
From inboxing to thought showers: how business bullshit took over - tomduncalf
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/23/from-inboxing-to-thought-showers-how-business-bullshit-took-over
======
hitekker
Concluding that we need an "anti-bullshit movement" to get rid of bullshit is
missing the forest for the trees.

Bullshit is organizational self-deception. Comfortable statements intended to
insulate leaders and followers from uncomfortable problems.

In other words, bullshit isn't abnormal; it's natural. A reflex to maintain
the status quo while the surrounding environment decays.

And, the greater that decay, the more wool must be spun to pull over our eyes.
It is said that, in North Korea, the only state organ that worked every single
day during its great famine, was its propaganda department.

In my view, calling upon employers to have the courage to be genuine, to think
and talk in more authentic ways... will give birth to yet another management
fad. A movement shouldn't center around some vaguery, nor should it rely on
each individual's moral fiber.

Instead, a better approach would be to determine what bullshit is the everyday
kind versus the kind concealing systemic failures in our present and future
society, e.g. "Bullshit jobs" -> Basic Income, or "Corporate Social
Responsibility" -> Tax Avoidance .

Finding and solving the latter would reduce the need for, and thereby
existence of, the more unbearable bullshit. Attack the disease, not just its
symptoms.

~~~
temporallobe
As usual, the really interesting bits are in the comments. I especially find
"bullshit jobs" -> Basic Income especially true. I've always thought the same
thing for as long as I've had a professional career. I worked in the aerospace
industry as my first programming job and saw so much bullshit flying left and
right, and identified that at least 60% of my coworkers and 80% of my bosses
did exactly nothing but bullshit like reporting and summarizing on things that
were already reported or summarized, or creating useless documentation that
had to be created because of some arbitrary standards. We were very top-heavy
and at one point I saw a hilarious org chart where there were more managers
than engineers. Then one day I thought to myself that this whole project was
basically equivalent to wealth redistribution and was not at all the
meritocracy I had envisioned it to be. Now, 20ish years later, I'm pretty damn
jaded and the bullshit has only increased, but now it's just more cleverly
disguised in management methodologies like "SCRUM" and "Agile", with all of
that deeply-imbedded culture and terminology baked into our everyday tools
like the Atlassian toolset (Jira, Kahnban boards, etc.). Bullshit is here to
stay, but in a sense it saves us from our own incompetence.

~~~
asveikau
> Then one day I thought to myself that this whole project was basically
> equivalent to wealth redistribution and was not at all the meritocracy I had
> envisioned it to be.

This is precisely why I have loathed the cult of "pay per performance".
Bonuses, salary bumps and promotions become a sort of (I wish this were an
exaggeration of terms but it isn't) conspiracy to pass wealth and prestige to
buddies. But they fill it with phony paperwork and propaganda about how the
buddies have been objectively evaluated and are all top performers. If you are
an honest worker doing good things but not in a management in-crowd, this can
have crippling effects on morale.

------
artellectual
I see a pattern, based on this article and in my daily life. A lot of these
processes and ridiculous terminologies are usually created by managers who
have no real hard skill. Instead of doing any real work this is what they come
up with in order to validate themselves. What does the delegator do when the
work has all been delegated? Nothing absolutely nothing and that’s where all
these ideas, terminologies mentioned in this article come from.

IMO the best managers are the people who have hard skills and leadership
skills as a combination. They are able to solve their own problems and help
other people solve their problems, and are able to ensure everyone on their
team comes out with a net positive on happiness.

~~~
Sacho
> What does the delegator do when the work has all been delegated? Nothing
> absolutely nothing and that’s where all these ideas, terminologies mentioned
> in this article come from.

Delegating work is still work which needs to be done. In a large organization,
figuring out which work to delegate to who is a full-time job. Just creating
the (ever-changing) structure of the company - what positions you have, what
responsibilities they take, etc - is also a pretty hefty effort, done by
managers.

It's difficult for me to not parallel your "no hard skill" complaint with how
farmers in my country complain that programmers "don't create any physical
product" but get paid more. Organizing even small numbers of people(10-20)
calls for someone with quality soft skills, otherwise the efficiency of
everyone drops significantly.

