The Truth In Complaints

What If The Employees are Telling the Truth?

“They just don’t listen.”

“No one wants to do the work.” 

“The employees are just complaining.”

Variations of these statements echo through leadership ranks at every level, aiming to casually dismiss poor performance with a shrug. 

The impulse is common, even understandable - deflect blame and shift the responsibility down the ladder. Save face with peers and protect reputation; find a scapegoat for anxiety.

The dismissal strikes right where intended, however: in the ranks of dismissed employees.  

A powerful transformation is possible when the central philosophy changes to believing rather than dismissing.

Change The Default Assumption

It is tempting to dismiss complaints as they roll in, particularly when deadlines are approaching and stress is high. Under pressure, leaders can default to platitudes like “They know my door is always open,” “I don’t know what they want,” or “We just have to push through this.” 

These statements erode confidence and morale in the team overall, especially if there’s already an intense atmosphere of stress. Even if the organization is lucky enough to have a team aligned with the mission and willing to go the extra mile, it will not take many ignored complaints to sour team morale and create an uphill battle back to agile teamwork.

To prevent this slide, it helps to approach any complaints or suggestions with empathy and curiosity first and foremost. Unfortunately, it seems more manageable - not to mention faster - to dismiss a complaint, but the time taken to hear out team members is significantly less than productivity lost to an increasingly toxic, disengaged team.

Leaders do not need to take every complaint at face value, but it is worth remembering that happy people will not generate a complaint from thin air. Assuming there is a kernel of truth in the complaint, it is well worth the effort to find the seed of the discontent. Treating employees and co-workers like they must prove their issue is “real” will create significant stress in the workforce, feeling like they may already not have time to do their jobs and now must do more work just to resolve a frustration. Changing the default response from “prove it” to “tell me more” allows team communication to flow rather than slowing while team burnout expands exponentially.

Ask For The Details

Leaders have to assess the output of their team and improve efficiency, and one of the easiest ways to alleviate the sticking points for a team is to ask the team themselves.

Asking for more details on frustrations, or, even better, proactively asking teammates where they experience the most friction, allows leaders to catalog and prioritize team issues. Communicating to the team that they are heard, even if there is no time to address the problem immediately, can postpone burnout and incentivize pushing through a current bottleneck with the promise of a better future.

As with any relationship, leaders must make good on promises to follow up or risk breaking trust with the team. By placing the issues in a backlog, especially with complete visibility, leaders demonstrate attention and dedication to the team.

Asking team members to elaborate on worries or complaints helps leaders find the core of the issue at hand while simultaneously involving employees in finding a solution. Creating this shared ownership not only eases the burden on the leader to come up with a magic bullet, but it also develops autonomy and proactivity in the team members. In turn, this boosts productivity, reduces turnover, and increases collaboration as the team brings up concerns for themselves and projects in a more timely manner. 

Evaluate The Complaints

To understand an issue better, leaders can employ the following techniques

1. Watch for assumptions - whenever possible, label and, as necessary, challenge assumptions that could be creating problems in the near and long term. Common assumptions include:

   1. We’ve always done it this way

   2. There’s no way we can change that process

   3. The last time we brought up something similar, it didn’t work out

2. Ask open-ended questions to probe for details:

   1. What do you think causes this problem?

   2. What would you like to happen?

3. Avoid closed questions - conversation enders or yes/no questions:

   1. Do you need help? 

   2. Is this enough to address your worry?

If leaders endorse a core belief that their team is not complaining just for the sake of it, they can proactively address problems and get ahead of burnout and morale issues. While sometimes employees may just need to vent, leaders cannot fall into dismissing all complaints this way. If leaders are willing to listen to the venting, they will discover ways to resolve pressure for employees and create a better functioning team for any task.