The fluorescent lights in the boardroom are humming at a frequency that feels like it’s trying to drill a hole directly through my left temple, a sensation that is uncomfortably reminiscent of my dentist’s office yesterday. I spent 42 minutes in that chair, attempting to make small talk with a man whose hands were deep inside my mouth. It’s an exercise in futility, trying to articulate your thoughts on the local weather when your tongue is pinned down by a suction tube. You just make these rhythmic, guttural noises and hope for a shred of human connection. Now, sitting here in this 12-person meeting, I realize the noises coming out of the Vice President of Strategy aren’t much different. He is currently pointing a laser at a slide that features a stock photo of a mountain climber, asking us which of two product features better ‘harmonizes with our evolutionary commitment to human-centric value actualization.’
The Vacuum of Meaning
An awkward, heavy silence fills the room. It’s the kind of silence that has weight-maybe 22 pounds of collective confusion pressing down on the mahogany table. No one knows what it means. We all look at the climber. We look at the words. I look at my notebook, where I’ve doodled a very detailed sketch of a
sandwich. In this strategic vacuum, the air is thin, and the brain starts to play tricks. We are all participating in a shared hallucination, a collective agreement to pretend that these 42 words on a slide actually mean something, when in reality, they provide as much direction as a compass in a magnet factory.
I’ve spent 12 years watching companies trade clarity for comfort. We call it a ‘Vision Statement’ because ‘A Bunch of Words We Hope Sound Smart to Investors’ doesn’t fit well on a lanyard. But when the vision is this thin, something dangerous happens. The vacuum doesn’t stay empty. In the absence of a simple, actionable truth, the most powerful force in the office becomes politics. It’s no longer about what is right for the customer; it’s about who has the loudest voice or the most 82-page slide decks to back up their personal agenda.
Language as a Diagnostic Tool
Antonio J.-P., an addiction recovery coach I’ve worked with on a few organizational health projects, once told me that the first thing to go when a person starts sliding back into old patterns isn’t their behavior-it’s their language. They start using ‘mushy’ words. They stop saying ‘I am angry’ and start saying ‘Things are feeling somewhat suboptimal in the interpersonal sphere.’ Antonio J.-P. treats language as a diagnostic tool. If you can’t say it simply, you’re usually lying to yourself, or you’re too scared to face the reality of the situation. In his world, clarity is a matter of life or death for the 102 clients he sees in a year. In the corporate world, we just use it to justify 32 more meetings.
[The hallucination only works if we all agree to keep our eyes closed at the same time.]
I think back to the dentist. The physical pain of the drill was actually less frustrating than the attempt at conversation. At least the drill had a specific purpose. It was removing decay. In this meeting, the decay is the language itself. We are debating whether to add a ‘Social Sharing’ button or a ‘Dark Mode’ toggle, and we are trying to filter that decision through a vision statement that sounds like it was generated by a malfunctioning refrigerator. If we were honest, we’d admit that we’re just guessing. But guessing feels unprofessional. Guessing doesn’t justify a $1002-a-day consulting fee. So, we hallucinate. We pretend the mountain climber is telling us to choose the sharing button because ‘evolutionary commitment’ implies growth, and growth is social. See? I just made that up in 2 seconds, and if I said it with enough conviction, half the room would nod.
The Ghost Hunter
Loudest Voice
Interpretation to suit personal needs.
Actionable Truth
Direction for the customer experience.
When the vision is a ghost, the person with the most ‘authority’ becomes the ghost hunter. They interpret the vision to suit their needs.
The Arrogance of Complexity
I once knew a manager who spent 52 days drafting a single paragraph about ‘synergy’-wait, I promised myself I wouldn’t use that word-he spent that time on
‘integrated excellence.’ By the time he was done, he had 122 different versions of the same sentence. None of them could tell a junior developer whether they should prioritize site speed or new icons. It’s a specific kind of arrogance, believing that complexity equals depth. It’s the same arrogance I had trying to explain the nuances of my weekend to my dentist. I should have just stayed quiet and let him pull the tooth.