~~~
artellectual
I think you misunderstand my point about 'hard skill'. When I say 'hard skill'
I mean any kind of skill contributing to the product (by product I mean the
actual product and working with the customer). Whether it's physical goods or
providing some kind of service.

As for the point about farmers complaining programmers don't create 'physical'
product that's a whole different discussion. That complaint is coming from
someone who due to whatever constraint hasn't taken the time to understand,
the nature of the software business.

------
crazygringo
There's a Peter Drucker quote, I believe, that I can't manage to find, but
goes something along these lines (totally paraphrasing):

Businessmen tend to use fancy jargon for mundane things, which gives more
exciting and important trappings to what is, in reality, a tremendously dull
job. We should let them have it -- somewhat obfuscated language is a small
price to pay to let them feel a little bit better about the boring tasks they
accomplish day in and day out.

~~~
tambienben
What about those whose jobs are boring & mundane under management positions? I
understand the quote isn't yours, but what makes management so special?

------
sailfast
I found this article to be of little utility. Some random history about
corporate management, crapping on an entire layer of the organization, because
they are called "management" (there are good managers and they serve a
purpose) and in the end not suggesting a single thing to help improve the
clarity of one's own language.

All to sell the author's book. Wish I had passed.

~~~
projektir
Agreed, nothing really of substance here, which is impressive, given that
there's plenty to say on the topic... and it's a much wider topic than
management.

------
VectorLock
This how I feel about most "Agile methods" going around like SCRUM.

~~~
sli
I often see complaints about Agile and SCRUM met with, "You're just not using
it correctly." In some circles, it's almost like a religion that you're not
allowed to criticize. After all, it's _The Process(TM)_ , I guess.

But from where I'm sitting, "correct" SCRUM looks like a whole lot of weird
not-overhead-but-totally-overhead that seems difficult to manage across
multiple projects. For example, what a "point" represents is constantly in
flux.

Instead, I actually prefer subsets of the methodology. When the company I work
for was young, we all worked from home, and so daily standups were _extremely_
effective at keeping us on task and productive while maintaining good balance
(once you're done, you're done -- no creep). The board has been effective as
organizing tasks and their progress.

What would not have helped, or been in any way productive, would have been
spending time trying to figure out how many "points" my tasks for the day are
worth. I still don't see how that system is actually different from just using
hours beyond philosophical arguments.

Basically, I prefer a more focused and leaner version of the approaches.

~~~
IronKettle
> I often see complaints about Agile and SCRUM met with, "You're just not
> using it correctly."

To be fair, this is true _a lot_. Agile has quickly become "whatever you were
doing before Agile but now with stand-ups and kanban boards."

The real problem with Agile is that it's kinda stupid to assume that companies
will radically change their development process and that they won't just do
"whatever we were doing before but with a couple bits and pieces from this
other thing."

It's way easier to keep doing whatever you were doing before and just say that
it's "Agile." See, for example, the number of teams that have long-winded
standups even though that's pretty explicitly discouraged.

> What would not have helped, or been in any way productive, would have been
> spending time trying to figure out how many "points" my tasks for the day
> are worth. I still don't see how that system is actually different from just
> using hours beyond philosophical arguments.

Totally my take on the whole point system, but:

They're definitely related (hours and points), but basically the whole idea is
vagueness. Figuring out if something will take 3 hours or 5 hours is kinda
meaningless, because you really have no idea until you get into it. Saying
it's worth "5 story points" might suffice as a rough representation of that
3-7 hour chunk.

If it ends up taking 20 hours, oh well - good to know for next time!

The idea is not to bicker over whether something will take 3 hours or 5 hours
or 7 hours, but to just slap a vague label on it as "low-to-moderate
difficulty." It's supposed to save time in that regard.

> Basically, I prefer a more focused and leaner version of the approaches.

I think any reasonable Agile advocate would tell you to discover what's
working for your team and what isn't, and to adjust accordingly.

