Office Talk or Social Engineering
by Gregory Porter (greg.e.porter@gmail.com)
Office jargon is a form of social engineering.
It exists to maximize employee efficiency by making employees happier, or rather by making them think they are happier. But before expanding the previous statements, we ought to define both social engineering and office jargon.
Consider, social-engineer.org's definition that it is "The act of influencing a person to accomplish goals that may or may not be in [the target's] best interest."1
Although there is a tendency to connect social engineering with computer security, such a connection is not a restriction. The emphasis of the above definition is persuasion, which is something that is present in all facets of society.
"Office Jargon" has many names: corporate lingo, corporate speak, business speak, commercialese. If you have experience in Corporate America, you may be familiar with such terms, but if you aren't familiar with these terms, consider the following examples.2
Synergy - Effect of working together.
Touch Base/Reach Out - Meet up with/contact a colleague to discuss progress.
Leverage - Utilize, make use of a resource.
One might hear such terms in emails or conversations. "If you need anything just reach out to X or Y. They are great resources; leverage them. Let's touch base tomorrow but, in the meantime, do what you can to promote synergy."
To trace this system of manipulation, we should start with Frederick Taylor, the founder of "Scientific Management" (a.k.a. "Taylorism"). Although the terms are treated as synonymous, "Taylorism," in the classical sense, was replaced by the larger field of "Scientific Management."3
The general idea of this research was to maximize the efficiency of factory workers. Tasks were broken into successively smaller discrete parts, whereupon anything unnecessary was removed.
This style of optimization focused on the efficiency of the system or process itself, rather than the inter-workings of that system (i.e., the human laborers). The laborers in this equation are seen as little more than cogs in a machine; once given a task, workers are expected to carry out tasks as commanded. The worker is not to modify the system or even provide suggestions. Workers in some cases revolted as a result of this type of mechanization.
In 1924, George Elton Mayo and his team were conducting research in a Chicago factory.4 They were trying to determine what light bulb brightness resulted in the highest efficiency. They concluded that it wasn't so much the physical environment, but the emotional and psychological state of the workers that determined efficiency. While the study has been criticized, it marked a departure from, up to that point, the coldly scientific managerial experimentation.
It wasn't until the 1950s that researchers at Carnegie Mellon and MIT began to articulate various theories about management. It was out of this research that the corporate vocabulary as we know it was born. The most popular theory behind the terminology was that workers were thought to be "ambitious self-motivators who thrive in an atmosphere of trust."
Office speak was considered to be a way to create an atmosphere of trust. Out of this Carnegie Mellon and MIT research, this new vocabulary nested itself in the corporate environment, particularly in human resources and in marketing departments. Given the nature of office speak, this isn't surprising. Marketing is inherently focused on presentation while human resources focuses on, well, the human resources of a company.
"In a workplace that's fundamentally indifferent to your life and its meaning, office speak can help you figure out how you relate to your work - and how your work defines who you are," concludes Emma Green.
These words or phrases exist to alter your perception of the workplace to boost your efficiency. It isn't about making you happy, but about making you think you are happy (or at least happy enough to work). Linguistics professor Geoffrey Nunberg notes, "You can get people to think it's nonsense - at the same time that you buy into it."
Indeed, Jack Welch (former CEO of General Electric) wrote that such corporate management systems would create "A company where jargon and double-talk are ridiculed and candor is demanded." Matthew Stewart provides several, now-universal euphemisms for firing people: streamline, restructure, let go, create operational efficiencies.4
Now, the elements of social engineering in this language are self-evident, but the relationship between Engineer and Target is complex. It isn't simply that your manager is employing the language to manipulate you for his or her gain. That might be part of it, even if it isn't a conscious decision. But such a relationship runs far up the corporate hierarchy. Your manager's manager speaks the same way. Even your coworkers may speak to you that way. Everyone is trying to find the most effective form of communication, but why?
It is the bottom line of the company as a whole that drives us toward efficiency, which includes altering our language.
How do we, readers of 2600, protect ourselves from such language? But before even asking that, are we so sure we want to or have to? After all, between "you're fired," or "you are being let go," which would you rather hear?
The "truth" that you are losing your job, or that the company is more efficient without you, is present in both phrases, but the latter is easier on the ears. Perhaps, then, "protect ourselves" is too strong a phrase. We must at least be aware of such language. Instead of saying "I will contact X and Y for help," we are saying, "I will reach out to X and leverage Y." These are words that were carefully chosen to exploit positive connotations for the benefit of the company. It is a vocabulary that manages to dehumanize with a smile.
Sources
- "The Official Social Engineering Portal - Security Through Education," Security Through Education.
- Weiker, William. "What Your Boss Meant to Say," Dictionary of Management Jargon. William Weiker.
- Drury, Horace Bookwalter (1915), Scientific Management: A History and Criticism. New York, NY, USA: Columbia University.
- Green, Emma. "The Origins of Office Speak," The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 24 Apr. 2014.