I feel like the author is either embellishing the examples of frivolous communication they give or they work with some absolute headcases.

On my team we all trust each other to be fairly direct. On the flip side, “softening” a remark can signal to the recipient that you’re open minded to other solutions. “We should do X.” and “how would you feel about doing X?” accomplish the same thing but the second one fosters more psychologically safe discussion in my opinion.