The point is mostly to move away from that extremely long-winded waterfall
process and move towards rapid iteration. Story points and stand-ups are just
tools for accomplishing that (by estimating velocity and having regular check-
ins).

~~~
gregmac
> Saying it's worth "5 story points" might suffice as a rough representation
> of that 3-7 hour chunk.

> If it ends up taking 20 hours, oh well - good to know for next time!

The idea behind points in this situation is to start equating that 5 points =
20 hours (for this type of problem, for this team). If you think of it in
terms of "this story is about the same complexity as this other one". Whether
you call that 5 or 15 or 50 points is largely irrelevant, so long as all 5
point stories are roughly equivalent and a 10 point story is about double the
work of that.

The rest of the uncertainty around complexity and people is supposed to wash
out in the averages of the team: for example the fact that one person may
typically do 12 points a week while another does 30 does not really matter for
figuring out the overall velocity (team points per week), assuming the team
does dozens of points per week total.

Now that said, I've never successfully used points. Sometimes it was due to
endless discussions trying to equate hours to points (mostly from management
and others outside the dev team), poor estimates, radically different
estimates or skill levels, and probably several other reasons I'm unaware of.

Now my team does t-shirt sizes for long term things, and hours for the stuff
in sprint (basically as it's started), but it's still often way off.

Does anyone have successful (long term) experience using points? What did you
do to make it work? Does it actually have material advantages over other
methods?

~~~
patricklouys
Yes, we have been using them successfully for quite a while. We only use it to
estimate roughly what fits into a sprint.

No comparisons to time or between team members are made. I think that's really
important. Management is on board with that. If it wasn't, it probably
wouldn't work.

------
whilestanding
Great article, until the very end when it sounds like he wants to come up with
with some anti-bullshit bullshit. However I really did enjoy the read
especially learning about the history of bullshit and how we got here.

I think the fundamental problem he mentioned has to be solved - "As factories
producing goods in the west have been dismantled, and their work outsourced or
replaced with automation, large parts of western economies have been left with
little to do" This is the key issue. There just isn't enough actual productive
work to get done in many jobs and people can't just leave when the work is
done due to being payed by the hour or being seen as lazy by their coworkers
and bosses.

I'm not smart enough to give solutions to big general issues like this but I
certainly see it as a problem in my own life. I have no idea what people
actually do in most jobs these days and therefor when trying to decide on my
next career move, I have trouble estimating how competent I would be when
considering a job. Also it seems hard to develop any real skills in most jobs
these days other than learning how to fit in and bullshit. However, those
skills do not transfer to a new position with a different 'culture'. I've
mostly worked blue collar labor type jobs in my time and had a clear task to
complete but you end up getting pushed around by management types and are at
great risk of personal injury for very little compensation. In my last job at
a warehouse I worked my way up from a temp labor grunt to getting pretty close
to management but I couldn't handle it. The higher up I got the less there was
to do other than bullshit consumption and production, by the end I wanted to
just go back to working with the guys on the floor (but again you aren't
making enough and risking injury every day). I hope to find a job that I can
actually do things and gain clear skills over time, but if I can't figure that
out I'll have to become another sellout bullshitter since I'm not getting any
younger and my body isn't gonna be able to handle the hard labor in the long
run.

------
cornholio
This reads like an Adam Curtis piece: starts with an obscure historical
reference, and builds it up to dramatic ripple efect on the world, usually by
way of a cultural shift.

~~~
vermooten
cones

------
personlurking
As someone not in the corporate world, I'd love to see more examples of
bullshit speak.

What are some "favorites" from the HN crowd?

~~~
11thEarlOfMar
Many are mentioned in the article. One I particularly loathe is 'reaching
out'. In my generation, 'reaching out' is what someone with a serious drug or
alcohol dependency did when they hit rock bottom and it was either get help or
die. I cringe, I cringe....

A few years ago, it was 'at the end of the day', which my boss said 42 times
in one 60 minute meeting. Yes, 42. I counted.

~~~
phnofive
This one I struggled with. What's the alternative to 'reaching out' in the
context of sending a message to a third party?

~~~
11thEarlOfMar
Call, e-mail, text or otherwise contact them.

