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This episode dives into how corporate communication went from helpful to harmful — and why most leaders have no clue.

We break down why employees ignore leadership emails, how buzzwords kill trust, and what real communication should look like in modern work.

Topics we cover:

– Why no one believes the “we care” emails

– The trust gap in leadership messaging

– Buzzwords, jargon, and corporate noise

– How Gen Z and Boomers talk past each other

This is the silent trust crisis no one’s fixing.

➡️ Go ahead and hit that like button!

0:00

Welcome to the Make Work Not Suck podcast. Ryan, we need to circle back and put a

0:06

pin in that conversation about recontextualizing the out of the box e-business.

0:13

We need to deploy some scalable deliverables and brand our cloud platforms.

0:22

And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you are not alone because I am pulling this straight from

0:27

www.thebullshitgenerator.com. But if you thought I was reading an

0:32

actual corporate memo, you're not wrong because most corporate communications

0:39

sound like the bullshit generator. Is corporate comms actually making our

0:45

jobs harder instead of easier? Is corporate communications making work suck?

0:51

Absolutely, because it's all bullshit. We deal with enough crap every single day.

0:57

Why the hell do we need to get a bullshit email in our inbox of rah rah and eye rolling?

1:03

Yeah. So if everybody knows that corporate comms suck and the

1:08

majority of employees hate it, why is it still happening? Like, why are people still putting out

1:15

this kind of nonsense? Because leadership books tell you how to be a leadership leader in practice.

1:23

And leaders read those books and then just do the things in the books and are so disconnected from reality and

1:28

what their people really need and want. I think that disconnects a big piece.

1:33

I don't know how many people are executive leaders, especially they're really in touch with what's actually going on at the

1:40

ground level of their organization. So what do you think is worse? Radio silent leadership

1:46

or endless buzzword blasts? Oh, they both suck. They both suck.

1:52

You know, I guess the endless buzzword, at least they're making an attempt.

1:59

So you can get like a 1%. You're still failing as a leader. But I guess you're at least trying and

2:05

failing versus the radio silent is you don't care at all. So I guess I would rather have the BS one, but...

2:11

Oh, I would go the other way. I would rather have no communication than

2:17

intentionally vague and misleading communication. Well, okay, that's true.

2:22

So it goes back to the intention. If you're blasting emails with the intention of like hoping that it's like,

2:28

look here and don't pay attention to the shit show behind you, or you're trying to convince me things are better than they really are, and that's your intent,

2:35

then yeah, I'm with you. I'd rather just have a radio silent leader than someone

2:40

creating, you know, bullshit. So I guess I guess it goes the intention. If you're actually trying to communicate,

2:46

then I'll give you still a fail. But you know, you know, 60% versus, you

2:51

know, if you're doing it for manipulation. And I think that's, I don't know, I'm gonna go 50 50 on this. I'm curious what you think.

2:58

Like how many of these leaders are sending these emails because they think they're doing good versus how many

3:03

of them are sending these emails because they're trying to fake their way through

3:09

something or make you believe something that's not true, you know, just hoping that it was propaganda. We'll just go with that.

3:14

How much of this is proper internal propaganda versus a leader disconnected from reality and

3:21

just creating buzzword bullshit? I don't like the word propaganda, because

3:26

and it's probably true in some places. But most of the leaders that I work with,

3:31

they genuinely care. But they're disconnected, right? They don't know what the reality is.

3:38

And so the picture that they're painting is the picture they're seeing. It's just not the picture

3:43

that everybody else is seeing. And so I think it's sincere, but it's nevertheless misguided,

3:49

because they're painting a picture for people that is, that does not connect with

3:55

their day to day reality. Yeah, that's that's that's where I go with with

4:01

visionary leader that thinks things are better.

4:07

And when I use the word propaganda, I think there are some leaders that are legitimately using it as propaganda to try to think

4:15

make things, you know, better than they are, or, you know, a false facade because of the,

4:21

you know, lying, stealing and cheating going on under the hood, or, you know, the toxic culture, they're trying to glaze over it,

4:27

and they're the center of it. You know, I think that's actual propaganda, and it's corporate bullshit, because

4:33

you're basically faking it in lying, versus the leader that is genuinely

4:39

just disconnected from reality. So hold on, you're saying that you don't get motivated by the

4:46

jargon-filled we're all one big corporate family email, like that

4:52

doesn't get you out of bed in the morning. No, no, not not when it's disingenuine,

4:58

not when it's disconnected from reality. Yeah, yeah.

5:07

I do think, though, that sometimes this is it. This is a failure by committee.

5:15

All right. It's not that one person sat down and wrote a, you know, a bullshit

5:22

generator memo to the whole company. Oftentimes, it is one person starts it,

5:29

somebody else edits it, then legal has to review it, then HR has to review it, and especially

5:36

in large organizations, by the time it gets sent,

5:42

all the soul has been sucked out of it, and it is, it's just a giant CYA.

5:47

Like, it's not actually achieving whatever the original intent

5:52

was, because there's so many hands in the creation of it that it gets stripped of its soul.

5:58

I would agree if we're talking, you know, large companies, larger organizations,

6:03

definitely agree there. That playbook is disconnected from reality. And we're, everybody's, you know, doing

6:10

their job in a silo to check a few rocks. If you're big enough to have a corporate comms department, that's the problem you're facing.

