of the motivations behind some of the behaviors:
Pure unadulterated bullshitting.

Some folks figure out early in life to talk past their listeners, and some
listeners will be intimidated. I found this out by simply playing stupid a
number of times (it comes quite naturally for me) and making them explain it
fully.

You will be surprised at the number of charlatans exposed by this tactic.

~~~
kls
I knew a VC who you could describe as Barney Fife, and be 100% accurate. I
always talked to him on a level he could understand, because I too thought he
was a little slow. I was polite and explained things so that he understood how
we where doing.

Fortunate for me though, I never was on the opposite ends of his ambitions,
because he fooled everyone who crossed his path.

One day, we where in the process of negotiating an exit with a huge player in
our market and I enter the room with him and our CEO (a brilliant guy),
conversations start and this guy turns into Mr. Negotiator. I mean here is a
guy that I have known for 2 years and all the sudden he is the smartest,
shrewdest guy in the room. He is tearing apart arguments, quoting technical
information that I explained to him (winking at me, saying that he was
listening). Explaining financial models to them and why they wont work for us.
etc. etc.

I walked away from that table with a totally different perspective than I
walked in with. The moral of the story was sometimes the bullshitter gets
bullshited. They thought they had this guy, and when the time was right he,
let go, blind sided them, took them off of their game, and walked out of the
room holding the aces.

I learned that day, that the dumbest guy in the room, may very well be the
smartest guy in the room. Never underestimate people and their capabilities it
may come back to haunt you.

After that meeting I said to him, man I feel like I don't know you at all, in
which he said something pretty profound, he said: I am the same friend you
have had for two years, and that is a humble good listener. Those last 3 words
have been what I have aspired to be since that day.

~~~
chernevik
Great, great story.

"Never underestimate people and their capabilities it may come back to haunt
you." Well, the guy trying to look like the smartest guy in the room, probably
isn't. To your point, if the "dumbest guy in the room" seems comfortable
looking like the dumbest guy in the room -- _that_ is the one to keep an eye
on.

~~~
kls
I am always reminded of him when someone quotes the saying used in gambling
_if you look around the table and can't spot the sucker the sucker is you_.
Smart people (at least smart enough to bullshit) are used to deflecting
questions from the dumb and they are shrewd enough to never get trapped in a
room in which they are out of their league with people that can see through
their ruse. What he did was lure them into a trap in which they felt
comfortable not bringing their defenses (lawyers, and accounts) because it
would scare the sucker. The did not play conservative in the face of a
competent adversary. So thinking they had a sucker they adopted a riskier
strategy of bullshit, and pacify, in an effort to keep the sucker at the table
while they milked him. Where they entered the room thinking they would keep it
small an "among friends".

There is a lot of back story on this deal and it is a long story, one day I
may post it. But it did involve this player starting negotiations by suing us,
so there was a lot of bad blood. He pal'ed around with their CEO for a month
being their sucker all the while rejecting a purchase in favor of a
partnership (which made absolutely no since to us or them), he would use all
kinds of dumb excuses as to why we did not want to sell. I had no idea how
well this guy had us covered, until I went into that room.

It was one of the most amazing things I have ever witnessed. If you have never
seen a person that can plan out 20 to 30 steps ahead, all hinged off of other
people, when you see it unraveled in front of you and connect the actions, it
is nothing short of amazing. It was the single greatest display of brilliance
I have ever seen. A single man took on a giant with his mind, and nothing more
than timing. It was a valuable lesson in underestimation and the element of
surprise.

~~~
jpdoctor
> _one day I may post it._

Just dropping a comment encouraging you to do so. I'm sure I'm not alone.

~~~
andrewflnr
Yes, please.

~~~
kls
Will do, I am working on getting funding for my next project right now, so I
will sit down and start working on it, as soon as I am through that push.

------
RyanMcGreal
I've been on a conference call where everyone was banding around acronyms that
I didn't know, so I jumped in and asked if they could define a particular TLA
that was coming up frequently.

It turned out that not a single person on the call knew what it stood for.

~~~
jrockway
That happens all the time, but it's because the acronym is not the point. For
example, when some production system went down, a "swat team" was assembled to
make sure that wouldn't happen. SWAT stands for something, but what it stands
for is meaningless, it's just a unique identifier for the sort of activities
that the team will engage in. It's like when people call an ATM an "ATM
machine". To them, ATM is an opaque word, not an abbreviation for "automated
teller machine". And that's fine; use a word enough and it becomes a word.

~~~
InclinedPlane
* Special Weapons and Tactics.

