Without The Ands or Buts

HIGH FIVE, Y'ALL! It's time to kick some "but."

Here's a turn-of-phrase that must be retired if we're going to create a truly happy and productive workplace...

"He's good at [whatever], but [something ugly]." or "She's really great at [such-and-such]. But [something mean] ."

Leader or co-worker striving to be a good human, that sort of phrase is gossipy and tears down trust.

Eventually, whoever hears these teardowns has got to be thinking, "What's that person saying about me?"

Come on, y'all. We don't need to qualify compliments. Nor do we need to put a pseudo-compliment in front of another observation to help justify our negative comment.

Doing so shows our insecurity and lack of team spirit.

Let's work on this. Let's lift others when we can, and when we can't, let's keep it to ourselves.

It's not going to be easy.

We can start with a good "but" kicking.