Semantically Empty: Corporate BS and the Paradox of Sounding Smart

In this episode, we tackle something everyone recognizes, but no one has really tested until now: corporate bullshit.

Inspired by recent research and a Cornell study on the Corporate Bullshit Receptivity Scale, we break down what corporate BS actually is, why it works, and what it says about both the people delivering it and the people buying into it.

We also put it to the test with a game of “Is It Corporate BS?” and discover that real executive communication is often indistinguishable from complete nonsense.

Along the way, we explore a troubling paradox: the people most impressed by corporate jargon may be the least equipped to make good decisions, yet they are often the most satisfied and inspired at work.

As always, we remain the most regularly irregular podcast on the planet, recording only when inspiration strikes.

Key Takeaways

• Corporate BS is not just annoying, it can signal poor decision-making
• “Semantically empty” language sounds impressive but lacks meaning
• People who are more receptive to corporate jargon may rate leaders more highly
• There may be a feedback loop where BS-friendly employees elevate BS-speaking leaders
• Sometimes corporate BS is not accidental, it can be used intentionally to obscure reality
• If you cannot understand something, it is not always because it is smart

Links Referenced

• Cornell article on corporate BS:
  https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/03/workers-who-love-synergizing-paradigms-might-be-bad-their-jobs
• Original research on the Corporate Bullshit Receptivity Scale:
  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/400597536_The_Corporate_Bullshit_Receptivity_Scale_Development_validation_and_associations_with_workplace_outcomes

Episode Highlights

• The definition of corporate BS and how it differs from real jargon
• “Semantically empty” as the phrase of the episode
• The Pepsi and Microsoft examples of BS gone wrong
• Weaponized corporate BS in layoffs
• The “Is It Corporate BS?” game
• The realization that we may also be part of the problem

Come visit us at busynessparadox.com to see episode transcripts,  blog posts and other content while you’re there!

Transcript

BS Lingo

00:00:00 PaulH: Okay.

00:00:01 Frank Butler: All right, here we go. Hello busy bodies. Welcome to another episode of The Busyness Paradox. I am Frank Butler here with Doctor Paul Harvey.

00:00:14 PaulH: Good day. Frank.

00:00:15 Frank Butler: Good day Paul.

00:00:17 PaulH: Doctor. Frank. Sorry.

00:00:18 Frank Butler: Oh you know it's one of those that we are the your most regularly irregular podcast on the planet right now. Um, but.

00:00:28 PaulH: We spring to life when inspiration strikes. Inspiration

00:00:31 Frank Butler: And

00:00:31 PaulH: has struck.

00:00:31 Frank Butler: inspiration has struck. And now we're going to use a term that might be considered a four letter word, but in this case, we're going to be using it for academic purposes. And

00:00:45 PaulH: Which is

00:00:45 Frank Butler: that

00:00:45 PaulH: apparently a thing now, because

00:00:47 Frank Butler: that's.

00:00:47 PaulH: this word is appears prolifically in the recent academic research that we're going to talk about.

00:00:54 Frank Butler: And not just any journal. We're talking about an actual high quality journal that is peer reviewed has outstanding, you know, recognition in the field. It's the journal of personality and individual differences. It's a it's a very solid kind of more organizational behavior related area of management. And

00:01:19 PaulH: Yeah.

00:01:20 Frank Butler: the best part is that this paper is called the corporate bullshit receptivity, scale development, validation and associations with workplace outcomes. That's right folks.

00:01:38 PaulH: Yeah.

00:01:38 Frank Butler: Bullshit.

00:01:40 PaulH: Written by our new hero from Cornell University.

00:01:44 Frank Butler: Sure.

00:01:45 PaulH: Uh.

00:01:45 Frank Butler: Latrell.

00:01:45 PaulH: Stand by. Shane. Latrell.

00:01:48 Frank Butler: And he has created the corporate bullshit receptivity scale. And I will say I am quite disappointed in us, Paul, because this is the type of thing we do.

00:02:02 PaulH: Yep. I

00:02:04 Frank Butler: And.

00:02:04 PaulH: can't believe this wasn't us like this. Every all of this could have been us. If any conversation we've ever had had veered slightly in a different direction. I can, like we probably would have been on this, but

00:02:19 Frank Butler: I

00:02:19 PaulH: yeah.

00:02:19 Frank Butler: mean, we are the creators of wussy. So

00:02:23 PaulH: Yeah.

00:02:25 Frank Butler: this is right up our alley. And I am very disappointed in us, especially because we did an entire episode on BS jobs. How did

00:02:35 PaulH: Yeah.

00:02:35 Frank Butler: we get from BS jobs to be as speak?

00:02:39 PaulH: Yeah, I read that. I read the dude's whole book on BS jobs. Like, how did this not occur to me?

00:02:47 Frank Butler: Exactly

00:02:47 PaulH: Uh.

00:02:47 Frank Butler: right. Like how did this not become sort of it for us, I don't

00:02:53 PaulH: Yeah,

00:02:53 Frank Butler: know.

00:02:54 PaulH: we were we were caught looking on this one, you know, took our eye off the ball.

00:02:59 Frank Butler: Yeah, well, you know, this is an interesting one, though, folks. Uh, really what the core of this article gets to is essentially is how are really, it's kind of like, how is corporate bullshit perceived? And what does it really say about the deliverer of that message? To some extent, right.

00:03:19 PaulH: Well, the perceiver kind of more the receiver of the message, right. Well, I guess both. But

00:03:25 Frank Butler: That's right.

00:03:25 PaulH: yeah, the ultimate punchline being that the the more impressed you are with nonsense corporate speak, the dumber you are. Or more specifically, I guess the. Worse you are at your job is probably the more accurate way of framing it in terms of this particular study. Not something that anyone's probably going to be too surprised about most people, but nice to see and tested and confirmed that. Yeah, people who go in on this corporate BS talk are dumb or just as dumb as you thought they were.

00:04:06 Frank Butler: And that's the real message right there, folks. I'm

00:04:08 PaulH: That's

00:04:08 Frank Butler: going

00:04:08 PaulH: it?

00:04:09 Frank Butler: to read a blurb out of this article from Cornell's what is it called, Cornell Chronicle. Um, now there's going to be a couple things that pop out that make me even more upset that we didn't come up with this two season scholars in management. So this is this is the this is the quote, this is a paragraph out of here. But there's going to be one point in here that Paul, you and I will both go. Mother trucker, why didn't we

00:04:34 PaulH: Yeah.

00:04:34 Frank Butler: do this again? But this is the way it says. It says, quote, corporate bullshit is a specific style of communication that uses confusing abstract buzzwords and a functionally misleading way, unquote, said Luttrell, a postdoctoral

00:04:53 PaulH: Oh!

00:04:53 Frank Butler: doctoral researcher in the College of Arts and Sciences. Okay.

00:05:00 PaulH: My God.

00:05:01 Frank Butler: Yes. See, that's it right there. Now we continue quotes, unlike technical jargon, which can sometimes make office communication a little easier, corporate bullshit confuses rather than clarifies. It may sound impressive, but it is cement semantically empty unquote.

00:05:24 PaulH: Semantically empty. I like it. And I'm glad he draws that distinction there, because that's what we were talking about before we started recording today, that there is a bit of a fine line between corporate or industry specific jargon and lingo. That kind of does serve a bit of a purpose, either by, you know, making things more like people who need to know what that means, know what it means so it can be more efficient sometimes, or it can kind of sort of indicate that. Yeah, I know this industry, like I know the words to use, and you can identify yourself as being kind of a competent person in that regard. Whereas I think the, the BS speak is a massively exaggerated form of that. It's like, I'm going to, I'm going to pretend like this is real words that I'm saying that sound impressive, but really they are just semantically empty. I really like that phrasing.

00:06:18 Frank Butler: Semantically empty. Isn't that a great phrase? I just.

