The Cult Of Positive Attitude and Always Saying Yes

http://meetingboy.com/post/49448674854/the-cult-of-positive-attitude-and-always-saying-yes

by tamersalama • 13 years ago

74 41 13 years ago

b0rsuk• 13 years ago

RSA Animate: Smile or Die http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo

zimpenfish• 13 years ago

My approach (which generally isn't popular with anyone) is to start with "No" and work towards a measured "Yes" after the gory details have been thrashed out.

I've worked with too many nerdy-geeky-type people who love to demonstrate their cleverness to the obviously inferior sales/marketrdroids by immediately say "Yes, of COURSE we can, DUH" to whatever harebrained nonsense they've thought up over their long lunch at the local stripper pub.

Then spending the next 6 months bitching endlessly about what a ridiculously stupid and impossible project the sales/marketdroids have foisted upon them and life is just NOT FAIR and I'M GOING TO MY ROOM.

Start with "No" - everyone will hate you but at least you'll get shit done.

terribleZurg• 13 years ago

Can't say no to that title. Must click.

DamagedProperty• 13 years ago

Leadership vacuums create strong 'YES' and 'NO' types

I learned two decades ago about a concept called meta programs. Meta programs are filters that people use to understand their environment. Two of these are 'moving toward' and 'moving away' meta programs.

People are typically drawn to one or the other. They either filter their thoughts in moving toward or moving away first before considering the other. I have found that having both of these types of people on a project a very positive thing. You need people who can see the positive and you need people who can identify the pitfalls.

The problems start when either of these people think their position is always the correct position. The moving toward people want to take on the world and the moving away people are yelling you why you can't do that. Nothing gets done in these situation. And the reason why moving toward or moving away people become so strong in their opinion is because there is a lack of leadership.

You NEED to have that one person who can listen to both of these people, respect their points of view and make tough choices.

ebbv• 13 years ago

That same Seth Godin article was sent out on an internal mailing list when it was posted and I had a similar reaction. Fortunately I felt comfortable sending my (more professionally worded) response to the team and wasn't punished for it.

But this has always been a problem that must be avoided. People get tired of arguing and just want to push their ideas through. It's understandable but it's a mistake.

steven2012• 13 years ago

You can't just say "No". You need to say "No, these are the reasons why, and here are my solutions". It's too easy sitting back and pooh-poohing every idea, and there are a lot of people that love doing that. Coming up with solutions is the right way to approach it, because people really don't like hearing "No".

That being said, I took this approach at one of my previous jobs, a fairly well known enterprise software company in the Valley, and I got blackballed for being too negative. We were working on a project and there was simply no hope of it ever working. The technical lead on the project was over-arrogant and under-talented, and essentially built a system that wouldn't scale. I brought this up a bunch of times, and gave solutions on how to fix it, but they were all rejected by the technical lead. I was told by my manager that I was being too negative and was given a poor performance review, which really rattled me, so I gave up the "good fight". 9 months later, the project was canned because of scalability issues.

So this "Cult of Positive Attitude" really does exist, can be pervasive in a company to the point of being toxic, and sometimes the best solution is to just leave, which is what I ended up doing.

7Figures2Commas• 13 years ago

> So this "Cult of Positive Attitude" really does exist, can be pervasive in a company to the point of being toxic, and sometimes the best solution is to just leave, which is what I ended up doing.

This. The solution to the Cult of Positive Attitude is not to lament positivity, or long for the day when healthy cynicism is more highly valued. It's to go somewhere where you have legitimate reasons to believe that things are better than they are worse.

Put simply: the problem isn't positive attitude. It's positive attitude that is in direct conflict with reality.

HarryHirsch• 13 years ago

> Put simply: the problem isn't positive attitude. It's positive attitude that is in direct conflict with reality.