The Power of the Small Truth
Escaping the Lie
We are obsessed with the ‘Big Idea’ because we are terrified of the ‘Small Truth.’ The small truth is that most businesses exist to solve a boring problem for a specific group of people. But
‘We help people track their expenses so they don’t go broke’ doesn’t look as good on a mural as ‘Empowering Global Financial Literacy through Seamless Interaction.’ So we choose the mural. We choose the hallucination. And then we wonder why 62 percent of our staff feels disengaged. They aren’t disengaged from the work; they’re disengaged from the lie.
The cost of the lie made visible.
When the work becomes this strategically adrift, the human mind looks for an exit. We crave clarity. We crave environments where the rules are fixed and the goals are visible. This is why, after a long day of navigating the murky waters of ‘human-centric value actualization,’ so many of us retreat into the digital worlds of ems89คือ or similar entertainment hubs. There, the vision is clear. You have a quest. You have a score. You have a definitive outcome. The leisure space provides the structural integrity that the modern office has discarded in favor of aspirational fluff. In a game, if the goal is to reach the castle, no one pauses to ask if reaching the castle aligns with their ‘evolutionary commitment.’ They just walk toward the castle.
The Allure of Simple Objectives
Corporate Fluff
Multidimensional Vision
Digital Quest
Definitive Outcome
Antonio J.-P. often says that the biggest hurdle in recovery isn’t the craving; it’s the boredom of reality. Reality is simple, and simple is boring. It’s much more exciting to live in a drama-filled hallucination of your own making. Companies do the same thing. They create high-stakes dramas around ‘transformational visions’ because the reality-making sure the software doesn’t crash and the customers are treated well-is just too mundane to fill a 112-slide PowerPoint presentation.
The Coaster Incident
I remember one specific mistake I made early in my career. I was tasked with defining the ‘culture’ of a small tech firm. I spent 2 weeks writing a 12-page manifesto. I used words like ‘holistic’ and ‘omni-channel’ and ‘paradigm-shifting.’ I felt like a god of industry. I printed it on high-quality paper. A year later, I found a stack of those manifestos being used as coasters in the breakroom. The employees hadn’t read them. Instead, the ‘culture’ had been defined by the fact that the CEO never thanked anyone and the coffee machine was always broken. That was the reality. My manifesto was just a hallucination I had invited them to join, and they had politely declined by putting their sweaty mugs on it.
Prioritizing the Mundane
We need to stop asking if things ‘align with the vision’ and start asking if they ‘solve the problem.’ If you can’t explain your strategy to a 12-year-old without them rolling their eyes, you don’t have a strategy; you have a poem. And usually, it’s a bad poem. There is a certain dignity in the mundane. There is a certain power in saying,
‘We make shoes that don’t hurt.’ It’s not poetic, but it tells the designer what to do and the marketer what to say.
Complexity is a shroud for those who are afraid to lead.
Twelve Directions at Once
As the meeting dragged into its 82nd minute, I realized that the Vice President was still talking about the mountain climber. He was now comparing the climber’s carabiner to our API strategy. It was a masterpiece of nonsense. I looked around the room and saw 12 different people nodding in 12 different directions. We were all in the same room, but we were all living in different versions of the hallucination. One person thought the carabiner meant security. Another thought it meant flexibility. Another was just wondering if there would be bagels at the 2 o’clock meeting.
For deciding on two features.
I think about Antonio J.-P. and his 22-step program for organizational clarity-well, it’s not actually 22 steps, but in my head, everything needs a number. He always asks, ‘What is the one thing that, if we don’t do it, everything else fails?’ That’s the real vision. Everything else is just noise. But noise is comfortable. Noise fills the silence that would otherwise be filled with the terrifying realization that we might not know what we’re doing.
Alignment Achieved (Political)
100%
No one lost face. The mountain climber stays.
Tomorrow, I have a follow-up appointment with the dentist. I suspect I will try to tell him about this meeting while he’s adjusting my filling. I’ll make those same gargled, rhythmic noises, and he’ll nod and say, ‘I understand.’ And in that moment, we will have a more honest connection than I had with anyone in that boardroom today. We will both be acknowledging the absurdity of the situation. He knows I’m just making noise, and I know he’s just pretending to listen. It’s a much simpler hallucination to agree on.
What would happen if we all just stopped? What if, the next time someone asked about ‘human-centric value actualization,’ we just said, ‘I have no idea what those words mean’? The walls wouldn’t crumble. The company wouldn’t vanish. In fact, for the first time in 22 months, we might actually start moving in the same direction.