00:06:21 PaulH: I

00:06:21 Frank Butler: Oh,

00:06:21 PaulH: love

00:06:21 Frank Butler: it's

00:06:21 PaulH: it.

00:06:21 Frank Butler: so well done. Um.

00:06:22 PaulH: We should start a side podcast called Semantically Empty and just talk nonsense the whole time. Stay tuned folks.

00:06:31 Frank Butler: I'm speechless.

00:06:34 PaulH: You're semantically empty. Yeah.

00:06:39 Frank Butler: I just love the idea so much that.

00:06:41 PaulH: So much.

00:06:43 Frank Butler: Holy crap. Um. I've just lost track, folks that actually

00:06:48 PaulH: Yeah.

00:06:48 Frank Butler: that threw me. Um, let me get back on track here. All right, so one of the things that I wanted to do was sort of read how this set up of this study kind of came through. And again, I'm not reading from the actual academic article. I'm reading from the, the Cornell Chronicle. I do have the academic article up, but I don't want to bore you all with academic speech, so to say, but, um.

00:07:10 PaulH: Yeah. Which is probably something we should own up to. Then, you know, we academics have a way of communicating ideas, at least in written form that is not very, um, open to not very exciting. Yeah.

00:07:24 Frank Butler: Yeah,

00:07:24 PaulH: Um,

00:07:24 Frank Butler: it's semantically empty

00:07:26 PaulH: it's semantically empty.

00:07:27 Frank Butler: actually.

00:07:28 PaulH: It sounds semantically

00:07:28 Frank Butler: It's literally

00:07:29 PaulH: empty to.

00:07:29 Frank Butler: like, it's just, you know, designed

00:07:31 PaulH: Yeah.

00:07:32 Frank Butler: for other academics, not necessarily

00:07:33 PaulH: Yeah.

00:07:34 Frank Butler: for us. So what he did so Latrell did is he actually created a corporate bullshit generator that turns out meaningless, but impressive sounding sentences like we will actualize a renewed level of cradle to grave credentialing. And so that's just an example. And what I'm going to do in a little bit here, Paul, is I'm going to quiz you on what you think is the real speech versus the corporate bullshit, and see if you can guess which one's which. So we're going

00:08:06 PaulH: I'm

00:08:06 Frank Butler: to

00:08:06 PaulH: excited about

00:08:06 Frank Butler: this

00:08:07 PaulH: this.

00:08:07 Frank Butler: is this is going to be a fun one because Paul has not seen those categories yet and the questions

00:08:11 PaulH: Nope.

00:08:11 Frank Butler: asked. So what he did then is he went and asked more than a thousand office workers to rate the quote, business savvy unquote, of these computer generated BS statements alongside real quotes from fortune five hundred leaders divided into four distinct studies. The research verified the scale as a statistically reliable measure of individual differences in receptivity to corporate bullshit. Then, through the use of established cognitive tests, made connections between receptivity to bullshit and analytical thinking skills known to be essential to workplace performance. Now this is where the findings get interesting. And much like our name, I love this next sentence. The results revealed a troubling paradox.

00:09:08 PaulH: Beautiful.

00:09:09 Frank Butler: Oh.

00:09:11 PaulH: MM.

00:09:12 Frank Butler: Busyness. Paradox, folks. Workers who were more susceptible to corporate BS rated their supervisors as more charismatic and visionary,

00:09:24 PaulH: MM.

00:09:25 Frank Butler: but also displayed lower scores on a portion of the study that tested analytical thinking, cognitive reflection, and fluid intelligence.

00:09:35 PaulH: MM. Okay. I will admit to ignorance regarding the definition of fluid intelligence.

00:09:44 Frank Butler: Let us see if we can find this actually in the paper. So there's a five item measure of fluid intelligence using progressive matrix puzzles from the international cognitive ability resource. Um, so what we can do is maybe we'll share this link in the show notes so people can look at what this measures. Um, because this is, it's a new one to me as well. Um, but it says here, let's see, what if there's any description of that? No, it just says five.

00:10:17 PaulH: This is interesting. So I found a Wikipedia page on this. Fluid intelligence involves basic processes of reasoning and other mental activities that depend only minimally on prior learning, such as formal and informal education and acculturation. Uh. It's formless and can flow into a wide variety of cognitive activities as compared to crystallized intelligence, which is the application of learned procedures and knowledge and depends heavily on experience and acculturation.

00:10:48 Frank Butler: Well, we

00:10:49 PaulH: I

00:10:49 Frank Butler: learned something new here,

00:10:50 PaulH: believe

00:10:50 Frank Butler: folks.

00:10:51 PaulH: today I learned surprised, I've never heard of this before, but it's kind of kind of a cool distinction.

00:10:56 Frank Butler: It is a cool distinction, isn't it?

00:10:58 PaulH: Yeah.

00:11:00 Frank Butler: So going on from that, it says those more receptive to corporate BS also scored significantly worse on a test of effective workplace decision making. But those who are more receptive to corporate BS were more satisfied with their jobs and feel inspired by company mission statements.

00:11:27 PaulH: Ignorance is once again bliss.

00:11:29 Frank Butler: Oh,

00:11:30 PaulH: Basically,

00:11:31 Frank Butler: the summary here, isn't it?

00:11:32 PaulH: the dumber you are, the more susceptible you are to corporate BS and the more you like your job. And like I'm not seeing the downside here. You know,

00:11:40 Frank Butler: I

00:11:40 PaulH: other

00:11:40 Frank Butler: wonder

00:11:40 PaulH: than being dumb.

00:11:41 Frank Butler: if there's a connection between Wusy and

00:11:44 PaulH: Ooh

00:11:45 Frank Butler: any of this.

00:11:46 PaulH: ooh, I

00:11:47 Frank Butler: If you're.

00:11:48 PaulH: don't know.

00:11:48 Frank Butler: If you score high on the Wusy scale, are you more susceptible to corporate BS?

00:11:55 PaulH: I wonder maybe less. I wonder,

00:11:57 Frank Butler: Any less.

00:11:58 PaulH: like,

00:11:58 Frank Butler: Maybe you

00:11:58 PaulH: if

00:11:58 Frank Butler: would.

00:11:58 PaulH: you're kind

00:11:59 Frank Butler: More.

00:11:59 PaulH: of predisposed to the falling for this stuff, then I don't know, maybe you're predisposed to interpret other bad things in good ways.

00:12:10 Frank Butler: Or

00:12:10 PaulH: We'll see. For,

00:12:10 Frank Butler: less.

00:12:11 PaulH: uh,

00:12:12 Frank Butler: I mean, are bad

00:12:12 PaulH: folks

00:12:12 Frank Butler: things

00:12:12 PaulH: who haven't

00:12:13 Frank Butler: good

00:12:13 PaulH: heard

00:12:13 Frank Butler: things

00:12:13 PaulH: us

00:12:13 Frank Butler: and

00:12:13 PaulH: talk

00:12:13 Frank Butler: bad

00:12:14 PaulH: about

00:12:14 Frank Butler: ways.

00:12:14 PaulH: this.

00:12:15 Frank Butler: Good.

00:12:15 PaulH: Yeah, exactly. So we'll see. Just for anyone who's not aware, is our, uh, published

00:12:21 Frank Butler: Magnus. Opus.

00:12:21 PaulH: scale Magnus opus, uh, measuring people's propensity to perceive abuse where others might not from their supervisor. So are they. If you're a wussy, high wussy score, you are more prone to believe you're being abused not physically, but like, mistreated by her supervisor.

00:12:41 Frank Butler: And just so you guys know, wussy is an acronym for Waspishness

00:12:44 PaulH: Yeah.

00:12:45 Frank Butler: umbrage, Sensitivity and Insecurity. And

00:12:49 PaulH: Mhm.

00:12:49 Frank Butler: it's a survey that we designed because we had a conversation over a New Year's Eve that essentially came down to people perceive feedback or input from their supervisors differently. Some perceive things as more abusive or negative, while others are like, yeah, that's just normal. And,

00:13:07 PaulH: Mhm.