I disagree that an attitude in conflict with reality is a problem, not for those that have it. If you haven't seen it already you wouldn't believe just how long a company or group within a company can muddle on without any grasp on reality whatsoever. Of course you are better off leaving while the termite-eaten building hasn't collapsed yet, but in this recession that is easier said than done.

bdicasa• 13 years ago

Sounds a lot like what I'm experiencing in my current role. We are supposed to be launching in a month and the product is riddled with problems. From creating 5+ threads per user and not being horizontally scalable. Offered many alternate solutions, but none of them ever get noticed.

mtrimpe2• 13 years ago

Many consultancy companies define a project's success in terms of money extracted from the client.

You were probably given a poor performance review because it was actually your vocal opposition that endangered the success of the project.

pjungwir• 13 years ago

I'm not saying this is the OP's case, but when I worked for a small dev shop, almost all my co-workers would grumble and complain whenever a client asked us to do more work for them. I'm not talking about scope creep or unpaid additions. I'm not talking about requests that were impossible or incoherent or outside our expertise. Clients would ask us to give an estimate for adding feature X, and everyone would complain! I've noticed the same thing in other developers many times since then, so I've tried to practice saying instead, "We'd be happy to do that for you! It'll be $X." (or more realistically, "I'll get you an estimate by tomorrow/Friday/next week.")

My other favorite technique is to put a price tag on things that are technically hard or "impossible." I like to say that nothing is impossible, but some things are expensive. I think edw gives a similar response to client inquiries.

stouset• 13 years ago

> You can't just say "No". You need to say "No, these are the reasons why, and here are my solutions".

Sometimes, you don't have the solutions. But just because you don't have the solutions doesn't mean the problem doesn't need to be brought up and considered.

dragonwriter2• 13 years ago

> You can't just say "No". You need to say "No, these are the reasons why, and here are my solutions". It's too easy sitting back and pooh-poohing every idea, and there are a lot of people that love doing that. Coming up with solutions is the right way to approach it, because people really don't like hearing "No".

Because people don't like hearing "No", its even better to not only come up with solutions, but then also to present them in the context of "Yes, we should do what you are suggesting, with these refinements" rather than "No, instead of doing what you are suggesting, we should use this alternative".

The substance is the same, of course, but it provides acknowledgement and validation to the person making the proposal rather than dismissal and rejection. This can make a very big difference in how people respond.

greenyoda• 13 years ago

"Yes, we should do what you are suggesting, with these refinements"

That would only work if the proposed solution was somewhat close to being viable. But if the only way to succeed is to throw the existing solution out and start from scratch, it's hard to find a diplomatic way of saying so.

danielrhodes• 13 years ago

That post was a giant straw man.

Replace positive with constructive, and you get closer to what people who preach this way of thinking are really getting at.

PaulHoule• 13 years ago

At best, one can master positive and negative.

At worst, the tendency for people to reward people who tell them what they like to hear is the fatal flaw that will make humans wind up like the dinosaurs.

Look at how nothing gets done about global warming, or how CNBC never explains exactly how HFTs make money (it's because they use undocumented order types, not just because they're fast.)

For a long time I've suggested that we draft people for congress. If you approach any "respectable" politician with an offer to be corrupt, at worst they'll politely tell you they're not interested. Try that with ordinary Americans from the left or right and perhaps 20% of them will get offended, go the FBI or go to the media or give you a black eye or pull a gun. "Respectable" people who go far learn to be tolerant of this kind of BS.

My ten year old has learned (from me and my mom) to be world class at arguing, complaining and bargaining. From dealing with him, I've improved my negotiating skills which means I get 5-10% better prices on many deals I make.

The thing is, he habitually finds something negative to say about any situation, any product, any person. The main thing I've been working on is making him conscious of it. When he's really insufferable I'll sometimes make him say more bad things, as long as they original, until he burns out and can't say any more. We both do the exercise of specifically thinking about good things to say about people, companies, services, etc.

In a healthy marital relationship, people say good things much more often than they say bad things. You should try to say seven good things for every bad thing.

