The Find: Business gurus often talk about the need for straight talk and hard truths, but at least one professor and author is championing the value of bullsh*t.- The Source: A Financial Times column by Stefan Stern addressing Beyond Bullsh*t: Straight Talk at Work by Stephen Culbert, a professor of management at the University of California in Los Angeles.
The Takeaway: Whatever the case may be in PR or sales, in management BS isn’t generally regarded as a skill to be proud of, but we all know it’s omnipresent at the office. Culbert for one feels that’s just how it should be (or at least how it’s going to stay). His basic position: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, and be positive about it:
Bullsh*t has become the etiquette of choice in corporate communications. It has become so deeply ingrained in the workplace, and so much part of the normal, everyday run of things, that, in the majority of cases, it is probably better not to question people’s use of it.
Before you hit the comments button to express your rage at Culbert and argue that the path of BS ends at the doorstep of Enron, consider that what we think of as BS might be better thought of as tact. Stern opines: “Management is not like speed dating. You can’t go too far too fast. There is inevitably a getting-to-know-you process before moving on to the direct, unvarnished stuff. That is where necessary bullsh*t comes in.”
Possibly. But whatever your view of the value of BS, make no mistake about how widespread fudging the facts is in the workplace. Stern points out that when former G.E. CEO and rabid BS-hater, Jack Welch, and his wife ask conference attendees how many received a frank and honest performance evaluation in the last year, only a tiny ten percent say they’ve been told the unvarnished truth. Could something so widespread be so utterly counter-productive?
The Question: Bullsh*t: a valuable tool in the business toolkit or the first step on the road to perdition?
