Why crying wolf pays and how to shame that little boy into honesty and positivity

Mary Louise Penaz (you need to be a member of Triiibes) made a comment on an earlier blog of mine about the end of the word:

Mary said "...and who doesn't like being right? Right?"

It made me think about why there are so many detractors and especially a lot of doomsayers.

Predictors of the future are always right until the future is the past. For those that predict with riddles, they will always be right while there is a shred that they could be right sometime soon.

I think the 'cry wolf' story is like this. There are wolves. Crying wolf is never wrong because there 'might' be a wolf. It just wasn't there when you came to help or you scared it away. See how good it was for me to cry wolf? Eventually there will be a wolf. Yeah, we missed all those wolves, but that last time that little kid was dead on. Smart kid!!!

It is amazing though that it is far easier to believe that something will go wrong. What is the ratio of people that believe that aliens will come and shower us in a golden age verses all those that believe in the end of the world?

It is easier to be right about failure than success. I think this is because wrong is wrong. Right can be easily cast as wrong or even not totally right. A successful product can be wrong even if it brings in millions because it could have brought tens of millions.

It is easy to pick apart success and hard to find silver linings in failure without still seeing the failure.

But how do you stop this sort of thing? How do you stop the hobby of doom and gloom spreaders?

I actually have this issue in my tribe. Why does a customer want that? They say it rhetorically and dismissively. There is no question because they see no value. What's a product manager to do?

The key offense is to force them to write positives first. We do that in our product vision. It help set the stage. I also never respond to one negative with one positive. The equation is lopsided in tit for tat. One bad has more points that one good, even when it is a home run of a zinger.

Another good comeback is to challenge. Get them to write the list of possibilities for good. What are the 5 success factors? What do you think will be the five most used features? If that is a problem, what are three possible solutions?

But be careful. Never ask, "so, what would you suggest instead?" This is too open. Ten to one, this guy hasn't a clue. At least I've yet to meet one that had enough mental foresight to buy even a discount clue. They are dissing your idea because they are defending their empty wasteland of ideas. You'll hear the tension and anger in their voice. Tread carefully because exposing this fact will create a shit storm. Concentrate on the attack, not the attacker. You don't win a fight by questioning if the guy's father and mother were related before they were married.

Keep on point. Don't allow the conversation to waver away from the subject the guy is dissing. You can not reward negativity with a voice and a lever of power.

Get a copy of a book on how to argue and a few books on critical thinking. Keept the examples with you written on little cards with the reference. Put them in your slides to cut off the types of arguments you know you are going to hear. Think of the argument and disprove it before the peanut gallery even wakes up.

There are a lot of web resources, like this one. Just type illogical argument into Google to get a bunch.

BTW, you want to have the worst arguments and have the most animosity? Try running a meeting with Robert's Rules of Order. Take my word for it and don't let it happen to you. The issue is that all it takes is one negative space cowboy to take over. Put one guy in charge and force them to read a bunch on controlling meetings, critical thinking, and detecting illogical arguments.

Have a fantastic win against a negative nelly lately? How did you do it? Give us the play by play.