6:19

But I think, you know, since at least in America, like two thirds of Americans are employed by small business, and you

6:25

still have the owners that get on, you know, the 30, 40, 50 people get on a

6:30

weekly, monthly, whatever stand up state of the union, etc. And

6:36

half of it is corporate BS. Yeah, it is. And you know what, a lot of people are

6:42

going to go, any business owner that listens, they're like, well, I don't do corporate BS. Okay, you may not be actual corporate BS,

6:48

but you're probably kidding yourself. Or you have a vision that is not

6:54

connected to reality. Like you're, you're so visionary, that you're disconnected from your culture.

7:00

That it comes off as bullshit, because it's disconnected from the pain everybody's feeling every single day,

7:07

especially with everything going on. Right now, they're still a disruption from the election.

7:12

The election, there's disruption from the tariffs. There's just a lot going on interest

7:18

rates are still high, mortgage rates are high. Travel ban just went into effect today.

7:24

Wait, travel ban just went effect with travel ban is went to effect. I don't ask. We'll do another episode about it.

7:31

Okay, well, whatever happened, I mean, again, there's just so much change going on.

7:36

I mean, even with changes in AI, you know, AI, there's new AI models coming out,

7:42

you know, for instance, advancing AI, and it's just stuff's all over the place.

7:48

Don't get so disconnected from your people that you're sending crap.

7:54

Yeah, it just makes work suck. It does. Yeah, if you're, if you're a business leader,

8:00

business owner, executive, and you're writing an email right now that you're sending to a large group of people,

8:06

please stop. I can hear the eyeballs rolling already.

8:14

I would say, take whatever you've written, put it into chat GPT, and say, please rewrite this

8:23

for me like I'm talking to a 12 year old.

8:29

And, and that's not an insult to your employees. What that's forcing you to do is bring

8:36

your language down to a very simple, understandable so there's no buzzwords.

8:41

Because you can't talk corporate buzzwords to a 12 year old. Okay, so that I agree with when in that context. But I also question

8:49

I'm all for using chat GPT, don't get me wrong. Okay, it is all in the prompting, right? I

8:55

think you basically say, I want to send this letter and write it for 12 year olds. You might

9:01

actually generate corporate BS the other way, right? Like stupid because they don't get it.

9:08

What you want to be is authentic. Don't create buzzwords. Don't use jargon

9:14

that is not standard in the business. And don't use fluffy words to paint a picture that's

9:20

not real. You know, the one that pisses me off the most is when we don't want to show the P&L.

9:26

And I'm gonna expose every detail to P&L. But if you're not exposing the performance of the

9:31

company, but you're trying to use all these fluffy goals and objectives and warm and fuzzy things to

9:37

talk about how the company is doing, like you're just hiding the truth. Just be authentic. Just share

9:43

the truth. And just be honest with people. Right. Keep it simple. Don't justify. Don't

9:51

overthink it. Now, if you want to prompt for chat GPT, take that and put it in. Help me make

9:58

this authentic. Help it resonate with the audience. I don't want to sound like a corporate bullshit generator. I want

10:04

to make sure I'm being as transparent as respectable and responsible. You still have a responsibility with information. So

10:11

oversharing can be a bad thing. I think that's where people fall short

10:16

is they're just disconnected. And it's or they're afraid of exposing

10:23

the truth. And if you expose the truth, then everybody's gonna leave or they're

10:28

gonna be pissed off. You'd be surprised the more authentic you are, you actually build more trust.

10:36

Isn't that a shocker? Yeah. So why people

10:41

that there's so there's so few places in the world right now where somebody will give you the honest answer about what's really

10:47

going on that people are drawn to that. Even if it's even if it's a disaster, they're drawn to the

10:54

fact that, hey, thank you for being honest with me. Yeah, we're in a hard spot. But at least I know. And now we can figure

11:01

out how we're going to get out of this together. All right, so let's jump into the corporate jargon

11:06

problem. I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of different companies. And one of the things I find

11:12

hilarious is that almost every industry and every company has their own jargon, their

11:19

own list of buzzwords.

11:24

But why is that? Like, why is there so much BS everywhere? Oh, my

11:30

God. All right. So you're definitely getting me on a rant today. Go for it. I think we want to

11:37

be special snowflake unicorns. And we want to be unique. And we were

11:42

taught when we were young that we are special and unique. And again, we are there. We all come with our special talents and gifts

11:48

and stuff. But we feel like if we put it in this buzzword phrase, it

11:53

makes us different. And the reality all you're doing is you're making complexity. That's

12:00

unnecessary, or you're trying to and don't get me wrong, there are some things that make sense to

12:06

do that. We'll use the military, for example, right? There's a lot of codes and jargon, like

12:12

they're the worst at, Oh, yeah, military is the worst. But a lot of times those things are put together because they can

12:18

communicate very fast. And there's a lot of training that goes involved. What is this glossary terms? What are these definitions?

12:24

Yeah, the tactic to speed up communication. Okay, that makes sense.

12:30

But my guess is you're not the military going on a secret op. And so you don't need to overcomplicate the phrasing inside

12:36

your organization. Just call it what it is. Why do we have to

12:41

pretend? Is it to boost our own ego? Is it an ego trip? Is it an identity

12:48

crisis? Like, I honestly have no idea what the drive for this is. And it drives me absolute bonkers.

