This week, our Director of Sales, Joe Ryder, gets real about why you should blame your company’s bearer of bad news.
“The great Teddy Roosevelt once said,”Complaining about a problem without posing a solution is called whining.”
In both my past and present, I’ve had one too many coworkers who are always happy to tell you what’s wrong with something and who is to blame for it, but can never offer a solution to the actual problem at hand. They’ve always got the same look on their face or the same excuse, along the lines of, ‘Don’t blame the messenger, but…’ Being able to identify an issue can be very productive, but only if you plan to see it through in attempts to fix it. Too often have I seen employees fall prey to pinpointing the person to blame for a problem in an effort to make themselves look better and elevate their position. This person offers absolutely no value to the company, and yet, they always seem to linger around and sometimes, even make their way up the ladder. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to pinpoint an issue, but it does take some brains to plan a course of action in order to fix it.
My great-grandmother Ann used to say, ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say it at all.’ Sound familiar? Here is what I have to say: talk as much smack as you want as long as you can back it up with a concrete solution.”