00:13:07 Frank Butler: uh, the research wasn't really capturing this very well, uh, in the abusive supervision research. So we went on a, on a, on a hunt to figure out the best way to evaluate those ends of things. And, and we'll see what's born.

00:13:25 PaulH: By pure random chance, the, uh, abbreviation turned out to form the something that sounds like wussy.

00:13:32 Frank Butler: Uh, let's be real. We wanted it to. We'll see.

00:13:34 PaulH: Yeah.

00:13:34 Frank Butler: But we didn't want it to be w u s s y. Aw.

00:13:38 PaulH: We may have reverse engineered the acronym, but. Yeah.

00:13:46 Frank Butler: Anyway, but, you know, I'm just. I'm just having fun with this man. This is so great, man. Um, this this is a this is an article that keeps on giving folks. Um,

00:13:55 PaulH: It really does.

00:13:56 Frank Butler: it's just this is. Oh. So you're more satisfied with your job. If you're more likely to fall for the corporate BS, you're going to be more inspired by the mission. Now, seeing this is the funny thing, because

00:14:10 PaulH: MM.

00:14:10 Frank Butler: I'm curious about this, because, you know, we talk a lot about having a mission that leadership actually leans into and embodies and that kind of stuff. And so I'm wondering with these more corporate speak BS kind of leaders, is there, are they really aligned with the mission or do they just make it seem that way through

00:14:32 PaulH: I.

00:14:33 Frank Butler: their brilliant sounding statements, I guess.

00:14:39 PaulH: Guess it depends on how semantically empty the actual mission statement is. If the mission statement is

00:14:44 Frank Butler: Generic.

00:14:45 PaulH: BS,

00:14:45 Frank Butler: Yeah.

00:14:46 PaulH: then they're very much in line with it.

00:14:48 Frank Butler: Um, yeah, I think that's it's fascinating, right? Um, here we here kind of coming through this more. The essentially the employees most excited and inspired by visionary corporate jargon. Maybe the least equipped to make effective practical business decisions for their companies.

00:15:15 PaulH: If I was just about to read that same that same sentence, if you didn't do it just then, I was like, this fits right here. And then you read it. So good call.

00:15:24 Frank Butler: But I have to read this paragraph just because of the last bit of it, because this is great.

00:15:27 PaulH: Yep.

00:15:27 Frank Butler: This is nice. I'm reading the article, folks, because I can't summarize it any better than this article

00:15:33 PaulH: Nope.

00:15:33 Frank Butler: does, and it's just so clear. But Luttrell says this creates a concerning cycle. Employees who are more likely to fall for corporate BS may help elevate the types of dysfunctional leaders who are more likely to use it. Creating a sort of negative feedback loop. Now, this might be a little bit spurious of a relationship. He's saying he doesn't actually measure this, but this is something he is suggesting could happen.

00:15:59 PaulH: And it seems to fit anecdotally, right? Like

00:16:02 Frank Butler: Sure,

00:16:02 PaulH: it seems like that happens.

00:16:04 Frank Butler: sure.

00:16:04 PaulH: Yeah.

00:16:04 Frank Butler: Exactly. Rather than a rising tide lifts all boats, a higher level of corporate BS in an organization acts more like a clogged toilet of inefficiency. I am now changing my LinkedIn tagline to clogged toilet of inefficiency.

00:16:25 PaulH: It's a little bit repetitive. I mean, I guess by definition a clogged toilet is inefficient, but nonetheless, I like it. It's poetic.

00:16:36 Frank Butler: I read that and I was like, that's just that's just poetry. It's

00:16:42 PaulH: I

00:16:42 Frank Butler: poetry.

00:16:42 PaulH: want to meet this guy, man.

00:16:43 Frank Butler: Yeah,

00:16:43 PaulH: Like,

00:16:44 Frank Butler: really? We might have

00:16:45 PaulH: buy

00:16:45 Frank Butler: to try.

00:16:45 PaulH: this guy a beer. My God.

00:16:48 Frank Butler: This. Guys. This guy's definitely, uh, speaking my language here. So what? That he's in the College of Arts and Sciences.

00:16:56 PaulH: I mean, that's almost even more impressive that, like. This isn't even like his wheelhouse necessarily. I mean, I don't know what his wheelhouse is, but that is.

00:17:08 Frank Butler: He's probably comms guy, right? He's probably communications. And.

00:17:12 PaulH: You know, when I first heard about this, I assumed he was at their famous, um, hospitality management school there at Cornell. So it actually kind of hit me as a bit of a surprise that he's from somewhere in liberal arts, but man, he's, he's dialed in to the nuances

00:17:25 Frank Butler: And we have had

00:17:26 PaulH: of corporate BS.

00:17:27 Frank Butler: We have had somebody from the hospitality management school on our podcast when we did the live from SMA for the first time.

00:17:34 PaulH: Yep. Yep.

00:17:35 Frank Butler: We were

00:17:35 PaulH: The

00:17:35 Frank Butler: talking about.

00:17:35 PaulH: tipping episode. Yes.

00:17:37 Frank Butler: Yeah. So, uh, that was an outstanding episode, folks. You should go back

00:17:40 PaulH: Yep.

00:17:40 Frank Butler: and listen to that one. Really interesting. Uh, how about how tipping continues to become more pervasive in our society, but, you know, tangential.

00:17:50 PaulH: I think our most our most popular episode of all time.

00:17:54 Frank Butler: It was until the AI,

00:17:56 PaulH: Until.

00:17:56 Frank Butler: HR

00:17:56 PaulH: Yeah.

00:17:57 Frank Butler: episode from this

00:17:58 PaulH: That's

00:17:58 Frank Butler: last

00:17:58 PaulH: right.

00:17:58 Frank Butler: May. And that one

00:17:59 PaulH: That's

00:17:59 Frank Butler: is

00:17:59 PaulH: right.

00:17:59 Frank Butler: absolutely just I

00:18:01 PaulH: Yeah.

00:18:02 Frank Butler: mean,

00:18:02 PaulH: That one's on a tear.

00:18:03 Frank Butler: yes, it really is. It's just so timely. And it was a really just well done episode. I noticed that.

00:18:08 PaulH: And I wasn't there, so

00:18:11 Frank Butler: AI

00:18:11 PaulH: that

00:18:11 Frank Butler: had replaced

00:18:11 PaulH: was helpful.

00:18:12 Frank Butler: that day.

00:18:12 PaulH: That was. Yeah.

00:18:13 Frank Butler: Um, but we had to hire you back because AI wasn't as good, uh, completely as good. But, um, it's funny, I realized that I had made a slight faux pas. I said human relations in the opening versus human resources management. Oops,

00:18:29 PaulH: Oh, right.

00:18:30 Frank Butler: that was a slight faux pas on my part, but it seems

00:18:33 PaulH: I didn't

00:18:33 Frank Butler: nobody

00:18:33 PaulH: catch it.

00:18:34 Frank Butler: cared. Yeah, nobody seemed to care. They got it right. It's human

00:18:36 PaulH: Yep.

00:18:37 Frank Butler: resources management, not human relations management, although it kind of seems similar enough. Maybe.

00:18:45 PaulH: Yeah. I mean, one of the top HR journals is called Human relations. So you're not that far off the mark.

00:18:53 Frank Butler: See? Thank you for for helping support my my slip of the tongue there. Um, now I want to keep going because this is a great real world example and real world ramifications. So one of the things that helped, I think trigger this study is in two thousand and nine, uh, Pepsi marketing presentation had

00:19:15 PaulH: Mhm.

00:19:15 Frank Butler: language such as the Pepsi DNA finds its origin in the dynamics of perimeter oscillations, whatever that means. Our proposition is the establishment of a gravitational pull. To shift from a transactional experience to an invitational expression. Now, when this leaked and I don't remember this, I was

00:19:39 PaulH: No.

