Euphemisms for Morally Disengaged Managers

Presentation, Not Content

Presentation is at least as important as content and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise: words matter, deeply and importantly. Just not in a very nice way.

Whatever we do we accompany with a logic of self-justification which is frequently built on an architecture of euphemisms designed to support such behaviour, no matter how immoral and unethical it might be. This is part of a psychological process known as moral disengagement, and is key to understanding why corporations go bad and their managers believe they’ve done nothing wrong.

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Disposed to Lose Money

Quizzical Behaviour

Most people think that game show hosts are more knowledgeable and intelligent than the people they ply with their inane questions. Obviously they’re more knowledgeable: they have the answers in front of them, but are they smarter?

Despite the obvious fact that assuming someone is smart because they can read answers off a card without falling over is blatantly absurd, this fairly straightforward observation makes little difference to studies of this behaviour, the tendency to attribute to a person certain fundamental qualities based on nothing more than the situation we find them in. As usual, this is a one way ticket to losing money.

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