I think it's important to still learn what any internal acronyms and jargon
mean, otherwise you can get into a "telephone game" situation where two people
have acquired different and conflicting definitions for the same term.

~~~
gravitronic
humorous anecdote: My brother's friend thought "lol" meant lots of love. Until
one day an exchange went down:

someone else: "I have to leave town, my mother is sick." them: "oh no! lol"

------
bbarthel
I have the same problem. Once I realized that I was not just stupid and the
other person was simply not communicating well, I began to try repeating what
they just said back to them in "normal language" to ensure I had understood
them correctly.

When I did this, two things happened: people began to think that I was really
smart, and I realized that I could usually repeat whatever I wanted and the
person would agree with me.

~~~
r00fus
> ...I realized that I could usually repeat whatever I wanted and the person
> would agree with me.

This is actually a successful conversational terrorism [1] strategy, which I
have used (when pressed) both in written and spoken contexts.

[1] <http://www.vandruff.com/art_converse.html> ("Distorted Active Listening")

------
revscat
A part of me wonders if this isn't a factor of people trying to give more
importance to the importance of their roles than is, in fact, justified. The
doorknob example from the article is a good one in this respect. Instead of
calling it a "doorknob", a complicated, important-sounding analog is used.
Who's using it? Someone who feels that doorknobs are not that important, and
that putting "doorknob salesman" on their resumé won't look nearly as
impressive as "residential access tool marketer".

Human nature, I suppose. Still, it makes the language less useful.

------
bradleybuda
I'm in the advertising industry where I frequently find myself surrounded by
this kind of jargon (the word "media" is a tell that you're about to get an
avalanche of bullshit).

I've found one trick for turning these conversations about abstract business
models into something meaningful; ask "Who writes a check to whom, and for
what?" If you get a quick answer, then you have a chance that there's common
sense lurking around somewhere; if not, flee.

------
Splines
Here's a real life example I ran into a week ago:

<http://dev.aol.com/aim>

 _We've made some changes to the Open AIM program to better align with AOL’s
new direction and clear focus on our core strategy areas. Going forward, we're
shifting our focus to select partnership opportunities that will help us move
the needle in the communications space._

NotSureIfSerious.jpg

~~~
nandemo
Well, it _is_ annoying corporate-speak, but I can understand it: "this
development program is now closed to the general public. It will be open only
to partners that can help us making money."

------
kls
_Valley Girl 2.0_

Sadly this is me, I hate it, but I know it is true, my mind works far faster
than my mouth and when I am excited it comes out as half sentences, joined by
"likes" and "you knows". I have to concentrate to focus on pulling myself back
and then I worry that I am not getting my thoughts across, but at least I know
I am not getting them across when, I am doing it at thought speed.

Someone said to me once "Dude you use likes like other people use ums". If
there was one thing I could change about my speaking style that would be it.
Funny part is I speak at conferences and when I monolog it is not an issue.
Q&A is a different story all together.

~~~
simonsarris
In my (private) high school's health class "like" and "um" and others were
referred to as "stop-words" by the teacher because people would say them
instead of pausing. It's really obvious once you look for them, for instance I
hear things like college tour guides that would literally say "um" after every
single sentence, probably unbeknownst to themselves!

One of the class projects was for us to remove the stop words from our speech
by the end of the semester. We did this by all using recording software (had
to submit either by cassette tape or wav/mp3) and answering questions such as
"Do you want to live forever and why or why not?" by speaking for at least 5
minutes. These were our homework assignments.

We had to very consciously never use any stop words. We could pause the
recorder if we had trouble thinking of what to say, but we could never say
those words.

I was skeptical of the assignment at first but my class all agreed by the end
of the semester that it made us much better speakers, simply learning to
consider our pauses instead of filling the silence with "like" and "um".

~~~
jrockway
This rule never worked for me, because I, like some sort of analogy machine,
like to use analogies. And _like_ is a good word to place emphasis on before
making an analogy.

~~~
sevenproxies
Except I imagine like the author like meant using like out of like, you-know,
thingie... context.

I live with someone who uses like far to often it's almost a speech
impediment. Of course, he doesn't notice it and I'm learning to ignore it.
However on the flip side, when I can't think of what I want to say next (and
that is also often) I just go silent, frequently leaving my conversation
partner puzzled and sometimes they ask to repeat what I said.

edit: grammar.

~~~
kls
I would not say thingie but the rest of it is pretty much a conversation with
me, about something I am extremely interested in. Speech impediment is a good
description for it. It's has to be related to turrets or something, because it
is ingrained and habitual, but yet in monologing (generally learned speech) I
don't have the issue.

~~~
jrockway
You learn language by listening to others. If a lot of your friends say
"thingie" in regular conversation, you will too. It's how language adapts and
evolves.

