如何拆穿企業中的胡扯

Students at the University of Washington were offered a new course last month, entitled Calling Bullshit In the Age of Big Data. For the past couple of decades, week in and week out, I have been calling bullshit for this publication, and so was delighted to hear my favourite pastime had made it into academia.

上個月，華盛頓大學(University of Washington)開了一門新課，名爲《在大數據時代拆穿胡扯》(Calling Bullshit In the Age of Big Data)。過去三十多年，我每週都在這個專欄裏拆穿胡扯，因此聽說這種我最喜歡的消遣打入了學術界，我很高興。

While this course is limited to spotting bullshit in numbers, there is an equal need for one spotting it in words, especially words used in business. What follows is an outline for a rival course aimed to fill that gap.

儘管這門課程僅限於發現數字上的胡扯，但發現用詞（特別是商界的用詞）上的胡扯也同樣必要。以下是我爲一門旨在填補這一空白的與之競爭的課程擬出的概要。

It starts with a definition: bullshit means nonsense, usually of a puffed-up variety that pretends to be something it is not. Sharp eyes will spot at once the difficulty in applying this to corporate life — almost everything fits the description. Before I have even got inside my office I have tripped over a yellow plastic sign saying “Caution Wet Floor” — bullshit because usually the floor is not wet, and if it were, the picture of someone falling spectacularly is wildly overdoing it.

先從定義開始：胡扯意味着廢話，通常誇大其詞、裝模作樣。目光敏銳者會立刻發現，這一定義很難應用於企業生活——幾乎所有事都符合這一描述。還沒走進辦公室，我就發現了一塊黃色的塑料牌，上面寫着“小心地面溼滑”(Caution Wet Floor)——這是胡扯，因爲地面通常並不溼滑，即使地面確實溼滑，但牌子上畫的一個人四仰八叉地摔倒在地的樣子也太誇張了。

The first rule about calling corporate bullshit is not to do it too assiduously or you will go insane. I have learnt to ignore 95 per cent of it, and of the remainder ask myself two questions: what is the quality? And: how damaging is it?

在企業裏拆穿胡扯的第一原則是，別太認真，否則你會瘋掉。我已經學會忽略95%的胡扯，對於剩餘的那些，我會問自己兩個問題：品質如何？以及破壞性有多大？

I have gone through dozens of examples of bullshit that have come my way in the past couple of days and picked three that are worth calling. The first is a branding document produced for a new Pepsi logo in 2008, and resuscitated last week on Twitter. With diagrams comparing the Earth’s magnetic fields to “Pepsi energy fields” and text that reads: “The Pepsi DNA finds its origin in the dynamic of perimeter oscillations” — it is grade A, unadulterated BS. But on the second question — whether it was damaging — the answer is no. Pepsi changed its logo and carried on selling its brown sugar-water around the world willy-nilly.

過去幾天，我見識了數十個胡扯的例子，並挑出了3個值得拆穿的。第一個是2008年爲百事(Pepsi)新標誌所做的品牌文案，最近在Twitter上重新流傳開來。文案中用示意圖把地球磁場與“百事能量場”相比，配以文字：“百事在邊緣震盪的動力學中找到了其DNA的起源(The Pepsi DNA finds its origin in the dynamic of perimeter oscillations)”——這是A級，純粹的胡扯。但是在第二個問題上——是否具有破壞性——答案是否定的。百事改了標誌，繼續隨心所欲地在全世界賣它的棕色甜飲料。

Even so, bullshit like this deserves to be called both for its exceptional quality, and because doing so might encourage its perpetrators to have a dark night of the soul in which they wonder what on earth they are up to.

即便如此，這樣的胡扯也值得拆穿，因爲它“令人叫絕”的品質，也因爲拆穿它可能會促使它的炮製者在深夜拷問靈魂，反思自己到底要幹嘛。

Exhibit two is a document from Deliveroo on its preferred language for describing the poor sods who cycle round with other people’s smelly takeaways on their backs. The memo bans “employees”, replacing it with “independent suppliers”, and forbids “pay” and “hiring” preferring “invoices” and “onboarding” instead.

