The 69 Words GM Employees Can Never Say

bizwriter (1064470) writes "General Motors put together its take on a George Carlin list of words you can't say. Engineering employees were shown 69 words and phrases that were not to be used in emails, presentations, or memos. They include: defect, defective, safety, safety related, dangerous, bad, and critical. You know, words that the average person, in the context of the millions of cars that GM has recalled, might understand as indicative of underlying problems at the company. Oh, terribly sorry, 'problem' was on the list as well."

Comments

When you gag the enginers ...

[johnjaydk]

You get a Challenger disaster.

In my experience, You have to use exactly these words in order to get management to take problems serious. Turns out it was because they put management in a legal bind.

Any engineer who follows GM's edict should be flogged. Bad stuff happens because good men do nothing.

Re:When you gag the enginers ...

[jellomizer]

Playing devils advocate here

However the engineer, is often overly cautious, to the extreme, and sometimes have a fit if they don't get there way, and having engineers over exaggerating to get their point across isn't unheard of.

The words seem to be "Power Words" terms that get people to agree without only on an emotional basis. So an engineer can use them to get his way, without really backing himself up. And if his idea gets rejected and the media gets their hands on the email, there is a huge PR problem, where the email is taken out of contexts.

Lets just say this discussion was about the vanity mirror, the engineer wants it to be bolted on, vs. a plastic clip. His design is superior because the bolts will last longer. However other engineers find the plastic clip is good enough, and looks better. The engineer who proposes the bolts may fill a bit annoyed that they went with an other design. So he may complain to protest his point, and over emphasize the risks of the plastic clips, and toss in a few of those power words. To try to get his way. Then a few years down the line, there is an unrelated problem with the car, and there is a law suit. They find emails from an engineer discussing doom and gloom. Now the media will have a field day with that. Even though it was unrelated.

It's the lawyers

[LarryWMSN]

If you've ever been deposed as part of a lawsuit, the lawyer will go through every email and key on those particular words to present them is the worst possible light. I had to go through this once and spent three days, basically, justifying every word I used. Now when a customer comes to me and says they have a problem or something is not working, I will ask, "what behavior are you expecting to see and what are you seeing?" When we resolve the "problem", we simply say they should see the expected behavior now and please get back to us if they don't. It sucks but that's the reality.

GM definitely knew they had problems and didn't fix them, but I'm sure there were many emails that were unrelated to their intentional disregard to the known problems that they had to defend along the way. Every little sentence or word that someone has to justify means more time with the lawyers racking up fees. You can't skirt around real problems with the change in words, but it makes it harder for the lawyers to bring in unrelated or insignificant facts into the mix.

Re:Note to myself:

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Sure, "cataclysmic" doesn't belong in an engineering email, but "always", "never", "critical", "serious", "safety", "safety-related", "dangerous" and (best of all, IMO) "problem"? That isn't engineers avoiding hyperbole, that's lawyers avoiding the truth.

Re:So how to report an actual problem?

[L4t3r4lu5]

"Synergies"? Nope.
"Paradigm"? Absent.
"Holistic approach"? No.
Dude, there isn't a "proactive" in there anywhere.

Now, if you'd have said this was a press release from Pyongyang, I'd have agreed with you.