Gus Carlson is a U.S.-based columnist for The Globe and Mail.

If you’re one of the millions of workers ordered back to the office recently, you’ve probably found some things at the old salt mine have changed and some have stayed the same – for better or worse.

Sadly, some survivors of the pandemic are those annoying colleagues who speak in corporate lingo. You know them: They call themselves “rock stars,” “game changers” or “thought leaders.” They are perpetually ahead of the curve, pushing the envelope to add value, finding synergies between core competencies, picking low-hanging fruit, leveraging strategic opportunities and drilling down to find the secret sauce. Many can’t say good morning without a PowerPoint deck and would gladly trade their souls for a better revenue waterfall slide if they had one. A soul, that is.

Somewhere along the way, however, something changed for this corporate illiterati. They still spew nonsense, but it is no longer about the basic purpose of business: winning. Now it’s about meaning, fulfilment, self-empowerment, inspiration and recognition – and making the world a better place. Hugs, not high-fives, are the corresponding new corporate choreography.

There’s no question today’s work-speak is softer, more collegial and often distanced from the winning-losing lexicon. We don’t simply “send” something, we “share” it. We don’t “thank” people for a piece of work or a good idea, we “appreciate” them. And, of course, no one is ever fired or terminated any more; they are “delayered” or “right-sized” or “released” with thanks to pursue other opportunities. Winning isn’t as important as “doing well to do good,” and there is a nod to Ray Noorda’s “coopetition,” a 1990s concept describing co-operation between technology competitors.

The shift reflects a wave of employee activism, which sees workers influencing the culture companies create, internally and externally. It poses a real challenge for leaders to get workers to focus on a purpose that has little or nothing to do with the products and services the company sells and is forcing a redefinition of the employer-employee contract beyond paycheques, benefits and job security.

Not long ago, business was a contact sport – and the vernacular reflected it. We talked about sharpening the knives, going over the wall and pulling out all the stops to beat the competition, gain market share and own the sector. Not surprisingly, sports metaphors were major elements of corporate-speak. We hit home runs and kicked it through the uprights for the win.

Granted, some leaders took it to the extreme – it wasn’t just about winning, it was about killing. Oracle founder Larry Ellison linked his corporate culture to the art of war, often repeating a quote generally attributed to 13th-century Mongol warlord Genghis Khan: “It’s not enough that we win; everyone else must lose.” General Electric’s most famous CEO, Jack Welch, known as “Neutron Jack” for his ruthless management style and penchant for layoffs, used a strategy called “rank and yank,” in which he would fire the bottom 10 per cent of his managers every year regardless of the reasons for their subpar performance.

Some say the shift to kinder language is a positive evolution reflecting the sophistication of our culture more broadly in the workplace. But it’s really a negative, yet more erosion of the way we think and act in an era of participation trophies and a sign that the Destination X of corporate strategy is now more about assuaging employees’ feelings than about serving customers, rewarding investors, creating jobs and contributing to the economies of the communities in which they do business.

Whatever your perspective, it is unlikely we will ever go back to the “old normal,” but a swing of the pendulum back to a time when work was called work and offices were workplaces, not contemplation gardens for inner peace, is due.

The question is whether or not modern leaders will be able to cut through the mushy mumbo-jumbo and get their people to keep their eyes on the ball, swing for the fences or throw the long bomb to do what business needs to do to prevail. Somewhere, I’m sure, some keener is working on a PowerPoint deck on this.