Complaint can be heard in anywhere and from anyone at anytime. It is a common expression of emotion. Especially when people face pressure from outside or inside and feel some dissatisfactions.
Today I want to share three facts behind the complaint. Wish you see these facts through the complaint.
Complaint has different level.
They are low level, high level and super level. For example complaining about not having enough food to survive is one kind of low level complaint. Meanwhile complaining of no beaf in the dinner is some kind of high level complaint. Super level complaint maybe is about the daily food not healthy enough for consideration of balanced nutrition.
Every complaint could be divided into these three levels.
Different level of complaint reflects different capability of complainer.
If you heard one team member complaining about quality of user stories they delivered. You could conclude that their maturity of Agile is immature. It definitely does not reach the level 2. If one developer in team complains about his code isn't elegant enough to be a good sample, it's high level complaint and reflects the capability of this developer. He at least has been beyond the level of new police. His skill of coding is qualified.
If someone's capability is stronger, the level of his complaint could be higher.
The level of complaint comforms to the degree of satisfaction of people's need.
Maslow said people's need at least have five levels. They are from basic need of survival to the highest need of self realization. Actually the level of complaint is a twin brother of the level of people's need. Lower level complaint would be eliminated by the satisfaction of need at same level. But the high level complaint will emerge from this condition. We could identify them and find proper way to handle them. Therefore the complaint is not just some negative effect for organization. In some degrees, it's a mirror of self development needs of members in team.
Let's go back to that coder who complaining his quality of code, his skill of coding must satisfied the need of surviving in the team. The need of be respected by other team member is emerging.
In concluding, complaint has two sides of negative and positive. What we can do is to face complaints straightly, divide them into different level wisely and handle them carefully. Question behind complaint has its valuable information. Aim and shoot it. The world surrounding us would be better.
Let's construct a world of less complaint, at least the complaint is at super level.
