You won’t Believe what Happened to Me Today…

Are you the victim of bad drivers, rude salespeople, annoying co-workers, or bosses that never give you credit for anything?

How many times does it take you to get a problem resolved with a bill, purchase, etc?

My wife and [...]]]>

 
You won’t Believe what Happened to Me Today…

Are you the victim of bad drivers, rude salespeople, annoying co-workers, or bosses that never give you credit for anything?

How many times does it take you to get a problem resolved with a bill, purchase, etc?

My wife and I have a standing joke that we always have to ask at least 2 different people at a company or agency what to do about a problem, since we’re not likely to get the right answer the first time.

Sometimes it seems like the whole world is conspiring to give you grief.

No wonder that you feel like complaining to anyone who will listen!

It’s so easy to slip into negativity, even when that accomplishes nothing.
And negativity is one of the most powerful ways to sabotage your own personal growth.

 
The No Complaining Rule
Jon Gordon recently released The No Complaining Rule, a book that tells how negativity destroys personal and corporate health.

Jon’s earlier books are about personal energy.
In those books he teaches you how to raise your energy level.

Why is that important?
It’s critical that you have enough energy to achieve the dreams that are important to you, while keeping up with our increasingly complex world.

His new book is written as a business story.
Have you ever read a book in that style?

Some people love them, while other people who read them are just waiting for the author to get to the point.

Stories are often a great way to pass ideas.
Our brains love stories, and the contents of the story often make a deep impression on us.

Have you ever wanted to make a change to your behavior or attitudes?
Stories are a particularly powerful way to sneak challenging ideas into our heads, and start the process of change.

 
Complaints into Solutions
Jon’s book is self-described as “A story about positive ways to turn complaints into solutions, innovations, and success.”

When someone discovers, or has important insight into a problem, they might write about it without providing any action plan.

That’s ok.
The writer wants to raise awareness about a problem that has no clear solution yet.

But in a way, it’s like making a valid complaint.
The company should hear the complaint, but unless that company tries to address the issue and find a solution, the only consequence of the complaint may be the negativity that it spreads.

Jon’s book points out some of the key dangers of negativity. For example:

• Negativity costs between 250-300 Billion/year in lost productivity
• 90% of doctor visits are stress related, and #1 cause of office stress is coworkers and their complaining
• Negativity affects the morale, performance, and productivity of teams
• One person can’t make a team, but one can destroy it. Just one negative person can create a miserable environment for everyone else

And negativity isn’t only a problem in the workplace.
Negative emotions are associated with:

• Health problems, and shorter life span
• More pain
• Less Energy
• Fewer friends
• Less success

Jon’s book doesn’t just complain about the hazards of negativity. He offers solutions including: the no complaining rule, three no-complaining tools, 5 things to do instead of complaining, and corporate and personal action plans.

You might be thinking:
This is ridiculous. If I eliminate complaints, I’ll never consider the risks or downside to my plans.

And you’re sort of right.
This book is not about completely eliminating complaints.

It’s about using complaints in a balanced way, tied to solutions.
Jon’s book is about eliminating mindless complaining, breaking out of a negative mindset where complaining is done for its own sake.

As an example, here’s Jon’s No complaining rule:
“Employees are not allowed to mindlessly complain to their coworkers. If they have a problem or complaint about their job, their company, their customer, or anything else, they are encouraged to bring the issue to their manager or someone who is in a position to address the complaint. However, the employees must share one or two possible solutions to their complaint as well.”

 
What’s Missing?
Is there anything missing from this book?

Yes.
Jon doesn’t give you an important warning.
This rule won’t work for every company.

Why not?
True, these are simple and incredibly powerful ideas.

But, the ideas in this book offer a fundamental change in the mindset of a corporation and its employees.

The No complaining rule must be implemented at every level of the organization to succeed.

A company’s leadership must commit itself to this change personally, to set an example for everyone else.

Fundamental personal or corporate change is hard, and some people, leaders or not, are not willing to face it.

Still, there are many companies that will be able to implement this new mindset in the organization, and benefit tremendously.

Is your company one of these?

(Take a look at The No Complaining Rule at amazon.com, or Jon’s website for more information.)

