The corporate bastardization of “empathy” and other crucial words

Corporations love to talk about empathy, for both customers (more common) and employees (sometimes, but less common). But are they even using the word right? No. This is what they actually mean:

At the same time, corporations have been driving the idea for empathy. As they are looking to market things to us — one-to-one — as opposed to the mass-media commercials, they’re calling that empathy, which may be a bastardization of the term.

This is very important to understand.

Many corporate terms don’t mean what they sound like

“White papers” are “sales documents.”

“Employee engagement” is often “a way to keep base salaries down.”

“Executives” are often “completely clueless about how the work gets done, not actually driving the work.”

“Culture” is “what you permit to happen as everyone attempts to control each other.”

“Mission” is “a word you use in meetings precisely because it cannot be defined easily.”

And now, “empathy” is essentially a marketing ploy.

Why is this a bad thing, though? Don’t companies need to market and sell?