'Can you call Bob's surf shop and see if they carry Mr. Zog's Sex Wax?'

~~~
albertgoeswoof
The reason reach out is used is to give the individual being asked some
autonomy / responsibility in the action.

Eg if you ask someone to call bobs surf shop and they don’t answer they might
stop there or call back later. If you ask them to reach out they might go down
there and see them, set up a meeting, speak to a friend that works there, etc.

~~~
userbinator
_If you ask them to reach out they might go down there and see them, set up a
meeting, speak to a friend that works there, etc._

That's where you can use the more general and succinct term, "contact".

~~~
fjsolwmv
Only if you like using words incorrectly. "Contact" isn't a verb if you really
are the pedantic prescriptivist you are presenting yourself as.

~~~
Intermernet
Both Wiktionary and dictionary.com list definitions of "contact" as a verb. I
don't have access to the OED at the moment, but I assume they would have it
listed as a valid verb as well.

------
dawhizkid
Management consulting has got to be the pinnacle of corporate bullshit...some
favorites of mine are "synergies, deliverables, alignment, collaboration,
circle back"

Also this is fun: [http://www.atrixnet.com/bs-
generator.html](http://www.atrixnet.com/bs-generator.html)

~~~
ucaetano
It only seems that way for those who don't understand it:

\- Synergy: savings due to economies of scale when joining organizations or
due to vertical or horizontal integration

\- Deliverables: whatever product you agreed to deliver at the end of a
project

\- Alignment: getting a bunch of higher ups to agree on something

\- Collaboration: duh

\- Circle back: when you're trying to get a lot of the higher ups to agree
(sadly, through individual meetings), and one of them has big concerns, you
have to relay that to the other higher-ups

Programmer phrasing all sounds like bs to someone who doesn't know it. _"
Let's do our daily scrum standup and get the scrum master and the product
owner to agree on the architecture for the data storage module"_.

~~~
sbov
"Scrum master", "daily scrum standup", and "product owner" aren't programmer
phrasings, those are mangement phrasings in the field of software.

There's plenty of other actual programmer phrases you could have put here, but
it's somewhat telling to me that your sentence of programmer phrases actually
has more management phrases.

~~~
ucaetano
"Somewhat telling"

I see what you did there, nice ad hominem. But don't worry, proper Computer
Engineer here, with a capital E.

But the example holds, despite your ad hominem.

~~~
sbov
It is somewhat telling in that management phrases being passed as programming
phrases shows how widespread the problem is.

Not that you are a manager. At least, that is what I assume you mean by
calling it an ad hominem.

