Managers who get misty-eyed over mush like “synergistic leadership,” or “growth-hacking paradigms” may struggle with decision-making, a new Cornell study reveals.
In Personality and Individual Differences, research from Cornell University, cognitive psychologist Shane Littrell introduces the Corporate Bullshit Receptivity Scale (CBSR). It is a tool built to measure who falls for impressive-sounding organisational waffle.
Corporate BS is everywhere, so Littrell wanted to know if it does real harm. He built a “corporate bullshit generator” that pumps out nonsense dressed up as strategy.
It produces lines such as, “We will actualise a renewed level of cradle-to-grave credentialing” and “By getting our friends in the tent with our best practices, we will pressure-test a renewed level of adaptive coherence.”
Littrell then asked more than 1,000 office workers to rate the “business savvy” of these machine-made pearls alongside real quotes from Fortune 500 leaders. If that sounds grim, imagine being paid to read the submissions.
The results delivered a nasty little paradox. People more receptive to corporate BS rated their supervisors as more charismatic and “visionary,” while scoring lower on analytic thinking, cognitive reflection and fluid intelligence.
Those same workers performed worse on a test of effective workplace decision-making. They reported higher job satisfaction and felt inspired by the company’s mission statements, then went on to spread the jargon around the office.
Staff most hyped by “visionary” corporate sludge may be the ones least equipped to make practical calls when the spreadsheet starts screaming.