This can (and should) be applied to the workplace. It's a good habit to get into to have frequent praise. It doesn't matter if you liked a subroutine somebody wrote, feel that an ops guy was really on top of a situation, or if you just like somebody's hat.

A major university once planned a Peoplesoft implementation, and the project manager involved estimated that it would cost $100M to implement all five modules.

They told him this was too much and he'd have to get it under $30M and they pushed him out. They hired some young guy who said yes to anything. Years later they spent $65M to deploy one module (in a barely satisfactory manner) and stole huge amounts of time from other IT projects that wasn't properly accounted for. Heads rolled.

The PM with integrity moved on to a more responsible position at a big school on the west coast. The fact is that people who tell the truth in tough situations are like gold and they're the people you can trust with the most difficult situations.

sbilstein• 13 years ago

Lean to far into the default "NO" territory and you risk limiting new and innovative ideas. Best to keep an open mind, be analytical, and go with your gut when then data doesn't have an answer.

freejack• 13 years ago

I'm gonna call bullshit on this one.

The world isn't black and white and not all managers are assholes and employees never divide neatly down "yes" and "no" lines and any manager worth their salt knows this.

And the secret of success doesn't lie with saying "yes" or "no" or making the team think a certain way, the secret of success lies with finding a way for the team to say yes to the right ideas and no to the wrong ones and kick ass in the process.

If you work with or for people that think as half as shallow as the people described in the OP, run - don't blog about it, run.

ghaspland• 13 years ago

I agree. This an over-simplistic view of how companies function and, frankly, a bit immature. I started my career as an engineer and I felt at times many of the sentiments expressed in this post. However, since then I've launched my own start up and had to take on the CEO role, which required me to do sales, marketing and manage people. Having to shoulder those responsibilities has really changed my perception. Everybody is under different pressures and until you are in their shoes it is often hard to understand the decisions they're making. We've since been acquired and I'm an employee again. As a result of these experiences, I'm much more sympathetic to my bosses and people in non-technical roles.

I'm reminded of why McArthur was removed from the command of the UN forces in Korea. McArthur came out strongly against Truman in the press, because Truman refused to use nuclear weapons against the Chinese, who at the time were not a nuclear power but were successfully driving the UN forces out of the peninsula. Truman was forced to sack McArthur. McArthur then went on a national tour talking about how Truman was basically an idiot and losing the war. McArthur suggested that if he was elected president he could bring the war to a speedy conclusion. Truman started taking a real beating in the press as a result. Then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs came out and publicly said that while McArthur's strategy would drive the Chinese back, McArthur didn't appreciate the wider political implications of his strategy. China, at the time, was an ally of the Soviet Union. A strike against China could have forced the Soviets into the war or at a minimum destabilized other areas of the world, such as Eastern Europe. The Chairman's defense of Truman basically shutdown McArthur's political aspirations.

I don't mean to imply that the McArthur case is what is going on here. It's very possible that this person's managers are all just idiots. What I'm suggesting is that he take a breath and try to better understand the pressures and perspective of people he works with. I find that the majority of people I work, even those I'm not impressed by, mean well and cursing them out isn't moving the strategy, profits or even that particular conversation in a positive direction. (That doesn't mean I haven't gotten mad and lost it. I have. It's just those aren't my proudest moments.)

ImprovedSilence• 13 years ago

I couldn't agree more with this sentiment. In the early days, I remember being the "No" guy. I saw a million ways things were going to fall apart, but management would just keep pressing forwards. And often times it did fall apart, and sometimes it didn't. But then when you jump into the CEO role/building your own company/being the management, you realize that the world is very much not black and white, and sometimes you just have to push forwards and MAKE it work. Or at least give it a go.

And one big thing you have to understand is that often, the idea the management wants to create is abstracted out, and grows and changes as business needs change, networks are made, and ideas flow. And sometimes thats tough to put into concrete "requirements" for engineers to build. Give them some slack, quit bitching, and just BUILD. You'd be amazed how far that can get you. This is especially true for very large and very complicated systems that are damn near impossible to get right.

ansgri• 13 years ago

I'm gonna call Hegel on this one.

