Complain Your Way to Success
Author: Irette Patterson, Coach

Learning how to complain effectively can be a great asset to your career. The steps are simple -- understand the problem, come up with a solution and present both the problem and the solution to your immediate supervisor in written form. So let’s take the steps in more detail:

1. Understand the problem.
Is this something that really needs to be changed? Sometimes you may want to change something without understanding why the procedures are there in the first place.

Consider asking whoever set up the system (if possible) why things are the way they are. Make sure you conduct the conversation in a non-threatening manner. The conversation should be about how to make everyone’s life easier not about how stupid the system is set up now. Folks won’t help you if they feel as if they’re being attacked. Your goal is to be known as a solution-bringer.

For example, at one of my positions I created a bunch of report forms for our sub-recipients to complete. The department had a lot of turnover. When some new people were hired, they wanted to change the forms. They said that the forms were not giving them the kind of information that they wanted. The formatting of the forms didn’t make any sense. The forms needed to require more detail.

What they never asked me or anyone else was why the forms were set up the way that they were. Eventually, they came to me for help. Now, listen. These people were not in my chain of command. We did not even have the same supervisor. In other words, I could have denied them help and it would not have negatively affected me at all. Their project would have gone bust. In the end, I did help them. I explained that our funding source only wanted certain pieces of information and no one but them reviewed the forms. The result? The forms were only slightly modified.

If they had come to me from the beginning, everyone could have been saved a lot of trouble.

2. Create a solution.
Complaining is easy; anyone can do it. Solving problems, however, earns you promotions and bonuses. Since now you fully understand the problem, you can present a solution that is reasonable and well thought-out. Plus, your supervisor will probably say yes to any solution you bring her because her mind is on something else. It’s a win/win situation – your boss gets her problem solved and you get credit for taking the initiative. Since you’ve got the people who originally worked on the project on board, they’re helping you instead of fighting you.

3. The presentation to the boss.
Always bring something in writing. If you want to create a new form, bring a mock up of the form. If you want to streamline a procedure, do a quick-and-dirty summary of how you want things to turn out and the reasoning behind it so that you can show that you did your homework.

Don’t just drop in on your boss. First make sure she has the time to talk to you. The purpose is to present your case and give your boss something to peruse at her leisure.

If it seems as if your boss does not implement any of your solutions, just remember that it’s always better for you to bring a problem and a solution to her attention than your boss discovering the problem on her own. Besides, it only takes one good idea to cement your place at your job and have them wow-ing over you.

Problems that pop up really are opportunities. They’re the best way to complain your way to success.








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Irette Patterson is a coach who helps people boogie down their own, unique life path. Contact her at spiritatplay@mindspring.com for a complimentary coaching session or subscribe to her bi-monthly book review newsletter by sending a blank email to spiritatplaybookreviews-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. For more articles like this, visit her web site at www.spiritatplay.com.

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