Yes, it's over now! Over the last few months, I have sporadically left comments on other people's posts on LinkedIn. Sometimes they were suggestions or queries, but often they were also grumbles, usually about German politics or how European regulations are targeting German SMEs.
Yet I have never been known in my environment for complaining, but for working on improvements. At least that's how I see myself.
As a managing director, I am also strongly in favor of less complaining in my company and more improvement and implementation.
What exactly is "complaining"? The dictionary has the following description: "To find fault with something and angrily express dissatisfaction" and considers this to be a derogatory term.
However, my own definition goes beyond this: "Finding fault with something that you can't change yourself and angrily expressing your dissatisfaction."
It is the helplessness that leads to repetition and often to the wrong listener and, at least in the company, creates a bad mood.
Why has this been a red flag for me for years? Because I am dealing with engineers in my environment, just like myself. We engineers generally have a self-image that assumes that we are always making the world a little bit better with what we do, by developing products. With the help of the products we develop, users perform important functions, protect others from danger and make their own work easier.
So, when an engineer complains, they have consciously or unconsciously made the decision that they are helpless when it comes to the issue in question, but still have to make a derogatory comment about it. Such behavior about things that could actually be changed, for example in the company, must not be tolerated, because it not only leads to a bad atmosphere, but also to learned helplessness.
Why is it over now? I have decided that I no longer want to be known on LinkedIn for comments that could be interpreted as complaining.
Instead, I have decided to post on this platform and most of those posts will be positive. However, even the critical posts especially about the conditions for German companies will hopefully also contain approaches as to how problems could be solved or improved.
Finally, it should be said that the opinions will be my own, personal ones and do not represent "the opinion" of a company.
So, enough with the complaining!
Ruedi Klein
Ruedi Klein is the Managing Partner of Teleconnect and a new product development professional with thirty years marketing and product management experience in the telecommunications and automotive electronics industries. He is an alumni of Alcatel Lucent and Panasonic. He holds an Electrical Engineering degree from RWTH Aachen as well as a MBA from Cornell University.
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