This is a rather good presentation of a marginal point of view, and as such it has led to one of the most constructive discussions about team communication here on HN, revealing the entire spectrum (which is't grey either, but full of colors).

So BS is too strong a word.

michaelochurch• 13 years ago

I know a lot of people find OP to be one-sided, but I think it's accurate.

First, there's the engineer-manager impedance mismatch. We're told by compilers to fix our work in very annoying ways. The machine has no fear of us and refuses to execute nonsensical instructions. (We generally prefer this over blind compliance.) Managers are simply not used to negative feedback because they never get it. People will lie to them rather than risk their careers on delivery of bad news. We, on the other hand, think everyone should be like a compiler and complain hastily when given bad instructions. And we don't take it personally when that happens.

Second, what most of us fail to realize until too late is that work is about social status for most people. It's not about getting the right answer or maximizing profits or anything else. I wish these assholes were greedy, because greed can be positive-sum as opposed to their short-sighted zero-sum social squabbling. It's about being the boss, and fending off the other guy. That's what most people care about at work, at least in corporate jobs.

Most bad ideas fail in a way that can still have positive expectancy for the originator's social status. That's why you see the bike-shedding. An idea has to be really, really bad to hurt the originator's social status before he can get promoted away from the mess. So, when you challenge a bad idea, you're actually stepping in the way of that person's career (or, at least, it's perceived that way).

That's why I can't tolerate executives. I understand that there's a need for management to a limited degree, but these entitled high priests who job is to "have ideas" (who also have the power to fire people who push back against awful ones) are a scourge. There should never be a culture where ideas are unquestionable because of their originators. We all have shitty ideas from time to time, and it's only these narcissistic executives who aren't honest about the fact.

johnobrien1010• 13 years ago

>) Managers are simply not used to negative feedback because they never get it. People will lie to them rather than risk their careers on delivery of bad news.

This may be true for some managers, but I disagree that this is true generally for managers. Most managers (product managers in particular) here negative feedback all the time, from their bosses, their customers, marketing, sales, and other internal stakeholders.

I think one confusion here is that engineers occasionally provide feedback that a feature is a bad idea, even though they may not have the context to evaluate the idea effectively. This is frustrating for a manager, but also speaks the need for a manager to effectively convey that context. In fact, most engineers when provided that context are easily persuaded.

It is only the ones who seem to reject every idea, even when given compelling reasons why the ideas are good, that one begins to suspect may have an attitude problem and not be providing legitimate feedback.

yuhong• 13 years ago

>That's why I can't tolerate executives.

*many executives.

peterwwillis• 13 years ago

"I know that when people aren’t listened to, and aren’t respected, then they will try to undermine you."

He says after calling his co-workers idiots.

But really, his point of view is crystallized by the first sentence:

"Every lie and lame idea in the corporate world is now protected by an airtight bubble of positive attitude and yes-men. And I’m sick of it."

He's projecting his shitty job onto every corporation in the world. I haven't ever worked with a culture of yes men or positive-attitude police, and I have worked at several corporations, so (from my own limited experience) it seems like he's just an angsty single-minded coward who for whatever reason likes working with people he hates.

If you don't like the culture of your job, try to improve it. If it doesn't improve, leave. But writing these emo screeds about "saying no" is retarded, because anyone with a brain would agree that sometimes saying yes and sometimes saying no is a good idea.

zoba• 13 years ago

I think the author is on to something here, but, I have a couple of suggestions which I think will make his viewpoint more accurate. I think positivity is underrated by the HN community and so I could see why this post would be well received here, however from my point of view, saying things like "Fuck You and the Positive Attitude You Rode In On" is not constructive.