00:19:39 Frank Butler: in the midst of completing my dissertation and trying to move to Chattanooga. So, you know, in the economy kind of sucked. So I this just slipped through me. But, uh, it does say, though, this led to widespread ridicule in various news outlets, and it actually can have real reputational or financial damage to the firm. So I think this is, this is giving you that not only is it sort of like people can become lemming like when they fall for it, but also when it gets out and rationality kicks in, it can have some real negative backlash for the organization, whether it's share price impact or just bad press, right? And you don't really want that bad press. So.

00:20:27 PaulH: Yeah. I mean, you think that was in the context of an earnings call or something like. You've got like an army of smart, critical people paying attention as opposed to. Whatever your self-selection of, uh, BS receptive employees that you usually talk to are and they're going to call you out on that. And yeah, in that context, like these are the people making the decisions. Oh dear God.

00:20:56 Frank Butler: And that's just it, right? Um, it's, it's one of those that it, you know, you, you start, I guess, pressure testing some of these statements. It might work inside the company. It gives you that rah rah vibe. But once it gets out and sort of hits people who are not part of that culture and not acculturated into the organization and not having gone through their own HR process. Right? These organizations all have ways of identifying who might fit in

00:21:24 PaulH: Yeah.

00:21:24 Frank Butler: that organization. And so there is something to that, you know. And then once you're in, they try to acculturate you and make you feel like you're part of this team. And, and I'm not saying that this is reality of these people are truly idiots. I'm sure they probably could identify corporate BS coming out of other corporations. It's just

00:21:40 PaulH: Yeah.

00:21:40 Frank Butler: that they're, they're just has gotten so committed to this particular organization that it's, it may be it like, like I said, it maybe makes them a little bit more lemming like.

00:21:52 PaulH: Yeah,

00:21:53 Frank Butler: And so.

00:21:54 PaulH: that's a good point. That'd be interesting. An interesting follow up to the study. Take those same people that are receptive to this. Well, I mean, I guess the way he's set up the study, they're not really interpreting these statements in the context of their regular corporate life. So, I mean, I guess it kind of is that. But anyway, that's an interesting point that

00:22:14 Frank Butler: You're right.

00:22:14 PaulH: people who are receptive in like the culture that they're used to working in maybe would be more objective, more less receptive to the BS of a different company

00:22:26 Frank Butler: Of a different

00:22:26 PaulH: or

00:22:27 Frank Butler: company,

00:22:27 PaulH: different

00:22:27 Frank Butler: right?

00:22:27 PaulH: different supervisor, whatever the context is. Yeah.

00:22:30 Frank Butler: Right.

00:22:30 PaulH: MM.

00:22:31 Frank Butler: I don't know. I mean, it's just it's just I'm thinking out loud and, you

00:22:34 PaulH: Yeah,

00:22:34 Frank Butler: know,

00:22:34 PaulH: yeah.

00:22:34 Frank Butler: maybe they are just receptive to the corporate jargon, BS, whatever, not jargon, but BS regardless. And just

00:22:43 PaulH: Yeah.

00:22:44 Frank Butler: then

00:22:44 PaulH: That's

00:22:45 Frank Butler: they

00:22:45 PaulH: why

00:22:45 Frank Butler: get their

00:22:45 PaulH: those

00:22:45 Frank Butler: MBAs.

00:22:46 PaulH: are the really special people.

00:22:47 Frank Butler: Yeah.

00:22:48 PaulH: Just no matter where it's coming from, they're all in. Yeah.

00:22:50 Frank Butler: That's right. They're just, they're just going to jump in with two feet and just

00:22:54 PaulH: Yep.

00:22:54 Frank Butler: into, oh, this sounds great. I don't understand it, but I love it. Right?

00:22:59 PaulH: I look smart if I act like I do. Yeah.

00:23:01 Frank Butler: Oh, that's really, that's a great point. And um,

00:23:04 PaulH: Well,

00:23:04 Frank Butler: so

00:23:04 PaulH: you know,

00:23:04 Frank Butler: this is

00:23:05 PaulH: there's

00:23:05 Frank Butler: one.

00:23:05 PaulH: that, uh, what's that saying? Um, like, uh, geniuses admires, uh, like, simplicity. And idiots are impressed by complexity. Something like that. It seems

00:23:16 Frank Butler: Uh,

00:23:16 PaulH: like a similar kind of phenomenon

00:23:17 Frank Butler: there's

00:23:18 PaulH: that

00:23:18 Frank Butler: a

00:23:18 PaulH: the

00:23:18 Frank Butler: there's

00:23:18 PaulH: more

00:23:18 Frank Butler: a.

00:23:18 PaulH: I can't understand it, the smarter it must be.

00:23:21 Frank Butler: Uh, you know what? There's something to that, right?

00:23:23 PaulH: Yeah, yeah.

00:23:25 Frank Butler: MM. Now, I do remember this one. Uh, in twenty fourteen, uh, Microsoft devices group, uh, vice president sent out a memo to the employees. Right. And, uh, and this is one of the examples that, that is used in this article. Uh, it was later dubbed. So this article was dubbed by the press as the worst email ever. It opened with ten paragraphs of jargon, including

00:23:54 PaulH: Who?

00:23:54 Frank Butler: our device strategy must reflect Microsoft's strategy and must be accomplished within an appropriate financial envelope. Okay.

00:24:04 PaulH: Can you say that again? My brain broke halfway through that.

00:24:08 Frank Butler: Our device strategy must reflect Microsoft's strategy and must be accomplished within an appropriate financial envelope.

00:24:18 PaulH: Wow.

00:24:19 Frank Butler: I mean, it's a fancy way of saying that we should align with the corporation's strategy and make sure that we're being fiscally sound is the way I interpret that.

00:24:27 PaulH: I guess.

00:24:28 Frank Butler: But

00:24:28 PaulH: I

00:24:29 Frank Butler: it's

00:24:29 PaulH: guess.

00:24:29 Frank Butler: a stretch with the product device strategy and Microsoft strategy alignment, because I would imagine that Microsoft's strategy is to be a leader in the industry on software and hardware, that that would open up a lot of possibilities with devices. Just my guess. Right?

00:24:52 PaulH: It's kind of a fun activity like decode the the corporate BS, like see if there is actually any like

00:24:59 Frank Butler: Real meaning there.

00:25:00 PaulH: meaning or if it is indeed semantically empty. Yeah.

00:25:03 Frank Butler: Maybe this was early AI, early copilot at Microsoft.

00:25:07 PaulH: Yeah. That fits. Yeah.

00:25:09 Frank Butler: I just snorted y'all. That's that's embarrassing.

00:25:12 PaulH: You've got

00:25:12 Frank Butler: Oh.

00:25:12 PaulH: a snorting, man.

00:25:14 Frank Butler: Uh, but it's funny because then it says the real news was actually the lead, so to speak. To borrow from journalism, the the lead was buried in paragraph eleven that twelve thousand five hundred employees were going to lose their jobs. So what they

00:25:30 PaulH: Oh,

00:25:30 Frank Butler: did is they

00:25:31 PaulH: God.

00:25:31 Frank Butler: weaponized corporate

00:25:33 PaulH: Wow.

00:25:34 Frank Butler: bullshit to mask the real intent. So this is this is weaponizing it,

00:25:41 PaulH: Wow.

00:25:43 Frank Butler: intentionality

00:25:44 PaulH: That's.

00:25:45 Frank Butler: behind

00:25:45 PaulH: Woo

00:25:45 Frank Butler: it.

00:25:46 PaulH: hoo!

00:25:48 Frank Butler: Now

00:25:48 PaulH: That takes it to a darker place, man. Wow.

00:25:49 Frank Butler: it does, right? You know, and, and it also leads me to think, do they actually believe their own BS when they're using it? Or do they know they're doing it in an obfuscating way just because they know it rallies the troops? Or at least it, it maybe in this context minimizes the damage of the real story.