12:56

All right. As the token MBA holder here,

13:01

I'm gonna have to throw myself under the bus. I'm gonna blame graduate schools for this. Because one of the things that I

13:10

learned in grad school is this whole idea of abstraction, right? And I think abstraction

13:16

in many cases is important, but it also becomes a way that you can

13:22

sound smarter by saying confusing things. Right? So an ego trip, basically. Yeah,

13:30

basically an ego trip. Like, this is a pencil.

13:36

We should all just call this a pencil. However, I got an MBA. So I'm gonna call this

13:42

a manual communication device.

13:48

Oh, you did that way too well. Right. Oh, I did well in grad school. And

13:54

so now when we talk about manual communication devices, well, we could be talking about pens or

14:00

pencils or your stylus, right? And so there may be a time

14:07

in a place where that level of abstraction is helpful in a conversation.

14:15

But most of the time, I would say 90% of the time it's like, grab your pen or pencil and go do this,

14:23

right? You don't have to say grab your manual dictation device.

14:28

So it's a way for people with too much student loan debt

14:34

to justify the decisions they've made. You're doing this, you're playing your

14:39

part way too well here. So I do want to, I am going to double back on myself a little bit. Okay,

14:45

because I think there's a different problem why we create it. So I think there's the one side where we think we're the special snowflake, and we want to be the

14:51

special snowflake. The other side of it is I think we get caught in the semantics of terms. And then

14:57

so what we do is we invent a new term, because we couldn't figure out how to get on the same page about the previous term. Yep. Yep. I've

15:05

seen that. I run into this one all the time with Agile Scrum. Product owner. Well, we can't agree on a

15:12

product owner. So let's call it something else and redefine it. Why don't we just define what product

15:17

owner means for us? Like, let's just use an industry term and define the definition for us as

15:24

opposed to creating a whole new term with a whole new definition. That's only 20% difference at

15:29

best. Right. So it's I think at the end of the day, it's the lazy way out. I think it is

15:35

that. I think it's also MBA students trying to impress people.

15:41

I think there's also a level of corporate CIA, right? Cover your ass. There's a lot of jargon

15:47

that is used to, you know, kind of hide

15:55

what's really going on. So you can't get clear line of sight. Like it's intentionally vague, right? Mistakes were made.

16:02

Like, hold on. Whoa, whoa. Like nobody's taking ownership of that. Like we're just saying mistakes were made.

16:10

Who's accountable for this? We're not saying, right? And that's by intent. So I think there's

16:15

also situations where corporate comms are intentionally vague, because they don't want

16:21

to get sued. Well, okay, that's that's. And I'll take the other approach that I think people use

16:27

that same thing. And it's not because it's they don't want to get sued when you're talking like a company of 30, 40, 50 people, 100 people,

16:35

honest, either a they're the ones that made the mistake and don't want to admit it. Or they're

16:41

covering for somebody else. And I think this is where there's the legit use of it is if

16:47

everybody is a part of it, then everybody's at fault. And so it's one of those situations like

16:53

if you need to fire like 15 people because of an actual mistake, then, okay, mistakes were made.

17:00

Here's what we learned. But I think it goes to the transparency of it. What was the mistake? What are you recovering from it? Like, be authentic

17:06

and transparent about it. Don't cover up for the fact that, you know, a, you're

17:11

the one that screwed up. And you're trying to advert accountability. Or you're trying to advert it for somebody else.

17:18

Like, I think that's where we take it. It's what is it, you know, all words are made up, they can be used for good or evil. Yeah.

17:25

So what's your intent behind it, I think is that and I think that gets to the root of it. If you're using it for evil, expect bad

17:32

things. If you're using it for good, with good intentions, you're

17:37

probably in a better place. Yeah. And people generally give you the benefit of the doubt. What's the,

17:44

can you think of the worst buzzword or jargon memo you've ever sent or received? I know

17:52

I've, I know I have done some bad ones. Oh, well, you, you've been on the

17:57

receiving end of some of mine. I don't know what it's my back. Oh, man. Yours are usually pretty direct.

18:06

If they sting a little bit, you know, it's, you know, it's direct. And there's not a lot of

18:11

buzzwords in it. I think I've been on the receiving end of more BS generated ones. Then the giving

18:19

end? Yeah. Well, again, I'd be biased on my own. So I need somebody else to judge me on how well I'm

18:25

doing. But I think the worst one I've had is it was a

18:32

company that loved generating buzzwords. And they use so much in

18:39

their marketing and everything about it, that just the entire interaction with the company

18:44

was just BS buzzword generator. And then when they're using those

18:50

buzzwords to talk about how the company is doing amazing, when it's, you know, negative growth.

18:56

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I'll go on a rage if I go any further

19:03

with that one. So moment of confession here. That thing that I

19:11

read at the very beginning, the the bullshit generator is an actual website, bullshit generator.com. It's one of my favorites.

