http://blogs.hbr.org/ashkenas/2011/11/the-no-whining-rule-for-manage.htm

I had been searching vigorously for a blog-post to write about when I came across one in the Harvard Business Review, authored by Ron Ashekenas. He describes an anecdote in which a client of his used to keep a “no whining” sign. He then pointed out the peculiarity of such a sign in an office filled with professionals and grown adults. This bizarre and almost childish sign addressed a very common issue though: Everybody complains.

No one is excluded from this statement, no matter how hard we try, it is just a fact of life. People do not like to admit when they are wrong, or take responsibility for when they make mistakes. They also do not want to have to clean up after other people’s mess. The relation I see between this blog post and the Sauder School of Business in general, is that we can take this “no whining rule” and apply it to every group project, or committee we are apart of. The blog-post suggests two ideas and sub-tactics to allow for any organization you are apart of to be more productive:

Accountability

– do not present problems without attempting to solve them on your own

– do what you think is necessary to achieve results

– if you do not have authority or the resources to execute the solution, in which case they should propose a solution with a request for help

Positivity

– constantly remind your team to assume positive intent about others

– it’s easy to blame others when there’s a problem, therefore reminding group members that most people don’t wake up in the morning with the goal of making their lives difficult

– a more productive path would be to better understand the nature of the problem and move towards creating a joint solution