00:26:12 PaulH: Yeah. At least to the, the the lemming crowd, who if we are to extrapolate from this study, is are probably not the employees that are the best at their job and are maybe the ones getting the ax. So it's like a way of placating the people who are. You're actually saying we're about to fire you? Huh. That's interesting. Intentionality in the corporate BS as opposed to just using it to try to look impressive to dumb people. MM.

00:26:43 Frank Butler: Or you're a dumb person trying to look impressive to dumb people.

00:26:46 PaulH: Yeah. Right. Right, right. MM.

00:26:49 Frank Butler: You know this. There's just so much just. It's. This article keeps on giving. It really does,

00:26:54 PaulH: Just

00:26:54 Frank Butler: like,

00:26:54 PaulH: keeps

00:26:55 Frank Butler: just

00:26:55 PaulH: giving.

00:26:55 Frank Butler: it makes my brain like just it's it's it's it's

00:26:58 PaulH: You

00:26:59 Frank Butler: workout

00:26:59 PaulH: know.

00:26:59 Frank Butler: for the brain, right? It's what let me, let me jargon ize this in some way. I'm gonna have to figure out a statement I can use here anyway, we'll keep going.

00:27:09 PaulH: Let me give you a quick brain reset, because I just looked up that quote that I was trying to kind of pull out of my depths of my mind about idiots admiring complexity, and found the thing by a guy named Terry, a Davis, who was a software computer programmer and engineer. And his quotes, it hits a little close to home. Frank. I'll read it. An idiot admires complexity. A genius admires simplicity. A physicist tries to make it simple for an idiot. Anything. The more sorry for an idiot anything, the more complicated it is, the more he will admire it if you make something so cluster. I don't think we can say that one. If you make something so cluster F that he can't understand it. He's going to think you're a god because you made it so complicated. No one can understand it. That's how they rate journals and academics. They try to make it so complicated. People think you're a genius.

00:28:01 Frank Butler: You know, I'm going to I'm going to jump on this really quick because I find this so true of some of these articles that I've reviewed is that

00:28:09 PaulH: Mhm.

00:28:09 Frank Butler: they overly complicate

00:28:11 PaulH: Yep.

00:28:11 Frank Butler: the intro or the theory development, where you're kind

00:28:14 PaulH: Yep,

00:28:14 Frank Butler: of like, oh, it sounds smart,

00:28:16 PaulH: yep.

00:28:17 Frank Butler: but like, and I, and I go, I'm a, I'm a pretty, pretty sharp person. You know, I'm not always the smartest, but I feel pretty, pretty sharp about things sometimes. And if I struggle to understand something, then I'm usually like, there's something wrong here.

00:28:33 PaulH: Yep.

00:28:34 Frank Butler: And then I go, am I stupid? Or is this trying too hard to sound intelligent? And

00:28:41 PaulH: Especially

00:28:41 Frank Butler: math

00:28:42 PaulH: because

00:28:42 Frank Butler: is not that impressive.

00:28:44 PaulH: the research that we are typically reviewing involved with whatever is not splitting atoms.

00:28:49 Frank Butler: Nope.

00:28:50 PaulH: Um,

00:28:50 Frank Butler: Literally

00:28:51 PaulH: and

00:28:51 Frank Butler: not splitting atoms.

00:28:52 PaulH: no, so there's really not generally a need for that level of complexity unless you, you're trying to obfuscate something or the thing you're trying to obfuscate is the, you don't know what the hell you're talking about. or you just don't have any. You don't have any logic. So you're. Yeah. You're covering it up with gobbledygook. That's.

00:29:14 Frank Butler: Or, you know, you just know that it's you're trying to take something like a basic relationship

00:29:20 PaulH: Yeah. Make it sound

00:29:21 Frank Butler: and

00:29:21 PaulH: impressive.

00:29:21 Frank Butler: make it sound impressive.

00:29:22 PaulH: Yeah. It's true too.

00:29:25 Frank Butler: And I think that's what some of it is. And, and I don't know, and for me, I, I do get into that because I, I do sometimes get struggle a little bit with some of that confidence of, is it me or is it them? And

00:29:41 PaulH: Yeah.

00:29:41 Frank Butler: so sometimes sidestep that or I'll find a way of saying nicely in my review, you might want to bring more clarity about

00:29:48 PaulH: Clarify

00:29:48 Frank Butler: the relationship

00:29:48 PaulH: this. Yeah.

00:29:49 Frank Butler: between x and y. So it can because, you know, here's my take. Generally, yes, we're writing a lot of our academic research for other academics, but

00:29:58 PaulH: Yep.

00:29:58 Frank Butler: the type of research we do do, as Paul said, we're not splitting atoms. We're not in this real. Like, how does light reflect refract through these different

00:30:07 PaulH: Right?

00:30:08 Frank Butler: schools? And talking about mathematical forms, what we're literally doing is trying to understand firms and people in firms better. And it doesn't really require. Complexity. We want it to make it more accessible. I think personally to, to, to people in the business world to understand what we're trying to stay in research. You know, maybe if they skip the methods section, they can at least still somewhat understand the theory development or something like

00:30:35 PaulH: Yeah.

00:30:36 Frank Butler: that.

00:30:36 PaulH: When you get into the statistical analysis, you're

00:30:38 Frank Butler: Yeah. That's.

00:30:39 PaulH: going to lose people. But, um, doesn't mean the, you know, doesn't mean that the layperson, whatever you want to call it shouldn't be able to get the gist by, like you said, reading the, the rest of it. But no one ever does because they're obtuse and dry and Not the sort of thing that the average person wants to sit down and read.

00:31:07 Frank Butler: Yeah, I think that's the that's the real trick right there. Um, is something like that. Um here we here we go. I've just asked a generative AI software to give me some, some BS about our podcast. So I want,

00:31:25 PaulH: I'm scared.

00:31:25 Frank Butler: yeah, these are, these

00:31:26 PaulH: Terrifying.

00:31:26 Frank Butler: are, are, these are great. Right? We leverage cross-functional thought leadership to unpack the evolving synergies of modern work paradigms.

00:31:36 PaulH: Oh my. Well, we do unpack a lot of paradigms. Yeah.

00:31:46 Frank Butler: Our podcast, Operationalizes Actionable insights at the intersection of productivity, culture and scalable human capital optimization.

00:31:56 PaulH: Scalable human capital optimization. Yeah.

00:32:01 Frank Butler: Okay,

00:32:01 PaulH: That's impressive.

00:32:01 Frank Butler: let me let me go back. The first one was considered to be option one clean executive nonsense. The second one I just read was peak MBA core.

00:32:16 PaulH: Peak NBA score. Wow.

00:32:18 Frank Butler: Now here's the next one. It's called knowingly absurd or it's labeled as knowingly absurd.

00:32:23 PaulH: Yeah.

00:32:24 Frank Butler: Oh, God.

00:32:25 PaulH: I think we have an episode title knowingly absurd.

00:32:28 Frank Butler: Yes, yes. Okay. Write that down, Paul, because we will forget that.

00:32:34 PaulH: We absolutely will.

00:32:35 Frank Butler: Um, here it is. We're I, I got, I, I already know this is going to be good, so you'll have to give me a second. I've got to compose myself. I haven't even read the full thing yet. It's it's already got me. Um. Oh, here we go, folks. I'm trying. Here. I'm sorry. We're here to disrupt legacy conversations by synergizing

00:32:59 PaulH: Oh, God.

00:33:00 Frank Butler: high impact narratives across the future of work ecosystems.

00:33:04 PaulH: No, no, no. Those words should not be spoken.

00:33:12 Frank Butler: I don't even know. Oh God, I'm actually. I'm

00:33:17 PaulH: Woo!

00:33:18 Frank Butler: crying real tears here, folks. I'm laughing that hard. Oh my God.