19:18

I use it regularly. And there have been seasons in my career where I would

19:24

do use it regularly as an MBA to fill your documentation. Is it what you use to actually write your messages and the most written

19:31

about? No, but I have used it in past lives, like

19:36

challenged my co workers being like, you've got to use whatever the next

19:41

phrase is in your report out to the CEO next month. And so you have to find a way to

19:48

incorporate that whatever the BS is. I know we're rabbit trailing here, but that sounds like fun. Oh, it

19:54

was awesome. We're basically using the corporate bullshit generator as the Easter egg to see if

20:00

somebody can spot it. Okay, that's just fun. I encourage that because that makes work not

20:05

stock. It makes work fun. But that was, that was actually fun. And see if you can get away with it, right? Like if you can

20:11

slide that in there in front of your client, and they read it and they don't just call BS on you

20:17

in the moment and you got away with it. Fantastic. Yeah, make sure

20:22

you do it in a positive moment, not when the customer is about to fire you or your. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I encourage that. We

20:30

should make work fun. And that's something that makes work fun. Okay, so that's using the bullshit generator for fun. Okay, sorry, I

20:36

interrupted you go back to where you were. No. So I know that I'm guilty of this because I think I'm kind

20:43

of wired this way. And I've gotten in trouble at several points in my career for my

20:48

vocabulary, not four letter words, but just using larger,

20:54

more complex language than I need to. And that's something I've honestly got to work on is, okay, how do I not dumb it down, but just use

21:02

easier to understand language as opposed to my

21:07

manual dictation device. You know what,

21:13

you know what, you know what my manual dictation device is. I see I'm going to suck at doing this

21:20

because all I use this pencil for is to, and I just dropped it, is I use it as a

21:26

fidget. So it's my sophisticated thinking enhancement

21:33

tool as I just spin it around and drop it apparently. See, I

21:42

can't do it. I can't do it.

21:48

I have been in very, very small organizations, very large organizations,

21:54

Fortune 100. I don't see this as much in smaller companies, but in large organizations, I've seen these massive

21:59

newsletters, right? These 800 word spam

22:05

to the whole company. I don't know anybody who's actually read the whole thing. Most of

22:13

them just get skimmed and deleted. So I don't know who's

22:19

doing that, but it's too long, didn't read. There needs to be a

22:26

better way to communicate. See, I will say this. I think when you

22:33

get to, it goes back to the, if I talk really fast, or if I use big words, I sound smart. If

22:42

I make it 800 words and use a lot of BS in there, then people will believe it. It's like the convincing strategy.

22:47

Like if you're just trying to convince people by saying the same thing over and over, which again, goes back to propaganda.

22:52

I don't think there's anything wrong with an 800 word, you know, bulletin, note, post. If it's

22:59

legitimately like that big of a thing, you're providing backstory, context, the path forward. If

23:06

you are providing people genuine content, people will read lengthy things. But when

23:14

you're doing it for fluff, when you're doing it, try to convince somebody, you're repeating. Again, you're not being transparent. You're

23:20

using it to kind of like you're beating

23:25

around the bush. And so you're taking the long way around and so you need 800 words to avoid the train wreck. That's the one nobody's,

23:32

they're going to sniff the BS in the first paragraph and then just hit ignore. Yeah. Yeah.

23:40

What do you think would happen if a company outlawed all buzzwords for a month? I think things would get done. All right, but you

23:47

have to define buzzword. Like how do you

23:53

know the difference between a buzzword and an industry term? Well, I think you just, let's define

24:00

industry term. If it's something that the, if you quit your job

24:05

today and go work for a competitor and they use the exact same term

24:10

because it's in that field of work, same industry, that is not a

24:16

self-generated industry term. So as it decides, industry term, it's industry-wide, everybody uses it, et

24:22

cetera, et cetera. I'll use like in Agile Scrum World, product owner, Scrum Master, backlogs, or common terms. If it's a

24:31

jargon word that's internal, that's not an industry term. I think

24:37

there's a third category. I agree with both of those. There's industry terminology, which

24:43

you're right, is valuable because it communicates things to everyone. It communicates meaning to

24:49

everyone in that industry. There's internal words, but then there's this third category, which is just BS. It's all of the,

24:57

let's circle back, let's put a pin in it. It's all the things that

25:03

Dilbert's made fun of, that office space made fun of, there's this whole other category of just

25:10

office lingo that is just so cringe-worthy.

25:18

We need to outlaw that. Okay. Okay. So I get what you're saying there. So it's not so much about,

25:23

well, like you said, there's jargon words that are created to describe something that's

25:29

complicating it. And then there's the language, let's put a pin in it. Ooh, synergy. Synergy. See, I love that

25:42

word, but I totally get where everybody has destroyed it.

25:48

I honestly think the word strategy should be outlawed too. I think everyone wants to talk

25:54

about strategy and that is a term that is so badly misunderstood. We should just remove it from our dictionaries. Well, the problem is,

26:04

as soon as you give it a new word, the problem is, is we don't hold ourselves to the definition of

26:09

the word because we overgeneralize what strategy is.

26:16

A lot of times we confuse strategy with tactics, with execution, then you got layers of strategy,

26:22

layers of strategy. Someone that does processing at a one week level is a

26:30

different way to strategy for them is tactics to somebody that operates in a month level and somebody

26:36

that works a year in multi-year. So if you don't put context around the word. Or time horizons. Time

26:45

horizons, et cetera. So that's the one thing that drives me insane. And I think that's where it becomes

26:50

bullshit generator is when you throw those words around out of context.

26:57

Yes. It's understanding the definition of the word, the context of the word, and when you use it

27:02

inappropriately, again, usually because there's an ego drive and you're trying to sound smart,

27:08

can we just fix the culture problem? It's not a journey problem. It's not the word's fault.