第二個例子是Deliveroo的一份文件，它在文件中列出了自己傾向於用哪些字眼來形容那些騎着車、揹着氣味濃重的外賣包到處送外賣的可憐人。這份文件禁止使用“僱員”一詞，代之以“獨立供應商”；禁止使用“薪水”和“僱傭”這兩個詞，而傾向於用“發票”和“登船”替代。

On the quality measure this bullshit is tame. “Independent supplier” and “invoice” are innocuous, and “onboarding”, though regrettable as a gerund, especially with no boat in sight, is so common there is little point in protesting. But on the measure of harm, Deliveroo’s memo is wicked. It knows that if people used the ordinary words “employee” and “hire”, they might make the mistake of thinking they were due ordinary things like holidays and sick pay — which Deliveroo doggedly denies them.

就品質而言，這條胡扯平淡無奇。“獨立供應商”和“發票”無傷大雅；至於“登船”，儘管這個詞令人遺憾地是個動名詞（尤其是在語境跟船毫無關係的情況下），但這個詞那麼普通，抗議它根本沒有什麼意義。但就破壞性而言，Deliveroo的文件是不道德的。它知道如果人們使用了“僱員”和“僱傭”這類普通詞彙，他們可能會錯以爲自己有權享有假期和病假這些普通的福利——這是Deliveroo堅決否認的。

The third example comes from Jim Norton, who has the delightfully bullshitty title of chief business officer, president of revenue at Condé Nast. Last week he outlined his new strategy to all staff in a memo that began “Team” and proceeded with a stream of corporate nonsense about playbooks and journeys and wide arrays of differentiated solutions. It glossed over sackings as “hard personnel decisions”, only to declare the new corporate plan: “Condé Nast One”.

第3個例子來自吉姆?諾頓(Jim Norton)，他在康泰納仕出版集團(Condé Nast)的頭銜荒謬到令人發笑——首席業務官、營收總裁。不久前，他在發給全體員工的備忘錄中概述了他的新策略，備忘錄中以“團隊”開頭，繼而展開了一連串有關劇本和旅程的企業廢話以及大量差異化解決方案。它把解僱包裝成了“艱難的人事決策”，只爲了宣佈新的企業計劃：“康泰納仕同舟共濟”(Condé Nast One)。

For companies to claim themselves “one” is standard bullshit — it is a cliché and a lie, given the inevitable number of vested interests in any organisation. If Mr Norton were in the motor trade or banking, I might let this pass. Yet Condé Nast publishes Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, where standards of editing are so exacting that one of the latter’s editors has written a whole book based on the correct placement of a comma.

對於企業來說，自稱“同舟”是標準的胡扯——鑑於任何組織中都不可避免地存在一些既得利益，這麼說既老套、也是謊言。如果諾頓在汽車業或銀行業，我可能放他一馬。但康泰納仕是《名利場》(Vanity Fair)和《紐約客》(The New Yorker)的出版商，其編輯標準如此嚴苛，以至於《紐約客》的一名編輯就插入逗號的正確位置寫了整整一本書。

Mr Norton may well bang on about the “heritage of quality journalism”, but had he asked his staff to edit his battle cry: “We will all transition this business together”, they would surely have told him transition was ugly as a verb, but as a transitive one was a monster. He did not ask; what his staff did instead was read the memo, call it, and forward it to me.

諾頓完全可以繼續大談“高質量新聞的傳統”，但要是他在備忘錄發出前讓員工編輯了一下他的戰鬥口號——“我們所有人將一起轉型這家企業”——的話，他們必然會告訴他，把轉型用作動詞就夠糟糕了，用作及物動詞簡直就是災難。可惜他沒有問；於是他的員工閱讀了這篇備忘錄，心裏暗罵胡扯，然後轉發給了我。