Discussion on:

Do you just hate everything?

In your opening paragraphs you mention negativity and being able to find the hole in every plan. That is the problem I encounter much more that flat complaining without solutions. The 'Negative Nancy' or 'Downer Dan' is more often hindering a project rather that helping. I suggest: Assess whether the hole found was just for the sake of finding it or for the improvement / success of the project. Also, if you are smart enough to find a hole then you should be smart enought to help close it, just like complaining: have a solution in mind when presenting a complaint.

ignore what someone has to say just because it's negative is a sure way to ensure a major screw up.

The ability to spot and pick holes in plans is a great ability to have on any team as it means you don't end up with a project that's 95% done before you find out a basic flaw in it. Think about the Mars lander that got wiped out because no one thought to ask if the two teams were working off the same set of measurement systems.

History is littered with major screw ups due to small items that were missed at the start, so is the corporate world. Think about what Napoleon lost at Waterloo because he wouldn't listen to his artillery commander who told him the mud made using the artillery a problem and wanted to wait until the fields dried out before they started the battle. The lack of the often used artillery mobility was a major factor in loosing that battle and the war. The Battle for Arnhem would have been very different if people had listened to a couple of people who questioned the suitability of certain equipment and decisions; they were told to get in line with the program and not to be so negative - and thousands died because they weren't allowed to be negative about the project problems.

So think on those before you write off your Negative Nancies and Downer Dans, listen to what they have to say and give serious consideration to the problems they raise. Sure if all they say is "I don't like it," it won't have much weight, but ask them why and look at the details they raise.

They actually said that we shouldn't complain and such, just hold it in and don't say anything, tell management and no one else.
I thought the advice contained both positives and negatives. They seem to imply they would rather have a bunch of yes men that don't actually care if the company succeeds or dies, as long as they get paid. On the other hand, the tell management part would imply that they in fact do want to hear the complaints.

It makes it all very confusing, I think I am going to adopt a stay quiet unless I am asked policy.

of the person having to look at what they see as negative and why. Quite often the task within any team is for one person or group to look for the problem while another looks for the solutions to those problems, that's because people think differently.

Failure to see the downside of any issue has caused more problems and project failures than any person being negative about it. That's so because not seeing the pitfalls early ensures you fall in them when it's too late to rake any evasive action.

I don't advocate for everyone becoming a pollyanna--just to strike a happy medium. For some people, finding the negative just feels good and they go out of their way to find it.

I like the article's emphasis on your own personal behavior. Is it getting to be always negative? (Perhaps because of the nature of the job).

I come across as negative to most folks outside our group. But to folks inside our group, I'm the one who points out problems AND solutions. If you think your brand-new never-before-examined idea is totally wonderful, then we'll have no problem implementing it. If there are issues, we'll have more problems implementing the later in the process we discover those problems.

The reason folks outside my group view me as a Negative Nellie is because my _first_ question is always about the user expectations--why do you think this process or the new data will actually solve the stated problem?

Most folks can't even clearly state the problem they are trying to solve.
But they've by God got a fer sure solution and anyone who isn't on board is just being negative. That's how I get my reputation, by trying to get managers to focus on clearly defining problems before focusing on solutions.

I normally don't go negative until after the first #$%^&* trouble request (demand) of the morning, usually around 8:05.

When a manager tells you (not asks you) to build a data warehouse in Access or Excel; because Microsoft positions both products as part of their business intelligence stack?

When a customer or stakeholder asks you to dump private/closely held data onto a hard drive and mail it to a business partner? (hint: in regulated industries, that's illegal)

When an executive says "we know that it's flawed, but it'll do for now". Notice how the "we" disappears when there is a middle-of-the-night issue and *I'm* the one in the office fixing it.

One can quote "best practices", whitepapers, reference material and law until you are blue in the face. They aren't solutions.

The secret to telling people that someone won't work isn't to have a solution (Excel will never be an appropriate platform for a data warehouse), it's having the respect and confidence of your co-workers and the backing of your management.

If you have neither, there is no solution (you can't fix stupid). Post your resume and go where you will be listened to.

I have seen this type of insanity as described - Marc Jenllinek

I had been at this company for 2 months, and was requested to meet with a manager from another department regarding a project.

In short, the project scope that was offered by this manager was ,"I am not sure; you are the developer you can figure out." My reply was that I will come up with some ideas, and I went back to my office, and immediately began to update my resume.

There is no reasonable solution working in conditions that are not grounded in reality.

