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Warning Rant The language in this article is the kind of thing that makes me hate sociology and business literature. They invent jargon to pretend they have 'd

Warning Rant The language in this article is the kind of thing that makes me hate sociology and business literature. They invent jargon to pretend they have 'discovered' something to get published. Because they are not controlled, interventional, reputable scientific disciplines they have to generate their 'discoveries' out of thin air and nonsense. It's called having a conscience. Why do we need your BS terminology for people acting ethically? Pride, self-respect, decency. The English language is resplendent with words to describe this phenomenon. Keep your moral injury and shove it in your lived experience. End Rant

blablabla123 5y ago
Yeah, all these cool names like toxic workplaces, burnout didn't bring us much further. (Maybe I'm biased subjectively and through my choice of workplaces but from what I see it just gets more.) OTOH I think language and the chance of looking stupid/lazy are limiting factors of efficiently raising these topics. In fact I strongly believe in practice bringing up any of these topics directly just makes them worse but silently acting against that actually has an effect on the long-term
civilized 5y ago
You're not wrong but I thought it was relatively good for an HBR. This publication is normally quite a bit more nauseating.
pinewurst 5y ago
Honestly, do you expect any more from Harvard Business Review? Book recommendation: “The Golden Passport: Harvard Business School, the Limits of Capitalism, and the Moral Failure of the MBA Elite” by Duff McDonald. (I liked his previous book on McKinsey better but there’s good stuff here too.)
teawrecks 5y ago
Of course the concept of a "conscience" is equally unscientific. Also Wikipedia defines "moral injury" in terms of a conscience.
itsdrewmiller 5y ago
Wow this is one of the worst articles I've ever read that I almost 100% agree with in principle. "spalencing = spa + silencing" was the shark jump for me. Maybe the linked study is better?
- civilized 5y ago
  I hate forced portmanteaus. It reeks of "trying to make fetch happen."
coffeefirst 5y ago
I call these "Gilded Words." They're all new and shiny, superficially expensive, but with little to no substance under the surface. This article actually has things to say. It would say them better if it referred to "integrity" and "breach of trust" and "principles," which, like "decency" have specific meanings, and do not leave me wondering what a moral center is, how it relates to a moral top, and what it even means to "harm" this novel abstraction.
- JimTheMan 5y ago
  Emergent is my favourite. Perhaps it has been poorly described to me, but it doesn't seem to add anything to the ideas it gets applied against.
  - coffeefirst 5y ago
    That's an especially good one because an "emergent property" is a very specific thing, but people use it to replace "new" (for dramatic effect) and then I have no idea what they're talking about. I also like "intentionality" which suddenly appears everywhere and means "put thought into." Authors who like that word never seem to specify the content of those thoughts, and therefore delegate all of the hard work of actually having thoughts worth expressing off to other people.
refurb 5y ago
Indeed. It's taking old ideas and framing them in new ways. If your boss asks you do something you don't agree with, then don't do it. Not sure why I need an article from HBR.
nstart 5y ago
First up, that's a completely rational/understandable position to have on this topic. Business papers constantly involve jargon to get themselves published. Given the context of this particular article I wanted to share somewhat of a counter point to this that I learnt a few years ago. From my readings and experience, what's happening here is that we are creating a shared vocabulary, or, pedagogy, to describe shared experiences. I used to think it was bunkum until I read some books including pedagogy of the oppressed. The truth is, when we have these terms that we can share and discuss, it gives a lot of power for affected people to express what they are feeling more clearly. In the example of this article, one could read it as tackling the topic of individual ethical compasses. Ethics has fuzzy edges all over. Sometimes, business needs will cross those fuzzy edges but it's not necessarily unethical. An example will be asking people to temporarily set aside the discomfort they are feeling with a a local situation (eg: politics) that affects their personal life in a long term manner. It sucks. Work also needs to get done. There's a good chance you hurt an individual's ethics along the way. An individual can feel ashamed of themselves sometimes when they feel they are doing work that ignores the plight of people around them. If you go about this the wrong way (completely innocently) you end up causing... what? Describing these moments is much easier when you have the right words to use it. And the thing is, it's really hard to understand how it's useful until you've experienced it yourself (i.e., suddenly having the right words to express yourself). Hence, lived experiences. Finally it's worth noting that these terms don't get invented out of thin air. Moral injury has a history dating back to 1984 for example(wikipedia page on moral injury). These terms are born out of iteration as people strive together to find ways to describe how they are feel. And personally, I think that the language enables that is actually something to embrace and celebrate.

