Monday, February 3, 2014

The No Complaining Rule

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, my wife and I strolled into Barnes and Nobles in downtown Bellevue, just to get a glimpse of new arrivals and more accurately to get a coffee from Starbucks inside B&N. While sipping hot coffee, I went to the Business & Investing section to find this book "The No Complaining Rule". It was a very timely find. Off late I've been hearing a lot of constant complaints from my colleagues at work, especially the same damn thing again and again. It was like a constant nagging of a old imbecile lady, with really no substance at all. At first I thoughts these complaints were to vent their anger and are a fleeting emotions. Unfortunately they weren't.

As someone who does think about constantly improving efficiency of people and the team, I feel complaining to the extent you call out the problems is required. It is both cathartic and helpful to note down items that need attention and to be taken care of. However, just complaining alone isn't enough. There are enough people in the world with negative outlook, and I don't need my team to be one. I don't want people around me to be that either. I've consciously made decision to distance myself from such people in the last few years.

Now back to the book I started talking about. It is a fictional story of a lady who has a great career position but complains about little things, which becomes a habit thereby effecting her moods and performance. It is about how she, with advice from a sweet nurse, turns her life around and how things change for her over time. That one little advice is: "Do not complain! If you complain, add a statement which has a positive effect ." With this one piece of advice, her home life, her social life and her career take turn for better. And everything is rosy and happy ever after.

I have a few problems with such kind of books.
1. Author has just one point to convey to the readers: "Don't complain or add something to fix that complaint." The rest of the book is just a fictional story; in fact bordering a fairy tale
2. Author tries very hard to convince this is THE essential thing to go after
3. Life doesn't turn around and not everything falls right into its place, just because one person started this no complain rule.
4. $15 for this book is useless. May be worth $5 at most

Overall, I would say the point conveyed is very good: "Don't complain, but if you do, suggest something that fixes it", but I don't like the fairy tale used to convey it.

Now it is your turn to try out this rule and tell how it affected you! For me, I stopped complaining until I find a way to help the situation. Not many times I succeed but then it does help to keep positivity around me.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

In the sense you are trying to complain about the book with a positive sense that it has a point.

suresh said...

yes! you got it Nari! My +ve point is to reduce the price :P

rocky said...

Most of the times people take a complaint and go to others. I met few people/bosses who always say: "If you find something wrong, give me two ways that you can think of, to fix it and we will work on it". Just Complaining doesn't help anyone :)

Anon said...

This should be a book review :)

capricorn said...

well said Raki.

Uttara said...

So you are complaining about a book that says No Complaining... ;)? Interesting point though.

suresh said...

@Uttara.. I complained, but also said what should be done better :)