The Stale Air of Indecision

I’m nursing a copper taste in my mouth, a sharp reminder of a sandwich consumed too quickly between back-to-back calls. It’s a dull, throbbing distraction that matches the rhythm of Marcus’s voice. Marcus is a Director of something involving four acronyms, and right now, he is performing a linguistic magic trick. We have spent 59 minutes debating a software rollout that should have taken 9. The air in the room is stale, smelling faintly of expensive roasted coffee and the cheap industrial carpet that hasn’t been replaced since 1999. Marcus leans back, his hands forming a steeple, and says it. The phrase that makes my wounded tongue want to retreat into my throat. ‘Great discussion, everyone. Let’s put a pin in the budget concerns and circle back once we’ve socialized the concept with the broader stakeholder group.’

I’ve spent 29 years as a conflict resolution mediator, and I can tell you that this moment is a crime. It isn’t just a boring end to a meeting; it is a calculated act of atmospheric dispersal. In my line of work, Eli H.L. is usually the guy you call when the screaming starts, but I find myself increasingly hired for the silence. The polite, jargon-heavy silence where nothing ever dies, yet nothing is ever born. Corporate jargon is not a sign of laziness. We often mock it as if people are just too tired to find better words. That is a mistake. This language is a highly sophisticated technology for diffusing responsibility. It is a protective layer of bubble wrap for the ego.

The Language of Avoidance

If we were to actually decide something, someone would have to be right, and someone would have to be wrong. Worse, someone would be accountable if the software failed to launch by the 29th of the month. By circling back, he ensures that the decision remains a communal ghost, haunting the hallways but never manifesting into a concrete action. It is the ultimate safety mechanism for the middle manager who has seen too many heads roll for the crime of being decisive.

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The circle is a shape designed to prevent friction, but without friction, there is no movement.

I remember a mediation session between two co-founders of a tech startup in room 49 of a glass-walled office in San Francisco. They were stuck on a pivot strategy. One wanted to go lean; the other wanted to chase a $99,000 grant that required a complete rewrite of their codebase. For 149 minutes, they spoke in the dialect of avoidant ghosts. They talked about ‘synergy,’ ‘bandwidth,’ and ‘leveraging internal competencies.’ My tongue was fine that day, but my brain was itching. They weren’t fighting; they were ‘aligning expectations’ into a grave. I finally had to interrupt. I told them that if they used the word ‘synergy’ one more time, I would walk out and keep their deposit. The silence that followed was the first honest thing that had happened in that room all day. Without the jargon, they were just two scared kids who didn’t know how to tell the other that they were terrified of going broke.

The Culture of Blameless Survival

There is a psychological comfort in this avoidance. If a culture optimizes for consensus, it creates a scenario where no single individual can be blamed. If 19 people ‘socialized’ a concept and it failed, then the failure belongs to the system, not the person. It is a brilliant way to survive in a corporate ecosystem, but it is a miserable way to build something of value. The office layout itself often reflects this desire for a blurred reality. Navigating the politics of a modern headquarters feels like consulting a

Zoo Guide

just to understand which creatures are marking their territory and which are simply trying to hide in the tall grass of the breakroom. We move in packs, we speak in codes, and we avoid the sharp edges of truth because sharp edges cause bleeding.

The Ache of Exhaustion

I think back to my bitten tongue. The pain is sharp and localized. It is honest. I know exactly why it hurts and what caused it. Corporate avoidance is the opposite; it is a dull, systemic ache that you can’t quite pin down. You leave a meeting feeling exhausted, despite having done nothing. You have 249 unread emails, and yet you feel like you haven’t communicated with a human being in weeks. That exhaustion comes from the mental energy required to translate ‘let’s socialize this’ into ‘I don’t want to be the one to tell the VP this is a bad idea.’

Alignment vs. Action

We are currently living through an era where ‘alignment’ is prioritized over ‘action.’ You see it in the way we handle feedback. Instead of saying, ‘This report is poorly researched,’ we say, ‘I have some thoughts on how we can further refine the data points to better resonate with the narrative.’ We take 89 words to say what could be said in 5. This isn’t just a waste of time; it’s a waste of human potential. When we use this language, we are essentially telling our colleagues that we don’t trust them to handle the truth. We treat each other like fragile porcelain dolls that will shatter at the first sign of a direct critique.

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Clarity is a risk that most people are unwilling to take because clarity has a signature.

The Necessary Confrontation

I’ve noticed that the most successful people I’ve mediated for are those who are comfortable with the phrase ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I was wrong.’ These are the antitheses of corporate jargon. They are short, they are punchy, and they are deeply vulnerable.

I look at Marcus. I look at the 9 people sitting around the mahogany table. I think about the 59 minutes we just lost.

The silence that follows is uncomfortable. It is heavy. It is beautiful. For the first time in an hour, we are actually in the room together. The ghosts have left. The jargon has evaporated. And although it’s painful-much like my bitten tongue-it’s the only way we’re ever going to get anywhere. Why do we insist on the circle when the straight line is right there, waiting for us to have the courage to walk it?