A good theory has explanatory power

Saturday was a very enlightening day, but it only made sense when I looked at it backwards.

I finished off the day reading the first part of Don Watson’s book, Death Sentences, subtitled How Cliches, Weasel Words, and Management-Speak Are Strangling Public Language. 
When I took a break from reading, it occurred to me that modern
bizspeak is filled with vague language, passive voices, and
hut-two-three-four adjective phrases.  So filled that sometimes
employees don’t understand what senior management is trying to
say.  Perhaps that explains what happened earlier in the day.

Saturday started off with me and the wife running errands (Atlas Floors si!  Ferguson Plumbing Supply, no!). Then we zoomed off to our day’s major activity, a Concours/Clean Car Contest for the Tejas Chapter of the BMW CCA, hosted and sponsored by the BMW Center of San Antonio. 
The BMW folks had cleared out most of their showroom for us, provided
an excellent buffet lunch, did a bang-up job of judging the cars, and
even provided door prizes!  Everyone in the club had a good time,
and it should have been a perfect PR event for the BMW Center, but…

While the judging was going on, I was a bit disturbed to see the dealer’s Mission Statement prominently posted on the wall

Our
vision is: to achieve world-class customer and employee satisfaction
with integrity, teamwork, and commitment to excellence.

WTF?  Selling cars to rich Mexicans from Monterrey makes you world-class? 
And just what is a world-class car dealer?  While I was digesting
that glob of bizspeak, an older couple sat at our table to collect
themselves; Ma was talking on her cellphone to someone (her son, it
turned out) about the features on a new X3 mini-SAV.
When she finished, Ma snapped back into the here and now and noticed
two BMW owners (me and the wife) sitting across from her, and I could
see the light bulb over her head click on. "Tell me about the service
here," she said, "What do you think of it?"

Not wanting to speak ill of my host, I remained silent, but stuck out
my tongue as though gagging. Relenting, I explained, "They kept my Z3 for a month to fix the instrument cluster."

By now I had Pa’s attention, and he chimed in "We can’t get any
information out of these guys. Once they found out I wasn’t going to
buy a car today, they just
stopped talking to me."  Wow!  I had the same experience with
the same folks about 6 years ago, when I first got interested in BMWs.

So what the hell was going on?  On one hand the senior sales
managers had expended a tremendous effort to welcome the local car
club, even going so far as to participate in our event.  On the
other hand, the salesmen were active dissing potential customers. 
(I’d also noticed they never offered any information to a car club
member, or demonstrated any new car features–and these car folks love
gadgets, new cars, and spending money.)  Clearly the BMW Center
and its Mission Statement have a problem:  no one understands what
they’re saying and no one believes it–how could they?  It’s a
bizspeak mess!

My recommendations to the BMW Center

1. Give your girls in the Sales Office a raise–they know how to
   bring in potential customers.  You can afford the raises by firing
   the salesmen who run off well-heeled tire-kickers like Ma and Pa (that
   old boy will pay cash for his next car).
2. If you must have one, rewrite the Mission Statement to something clear, like