I don't see people's statements as opportunities to argue, as this quote indicates the author does: "Grow Up and Learn To Argue Like An Adult". I see them more like a construction. Someone presents their view point, and if its not what I see as truth, its not my job to "argue" it, its now OUR job to figure out truth. So the conversation should be a back and forth of explanation until the truth is agreed upon. This does require both participants to be willing to change their viewpoint, which I agree people need to be better at.

In the case of the manager saying people need to have a more positive attitude, my strategy there would be: be willing to entertain the idea and then explore the idea together. As you explore the idea, genuinely bring up concerns you see from your perspective, e.g. "Oh but that will be problematic because we don't have enough time with projects X, Y, and Z going on. If you did mandate this, moral will go down and at best your rating will go down, at worst people may leave." Suddenly the manager is illuminated.

If the individual you're discovering truth with refuses to acknowledge your viewpoint and either accept it or counteract it with knowledge of their own, then you should be concerned about the long term implications of interacting with such an individual. Specifically, people who have difficulty incorporating new information into their model of the world often often lack positive growth trajectory, and likely have problems dealing with change when it inevitably arrives. I'd distance myself.

My advice to the author would be to do as I've done with this comment: look for where the other person is coming from and realize that there are reasons people say and do the things they say and do. Then, instead of attacking, approach it as an opportunity for both of you to learn something new by sharing your differing viewpoints and converging on the truth. I'm looking forward to discovering the truth of how best to handle these situations based on the experience provided in by those who may respond to my comment! :)

As an addendum: sometimes people are immovable from their position due to things outside of their control, but we still must interact with them. The receipt checker at Sam's Club will never be convinced enough of my opinion to act in accordance with it, for example. In this case, we are not at issue with the person, but with the rule. Therefore, I try to act as obliquely to the rule as possible, and encourage others to do so as well so that it no longer makes sense to pursue the rule (in the case of Sam's Club, this means I never acknowledge the receipt checker and make them chase me down.)

mindcrime• 13 years ago

I see them more like a construction. Someone presents their view point, and if its not what I see as truth, its not my job to "argue" it, its now OUR job to figure out truth. So the conversation should be a back and forth of explanation until the truth is agreed upon. This does require both participants to be willing to change their viewpoint, which I agree people need to be better at.

Very, very well said. I agree wholeheartedly. "Collaboration, not arguing" is one way I'd phrase it.

I think that mindset is why I get frustrated with people on HN sometimes. If I say something, I'm not necessarily interested in having a high-school debate-club debate over it... I'm interested in finding a shared understanding of the truth and finding the common ground. Not all "discussions" need to be treated as "debates" damnit. :-)

Absolutely. I could not agree more.

On a related note, there's an old saying I heard once, that goes something like "Be kind, because everyone is fighting their own battles also". Being considerate and tolerant doesn't cost us anymore than being dick'ish and argumentative, so why not do it?

comrade_ogilvy• 13 years ago

I think you are on the right track. Positivity and Negativity are useful tools for discovering the truth. Favoring either very strongly has significant downsides.

The problem with Negativity is it can obsess over problems while not doing the harder work of actually coming up with a plausible solution. If a project is truly screwed, then maybe "tell the stakeholders that we need 9 more months instead of 3 (instead of pretending we only need 3 more months for the next 2 months)" might qualify as a positive solution. Or "3 months is obviously wrong. It might take 6. It might take 12. Let's invest 2 days in figuring out where we are immediately."

alanstorm• 13 years ago

One of the most damaging things in cultures where agreement is more valued than honesty is how it can sap the morale of your workers to the point where they turn into exactly the uncooperative super-negative people you were trying to avoid in the first place.

3minus1• 13 years ago

I worked at a smallish company where the lead developer was always "no,no,no" at every meeting. He didn't get fired. The management might have rolled their eyes a lot, but they knew he had better knowledge than anyone and would listen to him most of the time.

tsunamifury• 13 years ago

I'm a non-technical product manager and try to know what I don't know. When I need to start a project I sit with the engineers and present the issue: The goals, the plan, and a suggested general architecture along with a projected timeline.