00:33:21 PaulH: Hoo!

00:33:21 Frank Butler: Um. That was.

00:33:23 PaulH: Yeah.

00:33:24 Frank Butler: Now this is probably

00:33:25 PaulH: Put that

00:33:25 Frank Butler: what.

00:33:25 PaulH: in the description in this episode. We those words you just said.

00:33:30 Frank Butler: We're here to disrupt legacy conversations by synergizing high impact narratives across the future of work ecosystem. Wow.

00:33:39 PaulH: We don't mess around with low impact narratives. Got no time for that.

00:33:44 Frank Butler: Ain't nobody got time for that kind of

00:33:46 PaulH: No,

00:33:46 Frank Butler: BS.

00:33:46 PaulH: no. That's why we don't do as many episodes lately. Too many low impact narratives.

00:33:52 Frank Butler: That's right. Valid.

00:33:54 PaulH: We

00:33:54 Frank Butler: That's

00:33:54 PaulH: wait

00:33:54 Frank Butler: why

00:33:55 PaulH: for

00:33:55 Frank Butler: we

00:33:55 PaulH: the high impact.

00:33:55 Frank Butler: regularly

00:33:56 PaulH: Yeah.

00:33:56 Frank Butler: irregular podcast.

00:33:58 PaulH: That's right.

00:33:58 Frank Butler: I think that's our new tagline, by the way.

00:34:01 PaulH: I like it.

00:34:02 Frank Butler: Slightly self-aware. We create value by aligning thought capital with emerging workplace paradigms. Or at least we talk about it like we do. That's perfect.

00:34:12 PaulH: Hey! Oh my God.

00:34:15 Frank Butler: That is actually perfection, folks. That is the slightly self-aware version of the busyness paradox in a nutshell.

00:34:22 PaulH: I'm impressed by this, uh, A.I. thing that you just did like that it gave you these categories like. Like the slightly self-aware that.

00:34:32 Frank Butler: Well, keep in

00:34:33 PaulH: Did

00:34:33 Frank Butler: mind,

00:34:33 PaulH: you ask for those categories?

00:34:34 Frank Butler: no, it actually, this is what it gave me. Um,

00:34:37 PaulH: Well.

00:34:37 Frank Butler: and, and let's, let's just give it this way. And I'm going to kind of give you some insight. I do use the AI to help us with our show notes. Um, I use it, we use it to help for ideation for titles, folks. I mean, let's, let's face it, Paul and I are not marketing creatives. We, we love talking about this stuff, but we would spend hours and hours just trying

00:34:57 PaulH: Yeah

00:34:57 Frank Butler: to come up with the perfect title. And

00:34:59 PaulH: yeah.

00:34:59 Frank Butler: then we feed in all like our prior titles, our show notes, you know, our, our transcripts. And so it knows our podcast, it knows our personalities. And it's actually kind of scary how well it does do, which this slightly self-aware is kind of something that we would probably have come up with after hours of pontificating.

00:35:17 PaulH: Yeah, yeah. I like all the titles we came up with in our first, whatever, however many episodes we did before we started using. It's really only been the last few that we just

00:35:26 Frank Butler: It's only

00:35:26 PaulH: kind

00:35:27 Frank Butler: been like three

00:35:27 PaulH: of engaged

00:35:27 Frank Butler: or four.

00:35:27 PaulH: the AI stuff. But yeah, ever since we started using it, it is yet to come up with something that I think we could have done better then I think we could, like you said, maybe we could have matched what it comes up with, but it would have taken us hours and days and a million text messages back and forth

00:35:46 Frank Butler: Yeah.

00:35:46 PaulH: was this just pops it out like, oh yeah, there it is. Look at that.

00:35:49 Frank Butler: It's just a good, efficient use of our time at the end of the day, right?

00:35:53 PaulH: It.

00:35:53 Frank Butler: So there's two more. The next one is boardroom Mad Libs Energy.

00:36:00 PaulH: Whoa! MM.

00:36:03 Frank Butler: This podcast is a dynamic platform of driving alignment, unlocking value and future proofing your personal operating model.

00:36:12 PaulH: MM.

00:36:13 Frank Butler: It's actually

00:36:14 PaulH: Your

00:36:14 Frank Butler: kind

00:36:14 PaulH: personal

00:36:14 Frank Butler: of good.

00:36:14 PaulH: operating model. Yeah. That one's, like, borderline, like, almost a little bit deep, like.

00:36:22 Frank Butler: It's

00:36:23 PaulH: All right.

00:36:23 Frank Butler: exactly right. It sounds good though.

00:36:26 PaulH: Yeah.

00:36:26 Frank Butler: I mean, like your personal operating model. Man, that sounds good.

00:36:29 PaulH: Sounds good.

00:36:30 Frank Butler: Future

00:36:30 PaulH: Yeah.

00:36:30 Frank Butler: proofing your personal operating model, who I mean.

00:36:36 PaulH: MM.

00:36:37 Frank Butler: I mean, this podcast is a dynamic platform for driving alignment. That's a stretch for us.

00:36:42 PaulH: Yeah.

00:36:42 Frank Butler: But.

00:36:42 PaulH: That is a stretch alignment. And what are we aligning with? I don't know.

00:36:46 Frank Butler: Unlocking

00:36:46 PaulH: We're driving it,

00:36:47 Frank Butler: value

00:36:47 PaulH: though.

00:36:48 Frank Butler: and we're driving it right on this dynamic platform. Uh.

00:36:52 PaulH: That's right.

00:36:54 Frank Butler: We dived. Oh, and this one says my favorite for your vibe. So this is the AI saying this is my favorite for y'all's vibe. Right. So it's essentially saying, you know, that this is the one it likes for us. So let's

00:37:06 PaulH: Huh?

00:37:06 Frank Butler: see how bad it is going to roast us in this context. We deep dive into the busyness economy by leveraging synergistic insights that probably could have been said much simpler. I hate you, AI.

00:37:25 PaulH: It it it's got our number there for it.

00:37:29 Frank Butler: I am actually angry about this.

00:37:32 PaulH: They hit the nail on the head.

00:37:35 Frank Butler: I mean, just think we use terms like paradox, like come the

00:37:38 PaulH: And.

00:37:38 Frank Butler: f on. You know,

00:37:39 PaulH: Yeah.

00:37:40 Frank Butler: like it nailed us, man. I'm

00:37:43 PaulH: Yeah.

00:37:43 Frank Butler: actually, I'm actually sad about this.

00:37:47 PaulH: I feel seen, exposed.

00:37:49 Frank Butler: I feel exposed. I feel seen, yes. So just to give you guys further insight to how well this knows us at this point, you've probably noticed that our latest couple episodes, we changed the format where we give a summary before we lean into the intro. And, um, we do this sort of quasi Top Gear style where it's like, they say three things. They're kind of stupid and silly, uh, to cover, like what we're covering in the podcast. And, you know, it's partially because Paul and I are fans of Top Gear and kind of those things. Uh, we also loved, uh, the, the, uh, oh, shoot, the, the, the taproot brothers. What's the car talk?

00:38:27 PaulH: Car talk.

00:38:28 Frank Butler: So,

00:38:28 PaulH: Yes.

00:38:28 Frank Butler: you know, we've got this sort of vibe that we want to bring humor to these things. We, you know, top gear is kind of a somewhat funny car review thing. Car talk is a funny show, and we're trying to get into that a little bit. And, and, uh, so it says here, if you want, I can push this further into a Top Gear style intro for the business paradox that

00:38:50 PaulH: MM.

00:38:50 Frank Butler: opened ridiculous and then snaps into something sharp. So let's.

00:38:53 PaulH: Wow.

00:38:54 Frank Butler: I'm not going to I'm not going to. I'm telling it to do it right now, folks, but I'm not going to tell you guys what it's saying because you're going to get to go. Think about it. What did we say in the intro? Because

00:39:06 PaulH: MM.

