Corporate Conversation

Patricia Sueltz recently wrote, on Forbes.com, about the Sun-Oracle (Oracle-Sun, if anybody's keeping PC score) deal. Besides being a very saucy-looking lady who would probably be a joy with whom to converse, she prompted a question or two with her recounting of a corporate interaction between Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems and Larry Ellison of Oracle.

"I recall a moment during my tenure with Sun when we wanted Oracle to join us on an important software announcement to the market. We had Scott's approval to move forward, but the Oracle team needed the final OK from Larry, who was traveling. Scott had to use his magic to reach Larry. Even that had left us on edge: We were at the "witching hour," literally moments before the announcement and had not heard from Larry. As Scott walked onto the podium, his cellphone rang. He answered it. 'Great, thanks, Larry. I love ya, man!' The deal was done.

Intrigue, excitement and a passion for winning played out live, in real time. The crowd cheered; everyone loved it."

This immediately brought to mind a corporate-to-client email I recently received that began "Dear Valued Client" and ended with "Your [Company] Support Team." In between those two phrases was more corporate-speak, such as "a solutions' lifecycle" and "with the indication of accepted or not accepted to the release roadmap."

Why is it that two corporate VIPs like Larry Ellison and Scott McNealy can be warm and personal, using first names and lovely...er, I mean, macho...endearments while corporate underlings feel so enamored (intimidated?) with Corporate Culture that they can't even sign a friggin' email with a real name or take the time to generate a more personalized salutation, no less speak in human-ese?

You know, all businesses start out as two or so people talking to each other, working together, using first names and normal English. Once you reach the corporate upper echelons, apparently the same etiquette rules also apply. My question is this: at what point do people become corporations or bureaucracies accepting corporate-speak as normal and corporate protocol as proper? Since we don't need that PC crap to start success and the most successful don't need it, what the hell do we need it for in between?

Leave your insecurites, your inability to accept responsibility, and you baby binkies at home; let's talk to each other like reasonable adults, not hide behind corporate castle walls and politically nauseating correctness, regardless of our ladder rung.