27:15

It's the culture and how we use the word is the problem. Oh, I think culture might be another one

27:21

that badly needs definition. People talk culture all the time and

27:27

usually they're not talking about the right thing. I agree. That word in itself is another

27:34

buzzwordy thing. And I think it gets into the semantics of the vision of the culture versus the

27:41

social emotional connection of the culture. And the problem is, is we're not

27:46

connecting on the social emotional level when we're using language.

27:54

That's an interesting statement. Say more about that. Understanding, right? Communication. I

28:00

say something, you have to interpret it through your filter. You have to say it back or

28:05

process it back. You send it back and then we basically have a handshake agreement if do we agree on the same thing? That's

28:12

three steps in communication. I don't think we're doing that around our

28:19

communication with these words and it's one way. And so what's happening is we're not

28:24

connecting to words on a social emotional level to make sure we're all on the same page, the same definition, have the same belief, same

28:31

understanding so that when we use the word, it drives meaning. We use it in a way that creates disruption on the social

28:37

emotional level. And that's where it becomes bullshit because there's no common definition,

28:43

common understanding, common value. It's just bullshit. Yeah. It's

28:49

interesting to think about that and what happens as the world gets more and more digital because I think as the world gets

28:57

more and more digital, there's less and less back and forth, right? It's one directional and then a

29:02

one directional that's not really a conversation. And without conversation, it's very hard to get to

29:09

a common understanding of terms. And so we just keep throwing more

29:14

and more BS at each other, but we're not actually creating more clarity. I know this is going to sound a

29:19

little contradictory. And sometimes, some events, if you will,

29:26

you're in an exploratory. You're exploring, you're doing Dunef editions, you're going

29:31

into the unknown, you're in the inventive phase or build phase of whatever it is. And so you

29:36

may be testing something out, you may be trying something new, you may be in uncharted waters. And

29:43

so it's rough. Right. Okay, that's where we make,

29:48

you know, my definition of mistake versus sin, there is no so much thing as a repeat mistake.

29:54

The second time you did it, you cognitively did it knowing there's a consequence or lack thereof, etc, etc. Right. I think it's in

30:02

that exploratory phase, I think we need more grace, but when we're not in that exploratory phase, we've got to hold ourselves

30:12

to it and be more like it's the IQ EQ balance. Yeah, I'm probably

30:19

more guilty of that than you are. I think on a scale from one to make

30:26

it stop, I think my communications are probably at the

30:32

we need you to tone it down level. Yeah,

30:38

I'm definitely on the whoosh, that was blunt. Yeah, I think that's I think that's more

30:46

your style is that I get what you're saying, it stings, but I get it. Yeah, I do think

30:55

this gets into the the ego component of it is we let our egos get in the way. And I know it's

31:02

hard. I mean, it's human nature, right? Like we want to win, we want to be first place, especially growing up in America, you

31:08

know, we want to be the best, we want to be first place, we want to win everything. And, you

31:13

know, our ego gets in the way. And so then we do things to either boost our own ego or

31:19

protect our ego, etc. And I think that's just where the definition of words

31:24

and how we communicate things, how we phrase things just gets in in the way. Whereas what's this

31:32

goes back to what's the goal? What's the mission here? So even in all these corporate communications, like what's the vision of

31:37

the company? What's the goal of the project, etc, etc. And just reality check? Why I really don't get why

31:45

is this so hard? I know I'm not a special snowflake when it comes to this kind of communication. Why is it so hard on a

31:53

larger scale? Are we just that accountability scared? Or

32:01

avoidance of accountability? Or? Yeah, I think we should ask our listeners

32:07

why they think it's so hard. I've got my ideas, but I'd love to hear what other people think too.

32:14

Hopefully, I guess. Oh, I'd love to. Yeah. I want to shift gears

32:19

a little bit. Let's talk about tone deaf messaging. Let's talk about the classic

32:28

out of touch executive memo. Like, you know, layoffs on Monday,

32:35

motivational quote on Tuesday. What are some of the worst ones

32:41

that you've seen that are just so painfully out of touch? All right, so I

32:49

have to I have to go with like my favorite meme, everybody's seen this. And if you haven't, you've been

32:54

under a rock. It's the one with the little girl with a little smirk on her face and like the fire, the house is on fire

33:00

and the firefighters are trying to put the house out. Like everything's fine. Or like, yeah, or the

33:06

one with the dog holding the coffee mug where everything's on fire. And it's like, it's all good.

33:11

Right. Dumps to fire when like pick one, there's a handful of them. What I hate and where I have seen is

33:18

exactly that mass layoffs. And then just not acknowledging it and going straight into I've seen that

33:25

time and time and time again. And you know what the theme was? If we talk about it, then people are

33:31

going to be concerned for their jobs. So we better be inspirational. We need to lift everybody's spirit by telling them all

33:36

the good things that are coming. And, you know, to get them distracted from the layoffs that just

33:42

happened. Has anybody heard of the grief curve? Hello. Like, this is not

33:49

rocket science. If you don't manage your communication to a grief curve, you probably just fired

33:54

their, you know, work friend, or someone like you just dumped more workload on them or made that

34:02

you went from work sucking to work sucking more probably. Now, maybe it was out of your control.