00:39:07 Frank Butler: I'm going to use it for our intro.

00:39:08 PaulH: We'll add it. We'll add it to the intro after the fact I like it.

00:39:12 Frank Butler: Yes. So I'm keeping that for this.

00:39:18 PaulH: So

00:39:18 Frank Butler: Okay.

00:39:18 PaulH: they'll actually know at this point what those items were.

00:39:23 Frank Butler: Right.

00:39:24 PaulH: Yes. Okay.

00:39:26 Frank Butler: So they'll get an insight as to where that intro was derived.

00:39:31 PaulH: How we got there. I like it.

00:39:33 Frank Butler: Now, what I really wish I had is I wish I had a game show intro for this next piece, and maybe I'll build one in. Maybe

00:39:40 PaulH: MM.

00:39:41 Frank Butler: I'll find some good sound clip for it because now it's time to play. Is it corporate BS?

00:39:47 PaulH: I'm feeling like a Family feud style. Like, yeah, you got a band, you got like five banjos. You can like put something together, right? Like.

00:39:55 Frank Butler: I'm just worried about deliverance. Ding ding ding ding ding

00:39:59 PaulH: Oh,

00:39:59 Frank Butler: ding.

00:39:59 PaulH: yeah. There is that theory that every banjo tune eventually, like degenerates into ding ding ding ding ding ding.

00:40:09 Frank Butler: So these are actual so there's there's two factors that he has. And one set of questions are around actual corporate BS statements. And then the other ones are real corporate speech quotes. So the game here is is it the corporate bullshit statement or is it the actual real corporate speech? So your, your challenge, Paul, is to guess which is which. And I'm going to not read these in any particular order. Paul hasn't actually looked at this yet, so he doesn't

00:40:46 PaulH: No.

00:40:47 Frank Butler: know. So here we go.

00:40:49 PaulH: So what are the just. What's the breakdown? Is it like half hour real? Half hour fake or.

00:40:56 Frank Butler: Essentially. And we won't go through all ten of each, right. I'm just going to pull several

00:41:00 PaulH: Okay.

00:41:00 Frank Butler: and

00:41:00 PaulH: Gotcha.

00:41:01 Frank Butler: but because there's ten of each. So that would be twenty and

00:41:04 PaulH: Okay.

00:41:05 Frank Butler: and so we're, you know, we're, we're already pushing like forty minutes here. So it's been pretty good, but I do want to pull a few. And here we go.

00:41:15 PaulH: All right, I'm ready.

00:41:17 Frank Butler: By focusing again on the customer experience, we will create a renewed level of meaningful differentiation and separation in the market between us and our competitors. Is that corporate BS or is that real corporate speech?

00:41:31 PaulH: I'm going real on that one.

00:41:33 Frank Butler: You would be correct. Well

00:41:34 PaulH: Yeah.

00:41:34 Frank Butler: done. Ding. All right.

00:41:36 PaulH: Ding!

00:41:37 Frank Butler: Uh.

00:41:37 PaulH: Hey, wait! I've got a bell. Where's the freaking bell?

00:41:40 Frank Butler: Oh, man.

00:41:41 PaulH: Hold on one second.

00:41:42 Frank Butler: Okay. He's getting a bell, folks. This. This will make it work. And while he's doing that, um.

00:41:51 PaulH: I get to use this like once a year, so I'm very excited.

00:41:54 Frank Butler: There it is. Perfection. Uh, all right, so the next one is. Our bandwidth comes from the visionary culture shifting of several new growth hacked integrated networks that capitalize on our heritage to engage our future when building bridges to success.

00:42:16 PaulH: I hope that's BS.

00:42:18 Frank Butler: You would be correct.

00:42:21 PaulH: Ha ha ha.

00:42:25 Frank Butler: All right. Next, this scalable look at our company will ensure that we are executing and minimizing cross back impact with our conversations as effectively as we can in order to fundamentally disrupt our ecosystem.

00:42:43 PaulH: This one's a coin toss, man. I'm going real.

00:42:48 Frank Butler: It would be corporate BS.

00:42:51 PaulH: Ah, man.

00:42:52 Frank Butler: I was. You're right. That was a harder one. That did kind of.

00:42:56 PaulH: That was kind of my gut. And I was like, you know, I overthought it. I started like, playing the strategy. Like, what's what's he going to do? Two BS in a row? Yeah, yeah. All

00:43:06 Frank Butler: Well.

00:43:06 PaulH: right.

00:43:06 Frank Butler: Yeah. It's not it's like the satellite. It's like.

00:43:09 PaulH: Yeah, yeah.

00:43:12 Frank Butler: You know, it's when they taught you, when they taught us about the s t, they always said if you got two or three answers, they're the same in the row. You're probably wrong, which is totally incorrect because,

00:43:21 PaulH: Right.

00:43:22 Frank Butler: you know, it was not always true. Anyway, uh, here, here's the next one. As emerging leader, as an emerging leader grounded in a mission to benchmark and nurture the human spirit we have always aspired to make upstream connections. Drilling down one more click on people and communities around the world.

00:43:50 PaulH: I'm going BS on that one.

00:43:52 Frank Butler: Ding! You would be correct.

00:43:54 PaulH: Ah!

00:43:56 Frank Butler: There it

00:43:56 PaulH: All

00:43:56 Frank Butler: is.

00:43:56 PaulH: right, that's probably enough for the bell. It makes less sense since I'm the one doing it.

00:44:03 Frank Butler: That's true for corporate BS from the business paradox.

00:44:08 PaulH: Yes.

00:44:10 Frank Butler: Because of our iconic brands, our unending commitment to premium content and the innovation of our teams, we have permission from the market to be a world class tier one partner.

00:44:26 PaulH: I hope that's BS.

00:44:28 Frank Butler: It's actually real.

00:44:29 PaulH: Oh my God. Permission from the market. Woo!

00:44:36 Frank Butler: Now, granted, that

00:44:37 PaulH: Wow.

00:44:37 Frank Butler: did have one of the lowest factor loadings, which is kind of why I intentionally chose it, because

00:44:40 PaulH: Uh,

00:44:41 Frank Butler: that

00:44:41 PaulH: yeah.

00:44:41 Frank Butler: would give you that sense of for those who are not statistically, you know, about factor levels, it just, it sort of could have applied to the other one. It's a little lower, but it still felt

00:44:50 PaulH: Basically,

00:44:51 Frank Butler: strongly.

00:44:51 PaulH: a lot of people perceived it to be the thing that. It's not like

00:44:55 Frank Butler: Right.

00:44:55 PaulH: I just did.

00:44:55 Frank Butler: Yes,

00:44:56 PaulH: Yeah.

00:44:56 Frank Butler: exactly. Um, let me find another one to pull from. I'm just kind of skimming these real quick. Uh oh, I love this one. Okay. By getting our friends in the tent with our best practices, we will pressure test a renewed level of adapted coherence and culture fit in the market between us and others who are solutioning to download on a similar value centered strategic intent.

00:45:27 PaulH: Jane. I just need a minute after that one. Oh. I. I'm going to go with real on that one.

00:45:43 Frank Butler: Oh, I see

00:45:44 PaulH: It's not.

00:45:45 Frank Butler: it's not. But you

00:45:46 PaulH: Oh

00:45:46 Frank Butler: know.

00:45:46 PaulH: thank God.

00:45:47 Frank Butler: Yeah. Right. That was my reaction too, because I was like, man, it sounds like something somebody would say.

00:45:51 PaulH: It just it sounded like I could actually see it being real, even though it shouldn't be. So I'm glad to hear it's not.

00:46:01 Frank Butler: I'm trying. I'm trying to find something else good in here. These are fun to read anyway, right? Uh. Yeah, that's too obvious. Let's see. Is there. Oh. Uh. Oh, yeah. Here we go. We will fundamentally disrupt our conversations and delivering upstream transformational, performance focused key learnings like no other company anywhere in the world.