I probably could have worded it better.

~~~
ucaetano
Even manager doesn't mean much. There are managers (manage people) and manager
(managed a business, process, product, etc).

"Management" is manager (business). An engineering manager isn't management,
is just a people manager.

Engineering phrases made it to business, and business phrases made it to
engineering, that is normal. Berating a profession because you don't
understand their lingo is pointless.

And the issue isn't you accusing me of being a manager, but implying that that
is bad in some way.

------
skybrian
Many of us have strong reactions to some kinds of business jargon. But use a
programming term metaphorically and we have no trouble with it, even though
people who don't have the background won't get it.

Perhaps this cringing at certain terms is not entirely rational?

------
vhold
> Some Pacific Bell employees wrote to their congressmen about Kroning.
> Newspapers ran damning stories with headlines such as “Phone company dabbles
> in mysticism”

[https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/03/24/Phone-company-
dabble...](https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/03/24/Phone-company-dabbles-in-
mysticism/4737543560400/)

> "The Californian utility regulator launched a public inquiry, and eventually
> closed the training course, but not before $40m dollars had been spent."

[http://articles.latimes.com/1987-10-30/business/fi-11672_1_p...](http://articles.latimes.com/1987-10-30/business/fi-11672_1_pacific-
bell)

------
touristtam
[https://twitter.com/thekitze/status/945677952091639809](https://twitter.com/thekitze/status/945677952091639809)

------
11thEarlOfMar
Makes me wonder how the founders of Fairchild Semiconductor would have
reacted. Bob Noyce, Gordon Moore, Eugene Kleiner... How much bullshit would
they have tolerated in 1960?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Semiconductor#/media...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Semiconductor#/media/File:The_Traitorous_Eight.jpg)

------
qubex
I am essentially the highest ranking officer of my family's business (Business
Unit Manager, overseeing 333 employees) here in Italy and I have to say that
local (Italian) native corporate culture seems to have remained largely
unaffected by the creep of such meaningless language into everyday
intracompany discourse. It is on the rise in infracompany communication,
however.

I have an acute disdain for empty verbiage and what I like to think of as a
very critical mode of thinking, so I spend my time nipping these things in the
bud and doing what the organisational machinery beneath me cannot, by its very
axioms, be relied upon to do: cut down on bureaucracy and eliminate pointless
paperwork and/or circular processes whenever I come across them. Not to
eliminate people, but to free them up to do what they actually are here to do
(and presumably/hopefully enjoy doing). Lots of cogs in the transmission is
not something that the company needs or can make use of.

------
borplk
I'm trivialising it a bit but at its core the bullshit speak and the like
gives hollow people a shield to hide behind.

------
jacquesm
My personal favorites: 'downsizing', 'to better serve you' and 'you are
important to us'.

There's nothing new about this though, at bank I worked for in the mid 80's
(Chase Manhattan) there were plenty of such business bullshit words. I wished
I had thought of cataloging them.

------
11thEarlOfMar
I particularly enjoy 'calling bullshit' on my fellow mush-speak managers.

Now, back to first principles.

------
vorg
> During the course of an hour, I recorded 64 different nuggets of corporate
> claptrap. They included familiar favourites such as “doing a deep dive”,
> “reaching out”, and “thought leadership”

With 64 nuggets, you could've created some 8 x 8 grids and put one nugget in
each square. Photocopy them, pass them around the office, and next time
there's a meeting called by management, play "Bullshit Bingo". First person to
hear a line of 8 nuggets spoken, either vertically, horizontally or diagonally
on their grid, wins the pool.

~~~
paxy
But..if you photocopy them everyone in the meeting will have the same grid.

~~~
vorg
> First person to _hear_ a line of 8 nuggets spoken

It's so difficult to stay awake in these meetings that just taking in what you
_hear_ is an achievement. I've a theory Bullshit Bingo was actually invented
by the managers themselves as a way to keep the attendees awake during such
gatherings.

------
lamby
Prefer audio? This actually is available here:
[https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2017/dec/22/from-
inbo...](https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2017/dec/22/from-inboxing-to-
thought-showers-how-business-bullshit-took-over-podcast)

------
Crontab
They were making us do some Six Sigma training at work a few months ago, and
the entire time, it felt like nothing more than business porn.

------
user68858788
Does anyone have advice on how to resist this bullshit? Recently, I've been
moved away from software into an operations role where my entire propose is to
create bureaucracy and make numbers look good for managers' managers. I lack
experience and data for my voice to be heard when I point out that we're
obviously going backwards.

~~~
Chaebixi
One thought that I have it to refuse to use any neologism that substitutes for
an already-existing word or phrase. The problem I have is that business BS has
been going on for longer than I've been alive, so I don't have a good sense
for _old_ BS neologisms.

------
cobbzilla
For one seeking to truly understand the origin of the "Dilbert" cartoons, this
article nails it.

 _down voters_ : the article includes a short anecdote on how Dilbert began,
and it's humorous/entertaining/informative. please read/enjoy before flaming
me.

------
Finnucane
Orwell, of course, covered the political dimension of this in “Politics and
the English Language.”

------
strangeloops85
Ahem, 'moonshots' anyone?

------
leepowers
> After the meeting, I found myself wondering why otherwise smart people so
> easily slipped into this kind of business bullshit. How had this obfuscatory
> way of speaking become so successful?

Because there's no solid link between inputs and outputs. For most management
techniques it's almost impossible to measure the output of a given management
function. It's unfalsifiable. Like any other domain of human endeavor when
operating in an unfalsifiable space you can neither confirm nor debunk a
particular technique. The only thing you can do is _assert_ and flit from one
fad to the next.

