Management speak; platitudes
Published Sept. 23, 2025
I try to avoid cliches as a consultant. There’s a substantial history and criticism of business, consultants and even politicians corrupting language and saying very little while talking a whole lot. Ask George. [1]
The big problem I run into is that platitudes about business obscure the most important parts. Internal logic. A platitude is the end result, and often a desired one. It’s the primary reason a lot of consultants will tell you that clarifying goals is an important step to strategy. “I wanna make more money” is a great motivator. It doesn’t translate well into organizational goals or measurements.
Simultaneously a basketball coach can get nods of approval with a platitude and a motivational speech, “Practice doesn’t make perfect it makes habits. We win games by having the best habits.” It’s only with intense horror or delight that his plan to “Practice three point shots because we want to be the best in the league at playing from the outside” follows.
Basketball may bore you
If you say that you want to make more money and do it with wine, then say that you’re only going to sell expensive full bottles rather than explore a diverse glass program, it may evoke the same reaction as angry sports fans, from staff and investors.
Platitudes are often things that people agree on; but virtually no one will agree how to get there. The answers from situation to situation can be un-intuitive, creative or down right boring. Your decision making in achieving goals needs to be informed by all of these differing opinions to get a real sense of the market. Each solution has to be crafted to each business.
Just like mine.
It’s easy to assume the world is getting smaller. That it’s easier to deploy solutions. Things like, IT, AI, cellphones, GPS, more transparency in business and better general education, actually contribute to more complicated markets than ever before. Some of the most successful restaurants are built tackling base assumptions about themselves and customers. Questions about value, about traffic, pricing. Sometimes they do it by virtue of contrast, superlative, innovation or inversion of expectation.
Tasting menus are cropping up in rural areas & small to medium cities along with that creeping city pricing [2]. Indienne paved the way for a stellar tasting menu at $90 in Chicago in 2022 and has been moving the needle on fine-casual menus with their current offerings. [3,4]
Imagine what tomorrow looks like across each market in the US and in your city.
Sources and additional reading:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEeDRUZIDq8 - special thanks to this channel for having this video around in short form: content advisory of politics and typical YouTube comments section
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/dining/restaurant-prices.html