34:09

Maybe some, you know, tariffs got put in play and you had to downsize quickly to, you know, there are

34:16

times you have to make hard sacrifices to keep sure somebody alive and save those that

34:22

remain. Like, that's just sucks. Now, if you're doing it just to squeeze profits, well, that's a different problem. But if

34:32

you think, if you don't think through the ramifications of your

34:37

message, and then two days later, or a day later, you know, this one, fire everybody on Monday,

34:42

inspirational quote on Tuesday. Yeah, you're just asking for a more toxic workplace. Can I can you give

34:55

you an example where this has done been done well? Maybe you want to hear a good a good

35:00

example or a bad example first. Well, I got it. I've got a couple of good ones. Give me give me some

35:07

good examples because I've got I've got some incredibly bad ones. Well, and let's put this

35:14

way. This was not fire everybody on Monday. And motivational speech on Tuesday. This was reality check on

35:22

Monday. Tuesday. How can we look forward and look past this and

35:29

find ways to be better? Wednesday, and it was in the one I'm thinking about most figuratively, it was

35:35

in COVID. We were forced to make tough decisions. Nobody knew

35:40

what was going on. We had to make tough decisions. But we still took care of the people in the process one first and foremost, is you

35:47

still have to frickin give a damn and care about people. Right. So making hard decisions, giving a

35:53

damn still taking care of people. And then talking about like, giving people time to breathe,

35:59

acknowledging that, hey, I know you may have just lost your friend at work, or your work co worker or

36:05

you may be jerking on workload. I understand that I hear you. I want to figure out how to make

36:12

this better. Like we have to evolve, we have to move forward. Like it's talking about the journey.

36:18

Yeah. And I think that's the big one is we cut out we go to vision results. We fire everybody and

36:23

then we just want to get to a result. So we do the fluffy one. And then what happens the culture is out of alignment. And then

36:29

we wondered why nothing's changed after laying everybody off. Right gets worse. It gets worse.

36:36

All right, you got an example going bad. So I was part of a company

36:42

that got acquired by, large company got acquired by an even bigger company. And the CEO was the

36:51

and founder was the primary owner owned most of the company as it sold sold for a ridiculous

36:59

amount of money. And he sends an email after the acquisitions,

37:06

I think announced and yeah, I think it's after it's announced. He's retiring. He invites anybody

37:13

who wants to come visit his winery in

37:18

Australia to, you know, to come on by and, you know, offers them like, you know,

37:24

free bottle of wine or something like that. Well, he's offering it to a bunch of people that just got acquired. Like

37:31

they're all panicking about whether or not they're still going to have a job. And he's

37:38

saying, Hey, if you're ever in Australia, please feel free to stop by the winery. So some friends

37:45

of mine sent this to Dilbert or the guy who wrote the Dilbert comic. And a couple of weeks later,

37:51

there was a comic that kind of mirrored those circumstances. And I think

37:58

the tagline on the Dilbert comic was like, please don't park your helicopters next

38:06

to the human chess set. It upsets the garden gnomes or something like that. And it was just so

38:14

out of touch from, look, there are people here that need this job. They are paycheck to paycheck.

38:21

And if they don't have a job at some point in the next couple of weeks, they're in a lot of

38:27

trouble. But you can blow all of your money to go to Australia to his winery. And this guy's got

38:35

wineries and private jets. And, you know, I know hard feelings

38:41

towards him. He's obviously done very well and been very, very successful. But now is not the time

38:47

to draw attention to your jet setting lifestyle when everybody

38:52

else is worried about being able to pay their mortgage. Yeah, that's a

38:58

good one. I have seen a few things like that. And that, you know, that does happen in the small business world

39:03

when a founder typically exits. And they're celebrating their success.

39:10

And they, you know, they've had the company for 10, 15, 20 years. And they're excited about it.

39:16

You're right. Everybody is panicking on the other side, because they don't know what their job is. And just be a little

39:22

bit in touch of reality. Just think through what this looks like. It's awesome you want to celebrate.

39:31

Congratulations for arriving. But maybe pick the audience that you invite to your winery.

39:37

Or your ski shanty or right? Yeah, your chateau. Yep. Our

39:44

leadership communications doing more harm than good. Like, do you do you feel like these kinds

39:51

of all hands or town hall meetings or just, you know,

39:57

massive emails? Are they a net ad or a

40:04

net detractor to most organizations? I think, I know, it's hard to say because

40:10

there's, I'll give you a couple examples in a second. But I think overall, if the leader doesn't

40:18

really have a good idea of what they're doing or why, I think they're just wasted time and energy. There's there's one

40:25

meeting I join every Friday, it's a company wide stand up, you know, predominantly remote organization, people

40:31

all over the world. And it is an absolute circus. The visionary is ADD

40:38

all over the place. But you know what, what everybody loves about it? He's genuine. And he

40:45

loves to have fun at work. He loves to celebrate the wins. He loves to

40:50

prop everybody up. Great. And I think it's one of those like, it's all over the place. Like

40:58

mid sentence, like, over here, and you're like, okay, so what's the objective we're doing again? And, and the

41:03

leadership team, we have to kind of jump in and course correct a little bit. But everybody loves it.

41:10

And he ends every meeting with like some song, sometimes he finds

41:15

it like five minutes before the meeting. And it's like, it's like a send off to to a, you know,

41:21

on the weekend. But the thing is, is people are informed.

41:27

Okay, a little comical, because it's a little bit of a circus. Yep. It's absolutely genuine,

41:33

because the owner is trying to build that community and push things forward. And so even though it fails as like, it's like a

41:40

41:48

times better than the average business out there. Wow. Because he's genuine, authentic.