blablabla123 5y ago

Yeah, all these cool names like toxic workplaces, burnout didn't bring us much further. (Maybe I'm biased subjectively and through my choice of workplaces but from what I see it just gets more.) OTOH I think language and the chance of looking stupid/lazy are limiting factors of efficiently raising these topics. In fact I strongly believe in practice bringing up any of these topics directly just makes them worse but silently acting against that actually has an effect on the long-term

civilized 5y ago

You're not wrong but I thought it was relatively good for an HBR. This publication is normally quite a bit more nauseating.

pinewurst 5y ago

Honestly, do you expect any more from Harvard Business Review? Book recommendation: “The Golden Passport: Harvard Business School, the Limits of Capitalism, and the Moral Failure of the MBA Elite” by Duff McDonald. (I liked his previous book on McKinsey better but there’s good stuff here too.)

teawrecks 5y ago

Of course the concept of a "conscience" is equally unscientific. Also Wikipedia defines "moral injury" in terms of a conscience.

itsdrewmiller 5y ago

Wow this is one of the worst articles I've ever read that I almost 100% agree with in principle. "spalencing = spa + silencing" was the shark jump for me. Maybe the linked study is better?

civilized 5y ago
I hate forced portmanteaus. It reeks of "trying to make fetch happen."

coffeefirst 5y ago

I call these "Gilded Words." They're all new and shiny, superficially expensive, but with little to no substance under the surface. This article actually has things to say. It would say them better if it referred to "integrity" and "breach of trust" and "principles," which, like "decency" have specific meanings, and do not leave me wondering what a moral center is, how it relates to a moral top, and what it even means to "harm" this novel abstraction.

JimTheMan 5y ago
Emergent is my favourite. Perhaps it has been poorly described to me, but it doesn't seem to add anything to the ideas it gets applied against.
- coffeefirst 5y ago
  That's an especially good one because an "emergent property" is a very specific thing, but people use it to replace "new" (for dramatic effect) and then I have no idea what they're talking about. I also like "intentionality" which suddenly appears everywhere and means "put thought into." Authors who like that word never seem to specify the content of those thoughts, and therefore delegate all of the hard work of actually having thoughts worth expressing off to other people.

refurb 5y ago

Indeed. It's taking old ideas and framing them in new ways. If your boss asks you do something you don't agree with, then don't do it. Not sure why I need an article from HBR.

nstart 5y ago

First up, that's a completely rational/understandable position to have on this topic. Business papers constantly involve jargon to get themselves published. Given the context of this particular article I wanted to share somewhat of a counter point to this that I learnt a few years ago. From my readings and experience, what's happening here is that we are creating a shared vocabulary, or, pedagogy, to describe shared experiences. I used to think it was bunkum until I read some books including pedagogy of the oppressed. The truth is, when we have these terms that we can share and discuss, it gives a lot of power for affected people to express what they are feeling more clearly. In the example of this article, one could read it as tackling the topic of individual ethical compasses. Ethics has fuzzy edges all over. Sometimes, business needs will cross those fuzzy edges but it's not necessarily unethical. An example will be asking people to temporarily set aside the discomfort they are feeling with a a local situation (eg: politics) that affects their personal life in a long term manner. It sucks. Work also needs to get done. There's a good chance you hurt an individual's ethics along the way. An individual can feel ashamed of themselves sometimes when they feel they are doing work that ignores the plight of people around them. If you go about this the wrong way (completely innocently) you end up causing... what? Describing these moments is much easier when you have the right words to use it. And the thing is, it's really hard to understand how it's useful until you've experienced it yourself (i.e., suddenly having the right words to express yourself). Hence, lived experiences. Finally it's worth noting that these terms don't get invented out of thin air. Moral injury has a history dating back to 1984 for example(wikipedia page on moral injury). These terms are born out of iteration as people strive together to find ways to describe how they are feel. And personally, I think that the language enables that is actually something to embrace and celebrate.