One of the toughest business lessons to learn is that you can’t please everybody all the time. And while that may be simple advice, it’s easier said than done.
Whether you’re a hard-line executive who makes tough calls without advice and expects people to line up behind you or a CEO who gathers suggestions from every member of the team before setting direction or policy, without fail, someone is going to gripe about the decisions you make.
Managing the complaint factory is never easy. Its production line is usually manned by the same people each time, and it’s the one factory where no one ever wants to buy the product being churned out. Left unchecked, it can become viral and infect your organization.
But short of creating of a revolving door of unhappy employees, dealing with dissatisfied staff members requires a healthy amount of patience and a thick skin.
Conventional wisdom claims it’s wise to wear kid gloves when handling high-performance prima donnas and tolerate their antics as a minor price to pay for the benefits they bring your organization. Conversely, there are legions of stories about talented employees being fired because of seemingly insurmountable personality conflicts with the management team.
If the complaint factory is manned by underachievers, your decision is easier — part ways quickly. Everyone will be better off.
In some organizations, dissenters earn labels as complainers because they are never happy about decisions they didn’t make or have direct input toward. This is unfortunate, because labels can become impediments to career growth as attitude is considered when determining promotions.
Talent can and will take someone only so far in an organization. Consider NFL All-Pro wide receiver Terrell Owens and his battle with the Philadelphia Eagles as an example of what happens when a talented malcontent can’t — and won’t — come to grips with his place within an organization.
There are no obvious answers for managing the complaint factory. But increasing communication across all levels of the organization has the best chance of mitigating its ability to spread.
The more your employees know about what’s happening within the organization, the more chances they have to offer their suggestions and the more likely the complaint factory’s work force will either be contained or begin to downsize itself.