41:54

Yeah, upfront about what he's trying to do. Plain and simple. Yeah, I think that authenticity thing is,

42:01

it's said a lot, but it's still overlooked. I think many people hide, many leaders

42:07

hide their personality behind kind of the corporate

42:12

veil, right? And they sound very corporate. And I think that their

42:19

communications would go a lot farther and be much better received if they were just a little bit more human in their communication

42:26

and less MBA corporate shill. Yeah. Well,

42:32

so so should we throw in the generational prospect or perspective in this whole thing? Oh, that's always fun. Sure. Let's go for it.

42:39

Because Gen Z's aren't sending emails about what's going on. And I'm

42:46

willing to bet they have a lot more emojis. And it's a lot more words are like, you know what,

42:52

that's probably a funny one. For you want to talk about corporate jargon, BS, I'm willing to bet most

42:59

boomers and exers for sure, maybe some millennials because Gen Z's

43:05

are you know, baby brother, sister.

43:10

By the way, you know, the millennials, we invented emojis. Ours are just the old school ones, not the graph, the text ones. So just

43:16

throwing that out there. I think if a Gen Xer or a boomer

43:22

was reading something from a Gen Z or Gen Alpha, especially on an older alpha now, yeah, they would probably think it's

43:28

corporate bullshit generator, or just virtual bullshit generator, because the words are just like what, but to that generation, it

43:37

totally makes sense. I would love to see somebody do that,

43:42

like, put out a corporate comms and have like four different

43:48

videos and be like, if you're Gen Z, click here. If you're Gen Alpha, click

43:54

here. And it's the same guy who's just got the same message, but

43:59

written in four different scripts, one for each generation. That's actually not a bad idea. Like, it

44:05

would be fun. People would enjoy it. You could get chat GPT to translate it for you. So you get

44:11

all the skibbity-ris-geot appropriate for the Gen Alphas.

44:19

That would actually be a fun way to start communicating and say, look, feel free to pick the one that works best

44:25

for you. But here's four options.

44:31

King Daniel, man, he's been in the kitchen cooking. I mean, the sauce is absolute peak.

44:38

You're gonna love it. I can't take that seriously.

44:43

That was almost a Reddit post I put on Reddit the other day.

44:49

That's like, oh, it's crazy. And everybody's like dogpiling on it. Yeah, that's just the lingo, apparently. Hey, more power to you. It's

44:57

not a language I speak. But I do think that there's a grain of truth there in the fact that

45:08

communication is such a generational thing.

45:14

Both the medium, right? So whether we're talking emails,

45:19

whether we're talking texts, or face-to-face conversation, and then

45:24

the wording that's actually used in that communication, those are very much... I mean, they vary

45:31

widely by generation. And so I think that as we continue to have three or four different

45:39

generations in the workplace at the same time, I think it becomes an idea that leaders need to consider of,

45:45

do I need to take this message and to some extent translate it to my different audiences so

45:52

that I'm doing the best job I can of communicating what I'm trying to communicate in a way

45:59

they can hear and understand. I think it comes down to what you started

46:04

with, right? Like write this for a 12-year-old. I think you can write things in a way

46:09

that is more generic versus when you try to be very particular. Of course, I don't think you

46:16

need to write like a boomer version and an X version and a millennial version and a Z version. But

46:22

I think this also goes back to connecting with your people. Like if you have a large Gen Z workforce,

46:28

maybe throw a few of those words in there. It might capture their attention. I mean, genuinely do it. Like don't

46:33

just do it because chat GPT, put it in there. But I think that's where they're still common ground.

46:40

We all speak English. We all know the basic words. I say basic words, etc. But I think it's just

46:47

resonate with your audience. And it doesn't mean pick one audience,

46:53

but make sure your message resonates. Or I think there's even been in communications, like you can even be

46:58

like, "Hey, for my Gen Zers in the company, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and for my Xers in the company, da, da,

47:04

da, da, da, da." That makes it fun. It makes it funny. Now again, that's got to be on a less serious topic. And don't be doing that in

47:11

a negative way. Again, it's all in how you use the communication. But I do think there's

47:17

a level of if you're a boomer, and you're writing emails, and you've got the harsh tone,

47:22

grind away, you work for me, and you should be proud of it.

47:30

That's not going to resonate with your younger employee base. But I don't think that means you

47:36

have to tailor it for every single one. Just be aware of your audience and use common language. Make it simple. But I think that's the

47:43

job phrase, right? Simple is harder than complex. We go to complex because it's easier for

47:49

us, but it only makes communication harder. Take the time and energy to make it simple, and it'll

47:55

actually get the message across. In today's episode, we're spilling the

48:01

tea on corporate cringe. Why work talk? Be sounding fake,

48:06

dusty, and straight up tone deaf. From buzzword bingos to cold AF emails,

48:12

we're calling out the stuff that low key kills the vibe at work. Did you just chat GPT that?

48:20

Absolutely, I did. Absolutely, I did. I love it. I love it. I love it. That was great. That was great.

48:27

All right. Let's start wrapping it up. What's the first thing that people need

48:35

to know about fixing corporate comms? I think just simple, authentic, to the

48:41

point. Don't try to outsmart them. Don't try to be

48:47

propaganda. Don't try to sound smarter. Don't try to fake it. Don't try to hide the truth.