Remember, language is just a more refined form of making random noises. (Also,
think about how easy it is to remember the lyrics songs you've listened to
over and over again. The imitation part of your brain is very strong.)

~~~
kls
_You learn language by listening to others_

Right, I think I did a bad job of conveying my point, which was monologing is
generally not a natural way to speak, therefore most people learn to monolog
and can go into that mode, same with reciting, though it is less of a
conscious act, reciting is a form of learned behavior and therefore has events
and patterns that you can draw on to reproduce ans suppress impulsiveness, at
least for me that is how it works. With spontaneous dialog, again for me, it
is less structured, and is more thought oriented, I therefore seems to bounce
around more in that particular situation, more than other more unnatural and
therefore learned forms of speaking. The "like" I most definitely picked up as
a learned word from my environment (a surfing town), the fact that I use it as
conjunctions and commas, I think is my own doing.

------
SoftwareMaven
No discussion on this topic is complete without George Orwell's "Politics and
the English Language" essay[1]. It shiws this isn't a recent issue, and is
systemic throughout the English world.

Everybody who wants to communicate well should read this regularly. It is far
easier to write abstractly than it is to write concretely, so people who
aren't striving to be concrete will trend towards abstraction.

[1] <http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm>

~~~
jacques_chester
I came here to post this myself.

Language is an adaptive system: a term emerges with some small skerrick of
insight, is rapidly applied to everything, is diluted and then loses its
semantic potency. Then it happens again with a new term.

------
cnorgate
Too true. Some guys over at college humor are on to this problem already...
Anyone who has spent time in Silicon Valley will find this clip awesome!

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMmdl4VltD4>

Enjoy!

------
pak
For anybody that needs a quick and humorous guide to all the terrible tropes
of Business Guy Language, check out <http://unsuck-it.com/browse/> (warning,
some bits may be NSFW). An indispensable dictionary for the common man.

------
adamtmca
I'm not saying these and other business phrases aren't widely misused or used
as a way to sound smart while saying nothing. But in case anyone is
interested:

Synergy

The term comes from M&A and refers to scenarios where the whole (after a
merger or acquisition) is worth more than the sum of the parts. For example, a
steel foundry which acquires a competitor and can now buy iron at a lower
price because it buys in higher volume. The increase in profitability of both
foundries from the decreased cost of iron is a "synergy".

Value-add

Comes from Michael Porter (I think) and refers to the idea that each of the
activities a company performs on their inputs before the final output should
add value to the final product. If the company is unable to add value through
one of those activities it's something they should pass to another party. This
leads to phrases like "is our customer service call centre a value-add or
should we outsource it?"

~~~
anigbrowl
My beef with things like this is not with the concept, but the way it is used.
'Does our call center add value to our product?' is an entirely reasonable
question. 'Value-add' as a noun is a big red flag for me, suggesting the
speaker has a poor grasp of the underlying concept and/or is trying to
overstate the significance of the issue to seem more important. I feel the
same when someone uses 'dialog' as a verb.

~~~
zabraxias
I've had this same argument when I hear project managers talk about what the
"ask" is. I don't think "request" is a complicated word.

------
gallerytungsten
Using real words that made sense would vastly decrease the grandiloquent
feeling of self-importance that puffs up these enemies of clear communication.