Then the engineers give their feedback, modify my initial estimates and architecture and provide a plan of attack. I agree, then go back to the rest of my job of managing design, development, marketing, and business issues -- not to mention sorting out HR and hiring.

I don't have time to shoulder-program or try to dictate the exact terms of how something technical should be done. I try to trust my team to make the right decisions, and if they don't, we fix them.

mknappen• 13 years ago

North Korea, Potemkin villages

hawkharris• 13 years ago

Companies don't always have the luxury of finding the perfect solution. In many cases they have to run with the best plan that's available.

If you're the kind of person who frequently says "no" during meetings, you need to also be the kind of person who proposes alternatives.

jtheory• 13 years ago

Meh. Saying "yes" uncritically isn't helpful, but saying "no" (even to imperfect ideas) often isn't wise either.

It's better to give a psychological "yes" even if the final answer should be "no" to a particular implementation. So point out the things you like about an idea before walking through the details (where problems may crop up).

Give others credit for good ideas (or sub-ideas, since of course you can often salvage something good from a flawed suggestion), but disassociate problems immediately from other people. ("I think we should go with Jane's great idea about X, with this tweak to address my worry about scaling").

Feel free to discuss your own ideas that you jettison soon after -- this can happen a lot if you talk through a problem while you're still thinking it over -- and is a very healthy approach to model.

Stay open-minded about your own suggestions, and stay far away from a win/lose mindset. Realistically, if my suggestion for a particular problem won't be what the team chooses today, is there actually going to be a poor result?

The main thing that works for me is to go meta sometimes... I will actually say in a meeting "hang on; I want to be sure I'm not just hanging on to this approach because I've thought it through more deeply."

None of this involves me ever saying "that's a bad idea" (unless it was mine!), or even really "no" very often at all. More like "I like that, but I worry about".

If someone tells you "you need to work on saying yes instead of no all the time", they may just be telling you to improve your human skills a bit -- not shutting you down at all.

dctoedt• 13 years ago

One of Tina Fey's rules of improv comedy [0] seems pertinent: Paraphrasing, it's don't say no, say "yes, and ...."

[0] See Bossypants, apparently excerpted at, e.g., http://mycareertopia.com/tina-feys-rules-for-improv-and-the-... -- it's probably a copyright infringement (if memory serves, it copies Fey's text pretty much wholesale), but it's one of many, and probably the most readable of the bunch.

tptacek• 13 years ago

I'm pretty sure that's the Golden Rule of all improv, not an invention of Fey's. :)

volandovengo• 13 years ago

A lot of this difference of opinion comes from people with different backgrounds looking at a problem.

Some people are visionaries and spend their days trying to connect the the dots that other people haven't yet connected to push the boundaries. Steve Jobs was like this.

Most developers are implementers. Since developers spend their days working through the details of any particular spec, they think of the details much more than the visionaries. Woz was like this.

Both types of people are crucial for any product to be a success and both types can really help each other in crafting something up if they would both listen to each other.

Unfortunately this rarely happens...

praptak• 13 years ago

Usually there is some leeway between being a yes man and being painted negative. Sometimes it is not even about the message but how you deliver it. Vitriolic criticism and a valuable suggestion of improvement may differ only in wording.

In an ideal world it wouldn't matter but people do have egos and sometimes it is worth to sweeten the message. Some people call it "soft skills", others call it "spray painting the turd" and my advice to the latter is not to use this wording during meetings :)

applecustard• 13 years ago

This happened to me. I got a job offer and left.

Every discussion he would bring up me being negative and it started to grind on me even in my exit interview.

I was sick of having that badge and no one else saying the truth, I ended up being quiet and the manager didn't like that either.

My new job is much better, I get the work done and everyone is happy. I'm upfront with my views.

Even just mentioning an issue was negative, when I said we need to earmark it and look at solving it.

The Cult Of Positive Attitude and Always Saying Yes

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