48:54

Just keep it simple, to the point. Don't beat around the bush, authentic, authentic, and use

48:59

common simple language. Yeah, simple and authentic. That's the

49:05

two words I'd give, simple and authentic. What's the biggest mistake most companies

49:11

make when talking to their employees? Not connecting with the audience.

49:17

Like the lack of EQ. Like the guy emailing about his winery in

49:23

Australia after an acquisition. That I think is the number one thing is when the people writing

49:28

the communications are disconnected with the people doing the work. Yep. Yeah. Especially disconnected on the

49:34

emotional level. What would you recommend

49:40

as a step that leaders can take today to improve their communications? We talked about simple

49:48

and authentic. If you're delivering bad news, utilize

49:53

the grief curve. Because people are going to accept it in

49:59

different ways. They're going to internalize different ways. They're going to overcome it in different ways. And if you just are going to shoot out negative input, and it may be authentic,

50:07

and it may be outside of your control, environmental, or whatever. But if you're going to deliver bad news, take the grief curve into

50:13

consideration. Otherwise, you're going to look insensitive with your next communication or by the end of the message.

50:21

I heard from somebody. They said that the more emotionally charged the message,

50:27

the more personal the delivery needs to be. Don't give bad news over email.

50:37

Pick up the phone. If you can see them in person, even better. But the more emotional it is, the more personal your delivery needs to

50:45

be. And I think oftentimes because of that, because it's emotional, we try to hide

50:51

behind an email. And I think that's the wrong direction. You need to lean in when it's emotional

50:56

and don't hide behind your keyboard. The other thing I would say is if you're delivering

51:04

okay news or positive news, don't skirt the small wins.

51:10

Call them out. Don't glaze over them. Just because we hit our goal objectives,

51:18

but we didn't crush the KPIs, doesn't mean everybody sucks and needs to work harder.

51:24

I mean, we do need to work harder to reach the goal. I'm not dismissing that. But celebrate the wins and don't glaze

51:31

over the small things, because those small things matter to people because it's their job. So give acknowledgement where

51:39

acknowledgement is due, even if it's insignificant to you. 10 years from now, we're going to look back and laugh at what?

51:45

How goofy our communication has been while we've got four generations in the workforce.

51:51

I'm going to take a, I'll give you a hot take. I think we're going to look back and laugh at email.

51:56

Yes. We're totally going to laugh at email. I think something's going to replace email. And thank God. And it's not going to be

52:04

and in 10 years, we're going to look back and be like, hold on, you did what?

52:10

Yeah. I think we get ready to email in the next 10 years. Get behind that. I'm okay. I'll

52:15

definitely sign up for that. I don't know what's going to replace it, but gosh, can't wait. All right. Wrapping

52:22

up. Does corporate communication actually reflect how much a company really values its people? Yes.

52:29

That's a, the answer is yes. If it's authentic and genuine, you

52:35

probably have a better culture. If it's bullshit, generator and propaganda, you probably got a toxic

52:41

environment and you're lying to yourself. Pure. I'm going to take, I'm going to take the

52:46

counterpoint. I know visionaries that really sincerely, authentically care

52:52

about their people. However, their blind spot is culture. True. And so their communication can be

53:00

tone deaf, but they sincerely care. Again, I think, I think people, that

53:05

example I gave earlier, the, the chaotic Friday meetings, I would agree with what you just said,

53:10

but because it's authentic and genuine, the people understand it. It gets

53:16

through. I think, I think it's when it's, it's, yes, you can always be better to connect with the culture, but

53:22

there's, there's an effort to connect with the culture, even if it's not connecting most

53:28

Fridays, but it's genuine act of trying is where people engage.

53:33

That's really interesting. I think you're right. I think if you sincerely care, it comes through.

53:39

Yes. And if you don't, that also comes through. Yes.

53:46

What's your main takeaway from today? Jargon buzzwords are just ego drivers.

53:54

Be authentic, be real, you'll better connect. And you might be surprised on how much progress

53:59

you can actually make as opposed to kidding yourself. You're making it better with ego driven

54:05

BS. I'll add a positive one because that was negative. I feel,

54:10

well, hold on. What you said makes me feel convicted of

54:17

my manual dictation device.

54:23

I probably need to turn it down a little bit. I'll give you the positive one. All right.

54:28

If you are trying to be authentic, I mean, genuinely trying,

54:33

you don't have to be perfect. Don't worry about perfect communication. Just be real, just be

54:38

authentic. And you'll be surprised on how much the people will connect with it. Put the time and energy

54:44

to listen to it. If you put the time and energy into it, they will too. So don't, you may suck at it. I suck at it,

54:51

but that doesn't mean I don't try. And again, people can pick that up. And if you're genuinely

54:56

trying to do the right thing, it will connect. Love it. Thanks

55:03

for listening. I would love to hear some of the worst or funniest emails

55:09

that you've ever received. Some of the worst abuses of buzzwords that you've seen in a

55:16

corporate context. Tag us, leave us a comment. I would love to see what you guys have experienced.

55:22

Thanks for listening. Make work not suck. Our podcast, it talks about exactly that. Our process,

55:27

vision, journey, culture, and results. We present real world business solutions that make the difference. Our goal is to

55:33

make work not suck, mostly by Ryan Hodges, co-host Daniel Steer. Join us each episode and make work not suck.