Refrain from singing in the choir of complaints

Marshall Goldsmith shared a stat based on some of his recent research:

Employees spend 15 hours a month bad-mouthing upper management or listening to someone else bad-mouthing upper management.

And, the companies are paying them to do it! (Safe to assume those conversations are taking place during work hours, right?)

Sure, companies are struggling to survive and thrive past the recession right now, and, sure, upper management may have made mistakes with how they handled the recession. However, that does not mean it is acceptable to blast them behind their backs. It may be tempting to join the choir of complaints levied about Management, but resist for the greater good.

Whose greater good? Yours!
Management most often learns who says what. One of the "choir members" will be sashaying up to Exec Corner any minute to tattle on the group. You risk losing Management's trust, as well as trust from the rest of the choir. After all, everyone knows if you bad-mouth to them, you'll bad-mouth about them.

Keeping your opinions to yourself also helps the greater good of the organization. If the company and/or customer are not going to benefit by what you have to say, it would be wise to resist the urge to say it.

In fact, Goldsmith offers these 4 questions to consider prior to disclosing your opinions:

1. Is what you want to say going to help the company?
2. Is it going to help your customers?
3. Will it help the person you are speaking to?
4. Will it help the person you are speaking about?

If the answers are No, No, No, No, don't say it!

Resist the impulse to reveal every thought that enters your brain. Resist the impulse to comment, or agree, with others' negativity. Resist the urge to blast Management behind their back. Such resistance will keep you out of the choir, but it just may help you join a better, more influential, group.

Blame the Weight Gain on The Girl Scouts

It's the Girl Scouts' fault I gained 3 pounds in the last 10 days. Thin Mints? Ha! They don't make you thin! Even with fewer cookies to a box this year, one can eat the whole box in two or three sittings. And, they are everywhere!

Cute little uniformed Girl Scouts push their minty treats at the entrance to stores, gyms, and offices. If it isn't the Scout herself tempting passers by with cookies, it's her parents.

Do we really need Scout mommies bringing the order forms, or, even worse, the cookies themselves, into work? How much time is spent selling the cookies, collecting the funds, and delivering them office-to-office? Are the parents a little more pushy than the Scouts? Actually, I understand their plight, as I'd be pushing to get rid of them too; otherwise, 3 pounds would be 33 pounds.

There's been a lot of talk lately about the pressure to buy Girl Scout cookies at work. I wonder if the buyers really feel pressure, or are they using it as an excuse for their purchases? To get the cookie pusher off your back, you could buy one box. Buying 5 boxes then saying you felt pressured is a little silly.

Plus, we're all grown ups at work. Shouldn't we be able to say a polite, "No thank you" when invited to purchase cookies? If someone working with me couldn't say "No" to something like that, I just might question his decision-making ability overall. Would he be able to resist a vendor asking for a price increase? Would she negotiate a fair rate with a supplier? I wonder...

Plus, oh, one more plus...

What is the company supposed to do? Ban the sale of Girl Scout cookies in the workplace? Why punish the people who want the cookies, just because someone cannot say "No" on their own? I'm not sure CEOs or HR VPs have time these days to police the sale of cookies. Not sure I want them spending their time that way either.

What do you think? Is selling Girl Scout cookies at work a problem? Do you have a solution?

My cookies are finished. Now I'm going to blame the Girl Scouts for the extra time at the Y!