00:46:39 PaulH: I'm going to go with real again.

00:46:41 Frank Butler: You know, I was actually thinking it was real, but I picked it. But it is, uh, corporate BS.

00:46:46 PaulH: Okay. I thought just like the, the, the sort of baked in enthusiasm of it made me think like, all right, I could see someone just kind of going off and like trying to rally the troops with that nonsense. But. Once again, I'm glad to be wrong.

00:47:04 Frank Butler: Exactly. So anyway, you know, um, this just gives you some insight as to some of the stuff in there and even the real stuff sounds sometimes BS, right? So again, this is a first

00:47:17 PaulH: Oh, yeah.

00:47:17 Frank Butler: step into really unlocking some very interesting understanding of the workplace and leadership at the end of the day.

00:47:25 PaulH: And I think it's it's got a good. Unlike some of the research in our area, it's got a pretty clear, like real life takeaway that when not just when you hear people spouting what appear, for all intents and purposes seems to be BS jargon. Okay, that's a red flag, but also be paying attention to who's gobbling it up, because

00:47:47 Frank Butler: Right.

00:47:47 PaulH: those maybe aren't the people you want to trust with the the big decisions.

00:47:53 Frank Butler: And, you know, and I think what I really particularly like out of this is it does say it points out the importance of critical thinking for everyone inside the workplace and out. Right. And I think that's a real key sort of let me not just take stuff on face value sometimes,

00:48:11 PaulH: Yeah.

00:48:12 Frank Butler: especially

00:48:12 PaulH: And

00:48:12 Frank Butler: if you

00:48:13 PaulH: don't

00:48:13 Frank Butler: don't

00:48:13 PaulH: just

00:48:13 Frank Butler: understand.

00:48:13 PaulH: assume that like, oh, it just must be too smart for me to understand because that's possible. But you know, yeah, take who you're listening to. Like, what's that physicist name? Uh, Rick passed away like a long time ago. Richard Feynman or something like that. He

00:48:31 Frank Butler: Yeah.

00:48:31 PaulH: talks about like ridiculous stuff like, you know, like relativity in the universe, like really complicated stuff. And he makes it, you know, his, his audio recordings of his lectures at, uh, was at Berkeley or UCLA or something, or like perennial bestsellers. Like they, he makes that understandable. So if someone is talking about anything simpler than. You know, the way the interface between space and time in the universe, then probably they are not actually talking about things that you're too dumb to understand and therefore the words they're using, if you can't understand them, it's probably not because you're too dumb.

00:49:12 Frank Butler: Right. And I'm going to take that because this leads right into a perfect ending of what Luttrell says in this news, in this chronicle, uh, this Cornell Chronicle article, he said, most of us in the right situation can get taken in by the language that sounds sophisticated, but isn't. That's why whether you're an employee or consumer, it's worth slowing down when you run into organizational messaging of any kind, whether it's leader statements, public reports, ads and ask yourself, what exactly is the claim? Does it actually make sense? Because when a message leans heavily on buzzwords and jargon, it's often a red flag that you're being steered by rhetoric instead of reality. Rhetoric instead of reality.

00:49:58 PaulH: Rhetoric instead of reality.

00:50:01 Frank Butler: It's pretty good.

00:50:03 PaulH: That's pretty good.

00:50:05 Frank Butler: And on

00:50:05 PaulH: I

00:50:05 Frank Butler: that

00:50:05 PaulH: think

00:50:06 Frank Butler: bombshell,

00:50:06 PaulH: that's I

00:50:06 Frank Butler: we've

00:50:07 PaulH: think

00:50:07 Frank Butler: successfully

00:50:07 PaulH: that's the bombshell we end on.

00:50:09 Frank Butler: we have successfully leveraged absolutely nothing aligned on even less and somehow still created deliverable. It's time to close that loop.

00:50:19 PaulH: Close the loop.

00:50:21 Frank Butler: Goodbye, everybody.

00:50:23 PaulH: Goodbye, everybody.

00:50:26 Frank Butler: All right, folks, this is a slight addendum to our corporate BS episode. So Paul and I were kind of debriefing after the episode. We were just chit chatting, you know, and I decided to look up this chain Luttrell because he's actually in, uh, the, what is it, the Department of Government at Cornell University. And I was like, this seems weird. You know, this is very kind of business oriented. You know, or organizational oriented. But, you know, I guess

00:51:00 PaulH: Yeah.

00:51:01 Frank Butler: you could pull that

00:51:01 PaulH: Org

00:51:01 Frank Butler: off.

00:51:01 PaulH: science like industrial organizational psychology, like particularly my side of the management

00:51:08 Frank Butler: Yeah.

00:51:09 PaulH: science world. Yeah.

00:51:10 Frank Butler: Yeah, exactly. And so I was looking at that and it says here, you know, his research focuses primarily on investigating the ways in which misleading information such as conspiracy theories and political propaganda can influence people's beliefs, attitudes and decisions. So that's pretty good, right? I mean, that's, that's a, uh, you know, it makes sense that he was looking at corporate BS because that would fit into that. Uh, because it is kind of misleading at the end of the day, right? It's,

00:51:37 PaulH: Yeah.

00:51:37 Frank Butler: it's intended to obfuscate in some way.

00:51:40 PaulH: There's an intent to mislead. Yeah.

00:51:41 Frank Butler: Yes.

00:51:41 PaulH: Even if the words themselves aren't aren't doing anything because they're semantically empty, as discussed.

00:51:47 Frank Butler: I love that semantically empty, but

00:51:49 PaulH: Yeah.

00:51:50 Frank Butler: I started reading like his degrees. And this is going to really, this really messes with me. But he's got his doctorate from his PhD in cognitive psychology from the University of Waterloo and Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, which is a really top notch institution. But this is the one that really got me. His master's of science degree is in experimental psychology. And, you know, and I was like, oh my God, this is crazy. Paul thought was he was like, oh my gosh, what? You know, thinking, you know, maybe it was at Florida State. But the reality is that he got his master's of science degree from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and I'm just

00:52:24 PaulH: Frank

00:52:25 Frank Butler: blown

00:52:25 PaulH: is currently

00:52:25 Frank Butler: away.

00:52:26 PaulH: sitting right now

00:52:28 Frank Butler: That's right. This is my

00:52:29 PaulH: and.

00:52:29 Frank Butler: institution. So I'm like, I'm going to have to reach out to this guy and get him on the podcast.

00:52:36 PaulH: I think it's an obligation now. I

00:52:38 Frank Butler: I do,

00:52:38 PaulH: get

00:52:38 Frank Butler: right?

00:52:38 PaulH: that Chattanooga

00:52:39 Frank Butler: Just like

00:52:39 PaulH: Pride, right? You gotta

00:52:40 Frank Butler: I

00:52:40 PaulH: be

00:52:41 Frank Butler: got to

00:52:41 PaulH: on

00:52:41 Frank Butler: do it.

00:52:41 PaulH: the show.

00:52:42 Frank Butler: Um, but you know, he's, he's definitely got a very interesting background. He's done post-doc positions at the Department of Political Science at the University of Miami, Department of Human Development at Teachers College, Columbia University. And now he's at this at Cornell, which, you know, he's obviously. Oh, and he was also a postdoctoral fellow at Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. And he's a member of the Media Ecosystem Observatory. So, I mean, this really does show that he's got a track record of going to really top notch institutions. And I mean.

00:53:24 PaulH: Their man has gotten around to some

00:53:25 Frank Butler: Our.

00:53:25 PaulH: good places.

00:53:26 Frank Butler: Yep, yep. He likes this postdoctoral thing, I guess at the end of the day. But anyway, that was just our little, uh, our little addendum that we threw on. And you've made it this far. We appreciate you.

00:53:38 PaulH: Indeed.

00:53:39 Frank Butler: And with that again, good day.

00:53:41 PaulH: Good day.