Recessionary Tongue

We're all geniuses during economic expansion.

We feel like dopes during a recession.

Welcome to the recession, ya big dope. (Don't feel bad. You're the smartest of the dopes.)

When we feel like dopes, nerves get frayed.

...and tongues get loose.

My smartest friends say, "If only folks wouldn't talk about it being a recession, perhaps it wouldn't be a recession."

This might sound simplistic, but let's be honest: what we say leads to what we do.

Time To Measure Our Speech
Rather than talking negatively about the economy — or anything or anyone else — let's celebrate the coming of Our Recession by examining how we talk.

And examining how how we talk leads to how we live. (How how, brown cow?)

To help, the lovely people at Ohio Wesleyan University have asked me to deliver the Woltemade Center’s Annual Heisler Lecture on Business Ethics. Here is the announcement — and your invitation.

So I'm going to do it, by golly. (You don't have to ask me twice.) Together, we will explore the ethics of speech and how businesses — and our lives in business — are shaped by what we say.

It's free and open to the public. This means you. Please come. Here are directions to the event.

Comments

[Marie R.]

I was just thinking about this topic today. I read an online headline that said, "The Recession is Here." I thought to myself, but what if I hadn't read that? What if no one had read that? Would anyone even realize that there is a recession? Would there even BE a recession without all of this nervous talk in the press lately?