My approach to consulting is to listen first and then to offer counsel. In that listening, I hear a lot of complaining. Disengaged boards, demanding bosses, uncaring co-workers, overly optimistic goals, etc. etc. etc. There’s no end to the trials experienced by folks working and leading in the nonprofit sector, including within ministry and other faith-based organizations.
Misery can find company to love almost anywhere. From what I’ve seen, angst is an equal opportunity tormentor.
Most days I’m okay with providing a shoulder on which a worn-out, worn-down client can cry, but only for so long. At some point and the sooner the better, the complaining has to stop — for the good of the complainer and of the organization within which s/he works. In the words of a Zimbabwean proverb, “If you sing the song of misery, you are finished.”
Or as executive coach Peter Bregman writes in a Harvard Business Review article, “Complaining is a violent move to inaction. It replaces the need to act.”
He continues:
Complaining creates a number of dysfunctional side effects . . . : It creates factions, prevents or delays — because it replaces — productive engagement, reinforces and strengthens dissatisfaction, riles up others, breaks trust, and, potentially, makes the complainer appear negative. We become the cancer we’re complaining about; the negative influence that seeps into the culture. Worse, our complaining amplifies the destructiveness and annoyance of the initial frustration about which we’re complaining.
If there’s no way beyond the awfulness of your situation, my advice is that you move on. No one should be encouraged to stay in an abusive or intolerable work situation. The good news, however, is a lot of that about which we complain can be changed if we’re willing to speak up.
“Most people have more power in a situation than they believe they have, even with their boss. And, just maybe, it could be worth the risk to say something,” Bregman tells us.
Just maybe it’s time to swap out that song of misery for one of hope.
For more on the power of a positive outlook, see:
Finding mojo in a church basement
Singing abundance in the key of D major
Beware of “iceberg beliefs” that can sink your organization