I sentence them all in absentia to ten readings of "The Elements of Style" by
Strunk & White.

~~~
garethsprice
The Economist has an excellent style guide (free online) for business
communication. The magazine is geared towards a global, generalist audience so
there's plenty of tips for communicating complex topics clearly.

The Orwell essay mentioned above is excellent too. I'll often go back through
something I've written and "make change" by splitting the $2 words into a
handful of simpler ones. After all, no-one likes a sesquipedalianist.

------
snorkel
I call it "biz dev jargon". The corporate hierarchy trains you to speak this
way. The people at the top of the org chart have no clue what "we need a REST
API for our Hadoop cluster " means or why they should even care, and if you do
speak that way to them then they'll nod kindly at you then ask you to
surrender your red stapler. You instead have to say "We're providing the
customer with automated control over their own data processing." If you don't
speak biz dev then the business owners don't understand you.

------
jiggy2011
This reminds me a bit of when I watch a Movie or a TV Show and there is some
geek or hacker character who is supposed to be doing something related to
computers in order to resolve a plot point.

They will often say something like "oh I just.." then spiel of a load of
technical phrases some of which I recognize and others which are clearly made
up, this is supposed to sound highly complicated and clever but not
understandable to the average viewer. Of course if you know anything at all
about technology you realize it sounds completely ridiculous.

I always wonder why they do this, since it is something viewers are not
supposed to be able to understand anyway. Why not at least make it accurate
enough to at least give the geeks watching a chuckle (references to nmap in
the matrix for example and apache/perl in "the social network" being examples
of this) rather than just roll their eyes.

------
buff-a
If the presentation is by a technical* person to other technical* people, and
you are just sitting in, then its fine. You just don't understand. The techies
do. Its just domain knowledge speeding communication.

If the presentation is to non-technical people, then its probably jargon
intended to bullshit you into thinking the speaker knows what they're talking
about, and also a game brinksmanship to dare you to call their bluff. Call
them on it. If they do know what they are talking about, you'll learn
something (and probably so will everyone who was keeping quiet). If they
don't, well, you learned something too.

* substitute lawyer, doctor, {domain_professional}

------
denzil_correa
I believe the author wants to let us know that the phenomena of Proof by
Intimidation is catching up with most of us.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_intimidation>

------
thewisedude
In my experience, its over abstraction that is the real hard nut to crack. I
have heard people using very abstract statements which everybody seems to
agree on, but most of them understand it differently.

------
srdev
Kind-of tangentially related, but I find that there's a high tendency for
people to interrupt other people and speak over others. This often leads to
poorly-thought-out discussions, because people are rushing to get a word in
edge-wise. At one point, I had to implement a "Lord of the Flies" style conch
system to make discussions bearable. Lately, it seems endemic to programming
style discussions. I'm not sure why.

I find that when everyone slows down, thinks before speaking, and uses
deliberate language, understanding improves greatly.

------
duncans
Reminds me of this quote from Aditya Chakrabortty:

> One of the best gauges of whether a statement actually means anything is to
> stick a not in its middle. If the opposite sounds ridiculous, then the
> chances are the original proposition is mush.

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/19/economic...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/19/economics-
happiness-david-cameron)

------
fedd
I am extremely bad at this kind of talk. I like it when it's clear. But I am
in a middle of preparing a presentation for some employer whom I want to offer
some consultancy. What should I do not to give him an impression that hhe can
move on without me because the topic is so clear and simple?

~~~
yesbabyyes
Make it clear that you are the one making the topic clear and simple.

------
MattGrommes
I recently interviewed somebody who had previously been an elementary school
teacher. Their resume had the following line: "Instructed a diverse group of
up to 29 students in a self-contained classroom on a daily basis." I laughed
at that bit of buzzword padding for quite a while.

------
johngalt
Consider what your audience wants to know, not what you want to say. Try to
avoid metaphor or analogy.

"We recommend games based on what their friends play. Someday books and
movies." = good

"Our EC2 based cloud platform combines social dynamics for consuming a range
of media types. Like facebook for apps." = bad

------
murrayb
Death Sentence ([http://www.amazon.com/Death-Sentences-Management-Speak-
Stran...](http://www.amazon.com/Death-Sentences-Management-Speak-Strangling-
Language/dp/1592401406)) by Don Watson is the seminal work on the topic.

------
josscrowcroft
Hahah, this is one of the truest articles I've read recently. I think
everybody on here knows at least one person who speaks like the latter example
in this piece, and the takeaway advice is immediately relevant and usable

~~~
iamwil
Especially when it pertains to oneself.

------
absconditus
This would not typically be appropriate for HN, but it is relevant:

[http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6507690/hardly-working-
sta...](http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6507690/hardly-working-start-up-
guys)

------
celticninja
Reminds me of this Finding Nemo quote:

Marlin: It's like he's trying to speak to me, I know it. [to Squirt] Marlin:
Look, you're really cute, but I can't understand what you're saying. Say the
first thing again.

------
dsimms
It could be that the techie tendency to not be able to put them(our?)selves in
others' shoes makes this kind of communication much more difficult.

------
rokhayakebe
Sadly enough that is the kind of talk that gets you hired as a manager in some
places.

------
mrshoe
As a great example, contrast a Mark Zuckerberg interview with a Steve Jobs
one.

------
lucian1900
You should listen to a Geordie for a few minutes. They literally use 'like' as
punctuation.

------
vijayr
The word "like" - just casually pay attention to the number of times this word
is used (abused?) in conversations, especially by teenagers - unbelievable. It
is probably the new filler word, in place of "Umm", "Hmm" etc

------
JonnieCache
All I know is, anyone who uses the word "space" in any sense other than the
mathematical one of "a set with dimensionality" needs a slap in the face.

If they use it in a sentence where it could be substituted for "room" or
"place" with no difference in meaning, then they get two slaps in the face.

(Just realised this means I now have to slap people at my local hackerspace.
So be it.)