The manager/executive isn't stupid, they simply need to be shown an alternative. If there really are none, then you can gripe. Your responsibility as a supposedly knowledgable IT employee is to find other ways to accomplish the goals using methods and practices that are acceptable. The last time I checked SQLExpress and MySQL are free, and there is open source encryption software.

I'd hate to work with or employ someone that can only say why something can't work and has no answers as to how to work around the problem. IT people are supposed to be problem solvers not problem creators.

Implement a data warehouse
Implement a data warehouse in Excel or Access

If the goal is a data warehouse then us supoosedly knowledgeable types can provide a set of alternatives, given some resource they can even have some real numbers attached to them.

Implement one in Excel, is a probelm created by an idiot with no solution any one claiming to be competent could resolve.

It's the equivalent of saying I want to create a road bridge out of tissue paper.

So this where the confusion between negativity and realism creeps in. Can you as manager accept some propeller head "subordinate" telling "you" that your idea is dumb, or one that exposes "your" enormous ignorance?

You I don't know about, people who view challenges to their ideas asa personal attack, well we've all had dealings with those haven't we?

Oh and managers are employees too.

The more the manager details the problem and the less the manager details the solution, the better off IT and the business unit will be. Getting managers to understand this is a big problem especially with technology being so prevalent and everyone thinking they are a tech expert.

Along similar lines... https://twitter.com/shitmydadsays/status/5427015317

I think companies are lucky to have these negative people to balance out all the people who think computers are magic or believe in 'the power of positive thinking'. Often problems are easier to find than solutions. Sometimes the answer is that there isn't a solution. But a problem is going to be a problem weather someone mentions it now so everyone can look for a solution or when it turns up later and kills a project after many wasted hours or causes a security breech or some other catastrophe.

But I fear the article may be right about it affecting their job prospects. We may end up with IT departments filled with or run by yes men.

This is me to a T! Will be taking your advice!

I think you are forgetting the Negative nancy types are commonly back-filling into projects to stop them train-wrecking due to Incompetence - running project you don;t understand, not engaging stakeholders early enough to avoid making disastrous decisions and consequences for unfunded major remedial action later on. See almost any government IT project across the world for case studies here.

Project Management by Wishful Thinking, rarely delivers.

...then find another job. I'm a /very/ negative person, but I've had jobs where this wasn't a problem, because the people I worked with -- including my managers -- were focused on doing good work.

People are often "negative" because they feel no one is listening to them or cares about their point of view. When employees are treated respectfully, as professionals who have something to offer, they have little reason to be negative.

I've worked with an engineer who's negative attitude really caused problems, not least because many of his "it can't be done" statements were not true.

In one case we'd built a SAP installation server to roll out the client to around 3000 users.

This engineer asked how we were going to do the roll out so I told him. His immediate response was "that doesn't work" which was pretty odd because by that time we'd already done our first 100 installations using it.

The other thing that was especially trying about him was he would always bring problems, but never any suggestions for solutions, work arounds or alternatives. He'd just label something as unsolveable and then drop it at your feet like a cat delivering a dead bird. Worse still he seemed to derive pleasure from the process.

There aren't always solutions to particular problems but if you can show you've looked into them and considered alternatives or work arounds it shows a more positive approach.

I don't want yes people on the team but I do want people who don't simply stop when they find a problem.

Taking the excel or access data warehouse problem as an example which would you prefer to see?

1. It can't be done
2. It can't be done with excel or access but you might want to consider these alternatives

I know I'd certainly prefer option 2.

Course when you challenge those alternatives, as they almost certainly involve a significant expense. I'll have to explain why excel or access are not sound tech choices, and I'll have to do it in a way that salves "your" ego.

Well maybe not yours, but many managers would have a real problem with even an extremely polite version of "You don't know what you are talking about". In fact they'd see it as negative.

The challenge is to pursuade them gently that your alternative was their idea all along!

More seriously it is a challenge sometimes to get customers to talk about what the want a system to do rather than how it will do it.

By the way it's nice to hear from you Tony, I hope life is treating you well since the Corus days

tact and tactics, though I'm better than I was. Still given my old approach was to question both their IQ and their parentage, that wasn't that much of an effort.

Hows life at the old place?

We;ve become so BS oriented in our society that we don't want to hear bad news. Those people you call overly negative may be the types that deconstruct everything naturally. Sure you wouldn't put them in sales, but in the connect role they are indispensable. Trying to convert every introvert into an extroverted glad handling smiling JA is ridiculous, but something I've seen in the last few years: It's a concerted effort to destroy the geek. Not everyone is a politician or wants to be one. May be if we had more nitpickers, accidents with the space shuttles wouldn't have happened as a case in point.