The paradox here is that while management seems to be required for corporate
structures to function properly so much of it is fluff or outright BS. I have
to wonder if a properly trained ML algorithm could replace 90% of management
decisions by cutting out the cruft and ambiguity.

~~~
jpk
> there's no solid link between inputs and outputs

> a properly trained ML algorithm

#ThinkingFaceEmoji

~~~
wwweston
OK, maybe an improperly trained ML algorithm?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
NOOP?

It would be really efficient, too...

------
laretluval
How much of the hatred of business speak is driven by resentment of the fact
that the business people usually make more money than the people they
supervise?

~~~
sidlls
A lot of it, and in the tech industry it's usually accompanied by resentment
that their particular skills don't get them either the worship for
intellectual prowess they so strongly believe they deserve or the money and
prestige.

------
olivermarks
Another seasonal article variant from the FT (paywall)

Embrace failure and shoot for the moon — tech cliché bingo

[https://www.ft.com/content/c6509e8e-e6f5-11e7-8b99-0191e4537...](https://www.ft.com/content/c6509e8e-e6f5-11e7-8b99-0191e45377ec)

------
alexasmyths
The irony is that while the words are stupid (“alignment”, “intentionality”
and “end-state visions”) - this pretty good actually.

Most white collar jobs are full of 'waking sleep' \- and if we focus on
outcomes, and drive them forward with intentional work - we would be more
productive.

"Bullshit jobs" \- if you doing anything to move the ball forward - like
working a checkout or pumping gas - your job may feel meaningless, but it's
not BS by any means. Middle management tends to be the most BC. And many gov.
jobs.

"US employee now spends 45% of their working day doing their real job. The
other 55% is spent doing things such as wading through endless emails or
attending pointless meetings."

This is part of the job. Communicating is work, and we can't be 100% efficient
at all times.

------
arwhatever
It really exploded when George Carlin passed.

~~~
tossaway1
I thought he faded away... (?)

------
c3534l
First off, great article.

I'm finishing up my accounting degree, a field which I honestly have no
interest in pursuing. But, screw it, I didn't know I wanted to be a programmer
when I started it and I have less than a year left.

I take issue with the idea that business BS started in the 80s. If you read
material from the 20s and 30s, it was likewise filled with meaningless jargon
and memes. Motivational posters are very old and they're filled with vapid and
empty sayings, with the belief that by some magic hanging a sign that says
"work harder" will make employees work harder (whatever that means) and make
you more money that way.

What I've learned is that when you teach a soft skill, you get people teaching
garbage. In an accounting class or a supply chain and logistics class, there
can be some real meat to be learned, even when there's not science per se. But
for most things, the books are full of arbitrary enumerations of "types of
managers" and acronym to make it sound like we're being taught something. But,
sadly, the attitude people have in business is that they want to be in charge
of people and so they don't have to worry about the details. The details are
for the expendable people you make money off of. The way you get rich in
America is by being so awesome, because that's what the rich people told us is
how they made their fortune.

And the problem is that they're kinda right. At the top of the food chain,
everything breaks down into politics. There's little to no way of evaluating
quality, and so this self-serving culture of bullshit develops. Everyone
thinks they're a great judge of character and that they have these ineffable
skills that cannot be measured that justify why they've gotten to where they
are. But it's all just marketing. They're doing their job, sure. But there's
bullshit in business for the same reason there's bullshit in marketing and
politics. You're selling something and the product is interchangeable with a
thousand other ones.

~~~
GuiA
I agree with your assessment, and came to realize these things when I did my
first internship in a company, as my university requires this to graduate
(that was almost 10 years ago now).

At the time, I felt quite depressed by it. The person who was my boss's boss
would regularly say completely technically incompetent things, and yet here
she was running a dev team and making tons of money too.

As I've moved forward in my career, I've slowly come to feel better about
things. It might take a few painful failures, but over time you become good at
spotting the people who are all talk and no skills/knowledge, and you know to
avoid them. Conversely, you learn how to spot the people who know what they're
talking about, and know to accept their job offer instead of the employer who
gave you a higher offer but gave you a bad impression during the interviews.
And because you are (hopefully) getting better at what you're doing, you have
more options, and more leeway to say no.

It's almost empowering to tell yourself that if these idiots can make bank,
then all you have to do is learn their ways and bend them to your advantage.

Good luck!

