A common Transformation Blocker – Corporate Horoscope Language™: Vague Enough to Be Always Right, Useless Enough to Need 10 Follow-Up Meetings

Welcome to Corporate Horoscope Language™ – the art of sounding profound while saying nothing.

Each sentence is perfectly vague. Always true. Very generic and never specific. Zero calories, zero value. They fit every project and, frankly, almost every situation.  Just like a horoscope.

Classic hits:

▪ “First we need clear goals.” → Groundbreaking. Which goals, exactly?

▪  “We need to be more customer-centric.” → Cool, which customer pain are we actually ignoring?

▪ My personal all-time favourite: “We need to define the next steps to find a solution.” → You can say this in every meeting until retirement. You’ll never be wrong. You’ll also never be useful.

This is exactly why meetings have so many sequels.

You can have a 60-minute conversation with someone fluent in Corporate Horoscope Language and walk out realizing nothing was actually said or achieved.

The dark truth:

➡️ Vague = safe. Specific = risk.

➡️ The higher you climb, the more fluent people are in this language . (I wonder, what came first: the promotion or the mastery of saying nothing.)

I once worked with a manger, who inspired the term Corporate Horoscope Language.

He was utterly convinced of his brilliance, yet most of what he said was essentially a blank page decorated with correct-sounding words that were useless.

 It’s a way of maintaining the "know-it-all" persona without ever taking a measurable risk.

For the organization it was toxic: confusion that quietly strangled progress and change. It was a silent killer of productivity. Working in that intellectual fog is exhausting—you end up doing your job and his mental heavy lifting.

This is why it is important to watch out for Corporate Horoscope Language.

Takeaway?

Precision and clarity in communication are non-negotiable for any transformation to actually happen. If communication flows, real progress can follow.

Which vague phrase makes you die a little inside every time you hear it? Drop your favourites below. 👇

P.S.: I believe in the world of psychology this is called "pseudo profound bullshit" and some just call it corporate speak.