In Taki’s Magazine Dalrymple reacts to a conversation he overheard on a train, in fluent managerialese and containing these phrases:

That’s all been improved to deliver the capacity to deliver.

When we try to pin people down about what they’re going to deliver, we’re not good at it, it’s necessary to flex it but we don’t have a culture of it.

She’s passive-aggressive because she feels a feeling of being left out.

There was too much emphasis on what wasn’t right, and we’ve managed to shift the narrative.

From a performance management viewpoint, we could articulate a lot more engagement.