
Say the Hard Thing - jihadjihad
http://randsinrepose.com/archives/say-the-hard-thing/
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ideonexus
This is such difficult but important advice. I've been sitting in nearly a
year of unproductive meetings for a project that goes nowhere because of one
middle-manager's abrasive personality and an upper-manager's inaction on the
behavior. This problematic manager comes to every meeting ready to shoot down
every single proposal in the most dismissive and belittling manner possible.

The problem is, as the author notes, the longer you let the behavior go, the
harder it is to correct it. When I worked at the Coast Guard, we had an
abrasive personality who simply shot down everyone else's ideas. Management's
solution was to establish a rule that you could not criticize a proposal
without offering a solution. Suddenly that abrasive individual started looking
really silly blinking dumbly when they were asked, "So you've identified a
problem. What's the solution?"

