The Truth Is A Lot Easier

When I was about 13 years old, my aunt and uncle moved to a new apartment. During a family visit shortly after they moved in, they told us of very loud neighbors who disturbed them by making noise at all hours of the day. So my Uncle Arthur told us he had come up with the perfect solution.

“I bought the loudest, most nonsensical record album I could find and when we leave for the day, I put it on the stereo and blast it as loud as it will go,” he said with a grin of self-satisfaction. The awful album he showed us turned out to be Blind Faith’s debut album. The band featured early Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood, Jack Bruce and Rick Grech. Not only was Uncle Arthur displaying his lack of musical knowledge, but his action was an early lesson for me in passive-aggressive behavior.  Why didn’t he simply knock on the neighbor’s door, introduce himself and ask if they would keep the noise down?

I will admit here and now that the passive-aggressive person is the most difficult for me to manage or deal with. They’re insincere. They’re unwilling to face unpleasant truths. They won’t confront anyone about anything that could cause disagreement.

And here’s the kicker – in my work experience, I discovered that I could often be passive-aggressive, especially with a boss whom I considered intellectually inferior to me. “Why should I bother arguing with him? He’ll never ‘get it’?” I would reason. A psychologist named Danny Frankel first confronted me about this personality trait after my company had conducted one of those 360-degree evaluations of me. This is the type of study where they ask for evaluations from people at your level, above your level and below your level. Danny put it all together and told me what I did not want to hear – that I had no stomach for difficult discussions and that I avoided them through a variety of verbal dodges. But I had no trouble telling Danny he was full of BS and I left our session immensely irritated.

And then a few weeks later, a department head reporting to me brought up a difficult decision that I needed to make, and I caught myself doing a verbal tap-dance rather than make the decision. Moments later I picked up the phone and called Danny, “Damn it. You were right. How do I fix this?”

He taught me that a problem identified and discussed is a problem solved, and a problem avoided only grows bigger. I learned that I was failing to create trust in those around me because I would not tell them the truth. He taught me to have difficult but honest conversations.

If you’re reading this far, you might have recognized yourself at least a little bit. Difficult conversations are, well, difficult. People get uncomfortable. Some lose their temper. But in the end, an arduous conversation saves a lot of wasted labor, and perhaps even your business.

One of my favorite qualities of my Vistage group is our pledge to be care-frontational. We are not nasty and don’t get personal with each other, but we do tell the truth. We might call out a CEO who won’t address the real issue. We will tell a business owner that he or she is taking the safe route to avoid a confrontation rather than risk a discussion that demands honesty.  

One thing we are not is passive-aggressive.