A couple years ago our team had a really bad relationship with another team at work. They were morons. They did everything wrong, and made LOTS of work for us.
One day I found I was sick of it -- I stopped calling them idiots. I told my immediate cow-orkers, "I'm tired of calling them shitty names. I'm just not going to do that any more."
The embarrassing thing that people around me said was, "Good!"
In a few weeks, interesting things began to happen. First, they started listening to my team and me. With a little guidance they stopped making decisions that made life tough for everyone. Now they're not doing /great/, but it's sure a lot better.
There is another team I'm going to tackle next. This one is harder, it's been entrenched for years, and it's costing us money. But I have to turn things around, and the easiest thing to start doing is to stop calling people fucking morons.
Calling someone a moron is the first step down a slippery path, even if you /know/ they're a moron.
One day I found I was sick of it -- I stopped calling them idiots. I told my immediate cow-orkers, "I'm tired of calling them shitty names. I'm just not going to do that any more."
The embarrassing thing that people around me said was, "Good!"
In a few weeks, interesting things began to happen. First, they started listening to my team and me. With a little guidance they stopped making decisions that made life tough for everyone. Now they're not doing /great/, but it's sure a lot better.
There is another team I'm going to tackle next. This one is harder, it's been entrenched for years, and it's costing us money. But I have to turn things around, and the easiest thing to start doing is to stop calling people fucking morons.
Calling someone a moron is the first step down a slippery path, even if you /know/ they're a moron.