Water Cooler Cool

Audio / Produced by The High Calling

Transcript

For the water-cooler crowd, nothing in the company was good enough. Jan caught on to that pretty quickly—and she steered clear of the corner critics. When a new company policy fell into that crowd’s contempt, she laid low.

Now, Jan was no Pollyanna. The company was in trouble and she knew it. Ideas were hit and miss as management grasped for solutions. But thoughtful feedback is one thing. Group scorn is another.

This is Howard Butt, Jr., of Laity Lodge, here to repeat your mother’s sage advice: if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Critical insight? Yes, give it. Helpful feedback? You owe that. Gossip and scorn, however, only destroy companies from the inside out—in the high calling of our daily work.

With his mouth the godless destroys his neighbor, but through knowledge the righteous escape. (Proverbs 11:9)