I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat

(written by Lawrence Krubner, however indented passages are often quotes)

I already mentioned that I appreciated Winston Churchill’s willingness to confront reality. And back in 2009, I wrote about the dangers of having a so called “positive attitude”:

What is the point of this thing called a “positive attitude”? Much of it is political – a desire to avoid facing painful realities. Often this is done to keep together a coalition of people – that is, to keep a group of people supportive of a project. We might be talking about the Iraq war, where the American government has relentlessly painted a prettier picture than what reality justified – and this lying was meant to keep the American people supportive of the war. Or we might be talking about a money losing business, in which case the workers and managers might by lying to the investors, so as to keep the investors supportive of the business. And for those who want to make their living that way, this is the one real use of a “positive attitude”.

This is the only positive attitude that a project really needs: the belief that a project can succeed. Once you have that belief, everything else should be criticism: what isn’t working, what needs to be fixed? Happy talk is the enemy of truth, and lies are an effective way to take a viable project and kill it.

I am pleased to see Ben Horowitz say something similar:

I realized my error during a conversation with my brother in-law, Cartheu. At the time, Cartheu worked for AT&T as a telephone repairman (he is one of those guys that climbs the poles). I had just met a senior executive at AT&T who I’ll call Fred Johnson, and I was excited to find out if Cartheu knew him. When I inquired, Cartheu said, “Yeah, I know Fred. He comes by about once a quarter to blow a little sunshine up my ass.” At that moment, I knew then that I’d been screwing up my company by being too positive.

In my mind, I was keeping everyone in high spirits by accentuating the positive and ignoring the negative. But my team saw that reality was more nuanced than I was describing it. And not only did they see for themselves that the world wasn’t as rosy as I was describing it, they still had to listen to me blowing sunshine up their butts at every company meeting.

As I’ve said before, harsh criticism can be a way of showing support, so long as that criticism is aimed at making a project successful. The only “positive attitude” that a project needs is the believe that the project can succeed. If you have that, then everything else should be criticism, or at least a sober assessment of the risks that you face.

A one line business aphorisms that I like is Only The Paranoid Survive.