Summary

The article discusses the use of passive voice in corporate communication, particularly in Uber's IPO filing, as a means to avoid accountability and obscure responsibility, which is indicative of a shift from a startup mentality to a more traditional corporate culture.

Abstract

The article "Corporate Grammar: Passive Voice and the Death of Accountability" delves into the implications of using passive voice in corporate communications, taking Uber's IPO filing as a case study. It argues that the passive voice, which allows for the omission of the subject responsible for an action, is often employed to evade accountability and mask the origins of problems within a company. The author, drawing from personal experience in a large bank, suggests that this linguistic choice is symptomatic of a larger cultural shift in a company from a dynamic, startup-like environment to a more conventional, bureaucratic corporation. The passive voice is seen as a tool for obfuscation in highly political corporate settings, leading to a lack of clarity and accountability, which in turn can hinder efficiency and progress. The article encourages startups and small businesses to adopt an active voice in their communications to maintain clarity, assign ownership, and foster a culture of accountability.

Opinions

The author believes that the use of passive voice in corporate communications, as exemplified by Uber's IPO filing, is a strategic choice to avoid pinpointing responsibility for issues within the company.
The passive voice is criticized for creating a sense of ambiguity regarding who is accountable for mistakes or problems, leading to long email chains and unproductive meetings.
The article suggests that in large corporations, the passive voice is a "survival mechanism" used to navigate a highly political environment where taking direct responsibility

Corporate Grammar: Passive Voice and the Death of Accountability

Mistakes were made

If you ever had to say when a startup stops being a startup and turns into any normal corporation, filing for an IPO is a pretty good indication.

And with this change comes an adoption of the type of corporate grammar that signals your days of moving fast and “changing the world” are pretty much over.

Case in point: check out Uber’s IPO filing from last week which sounds about as corporate as can be. For example:

Our workplace culture and forward-leaning approach got us to where we are today, but it was clear to our new management team that Uber needed to make a commitment to resolve our historical cultural and compliance problems.

(credit to Matt Levine who originally dug up this quote over at his blog on Bloomberg)

Notice that from reading this we can’t be sure who is actually responsible for Uber’s problems! — only that they can be attributed to Uber’s workplace culture and “forward-leaning approach”. But we are not told where those came from either!

It is like this rogue workplace culture appeared out of thin air and wreaked havoc, rather than being a creation of the company’s leadership team.

This is a great example of what grammar books call “passive voice” in action. And any time you hear lots of passive voice, alarm bells should be going off — somebody is probably trying to hide something!

If you have worked for any amount of time in a highly political corporate culture, there is no doubt that you will have used a lot of passive voice.

I know because I worked in one of the largest banks in the world for almost 10 years and this is how I wrote all of my emails, spoke in meetings and heard everybody around me speaking — because in a large corporation, it’s a survival mechanism.

But if you’re running a startup or a small business where you need to move quickly, be creative, and get things done, this type of corporate grammar signals that you are wasting time and losing your edge.

Passive voice

As a quick grammar refresher let’s look at two examples that say the same thing, but one in active voice and one in passive voice:

Active Voice:

I made a mistake

Passive Voice:

A mistake was made (by me)

Note the parenthesis around the “by me”. This is because the subject of the sentence in passive voice is the mistake, so you can actually omit whoever made the mistake and it will still be perfectly correct and understood.

Where if you use the active voice, somebody has to do the mistake-making… it just doesn’t make sense if you remove the “I”.

When I first started my career in banking, I remember reading all of these emails from more senior bankers that were full of passive voice and I would think — “wow, these guys are so professional.”

And in no time, after a little bit of copying what I heard, my emails were soon sounding just like theirs:

The numbers for this month were missed by 10%
Costs exceeded the budgeted amount
There was an unforeseeable delay that kept the report from going out as usual on Friday but it will go out on Monday

In a large corporation, there’s no better way to give bad news than to omit who is responsible by using passive voice.

But the result is that you have long email chains, lots of meetings and a general sense of confusion about who is doing what and who is accountable when things go wrong — and of course everything then takes a really long time.

Be accountable

There are some articles out there on passive voice in the workplace that look at this from the the perspective of an individual managing their own career.

They make the case that passive voice might be holding back your career and that if you use the active voice more, you will be seen as someone who takes responsibility for their mistakes and will take charge of a situation.

I would actually caution against this as general career advice and it really depends on the company, as this would not have worked very well in my old bank!

In that environment you wouldn’t want to be the only person raising your hand for blame when everyone else was ducking for cover. As much as corporations want to talk the talk about failure being OK, this is still not something that is rewarded nor is it something you want to be seen doing.

But look, I’m not concerned about survival strategies in large, dysfunctional corporations anymore.

And if you’re not either, ditch the passive voice.

This will help you:

Assign ownership
Take accountability (or even blame if necessary)
Avoid confusion
Get things done

Plus, if you’re a writer, the active voice is much clearer and is generally encouraged on platforms like Medium since it helps readers whose first language is not English to understand and absorb more of your material.

Bottom line: if you have a startup or a small business, try to make the active voice a conscious part of your culture. Be clear about who is doing what and who is responsible.

As soon as the passive voice creeps in, you are becoming corporate with all of the shiftiness and lack of accountability that comes with it. And that will slow you down.

This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by +443,678 people.

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