Stuck in Line Do you ever call some number for customer service and sit through a nearly endless series of voice prompts just to ask a simple question?

Have you ever dealt with someone who hides behind the tiny slice of the world that he seems to be in charge [...]]]> Stuck in Line
Do you ever call some number for customer service and sit through a nearly endless series of voice prompts just to ask a simple question?

Have you ever dealt with someone who hides behind the tiny slice of the world that he seems to be in charge of? He might only be in charge of a form, but he’s determined to make you fill it out according to every rule he can think of, as if his life depended on it.

Someone designs an efficient way to do something in business or anywhere else. This is provided as a series of steps, questions, forms.
Then, some workers are given the job of following and enforcing the process, too often blindly, or ignorant of the big picture.

And sometimes it’s a machine (such as voice prompts or a series of forms on the internet) that steps you through this process.

When people are dehumanized by giving them tiny responsibilities and cut off from real goals and a spirit of service, it’s no wonder that they sometimes resort to pettiness, as they try to hold on to the only small power they are given.

Of course, there are many workers who provide wonderful service, even in the midst of a broken system.

The Burden of Hierarchy
Do we need managers?
Do we need layer after layer of managers all in charge of directing other people to do work, instead of doing it themselves?

Why do people build hierarchies, anyway?
Part of it is power.
We pretend to be fulfilled through getting power over others.

What gives us a sense of self-worth?
Sadly, it’s no longer what we are capable of doing, or actually do.
In the power mindset, we derive our self-worth from how much control we can exert over others.
Even if that control is in some tiny, pointless area of life.

Expertise and Complexity
There are legitimate reasons why hierarchies get started.
Hierarchies sometimes get started because of expertise.
Expertise takes time to develop.

In every area, there are only a few people who are the absolute best. Their expertise may require uncommon natural ability and years of experience.
They don’t have the time to provide service to everyone who might want their help.

So someone sets up a system. This system uses people who have a basic level of expertise. They provide the first level of help to people with questions.

They act as a filter. If the first level can’t help someone, then they pass that person to the next level of the hierarchy where the people have more experience and can handle more difficult problems.

This hierarchy frees the most experienced people to handle the most difficult problems.

Hierarchies and bureaucracies are also built to handle complexity and sheer numbers. A business may have to provide a wide variety of services, handle a wide variety of problems, or simply provide service for large numbers of people. In that case, it needs a structure which directs people with needs to the part of the business that can service them best.

So, what’s wrong with that?

On its own, probably very little.

Where Things Go Wrong

But we add to it conceit, and the desire for power.
Each level of experts, or department within a business, likes to pretend that they are the most important.
So they discourage people from going to another department or level. They ridicule people for questioning their expertise. They try to train people to accept whatever they are told without questioning things that don’t make sense. They discourage people from looking for another opinion if the answer seems wrong, or doesn’t provide satisfaction.

The experts at each level discourage people from being as independent as possible, and instead promote dependence.

In the religious realm, it would be like a priest, rabbi, minister, etc telling a congregant not to pray, because the leader will do that for her. (Thankfully that doesn’t happen too often. But, religious leaders, and religious organizations, with hierarchies and bureaucracies, and built of people, often suffer from the same problems that we’ve discussed above: getting caught in conceit, the desire for power, and encouraging dependence.)

And the experts on the highest level of a hierarchy may become so proud of themselves that they look down on the ordinary people who really need them, the people who they exist to serve. These experts stop listening when people ask them real questions.

Is their any point to that expertise, if it doesn’t service the people who need it?

Sure, let’s get rid of hierarchies that are purely based on arbitrary power.

But we can’t do away with hierarchies that are truly based on expertise, or are built to handle complexity or size.

We can change our expectations of these hierarchies.
Let’s streamline our structures to the number of levels that make sense, and say goodbye to bureaucracies that grow bigger and bigger.

We can demand that the people who work within hierarchies show respect for the people who they provide service to.
We can encourage people to think for themselves and question the experts.

If someone has expertise in some area, let her take pride in her achievements, and enjoy other benefits of that position.

But let’s remind her that she has greater power to serve others, and a responsibility to share that power.