Following on from Meet Joe. Don’t Be Joe, I thought I would take the time to introduce you to Barbara. She is even worse than Joe in my opinion. She may be the most talented and funny and well liked person in the room. But if she doesn’t like something, she’s not going to hear it.
See, Barbara makes everyone feel terrible about everything they do. She shares some similar traits with Joe. She always waits till the end or middle of a process to chime in. But her presentation is just offensive.
Remember Joe? He was famous for always coming up with new ideas half way through something that he wasn’t involved in, causing a lot of time wasting and people to rethink their process.
Well, Barbara doesn’t have any ideas.
A typical Barbara conversation would go something like this:
Team: Hey everyone, come and look at this presentation we’ve spent hours on and are really proud of. We invested a whole lot of time and effort into the presentation, writing and collaborating together, everything was smooth and we feel like we’ve done a really good job.
Other people: Sure, let’s have a look.
Joe: Oh, I like this presentation, although, this photo of a dog catching a frisbee, I think that maybe it should be a ball instead.
Barbara: I don’t like this slide. I think it is terrible. You really need to get rid of it. I believe it could be so much better. It’s actually quite bad.
Team: *cries*
Negative Nellie Strikes Again
Barbara is the Negative Nellie in a situation. She doesn’t ever have anything constructive to say, and her first thought is always in the negative. I’ll give you another Barbara type conversation (this didn’t really happen, but it applies to a real world experience).
Me: Hey guys, we should do a mannequin challenge video.
Saif: Yes definitely, can I dab in it.
Patricia (to the team): We have an awesome idea to do a mannequin challenge video, we’re going to reference all those other weird viral things that happened, so each of us can do one of those things.
Rest of the team: Oh that is wonderful, yes, let’s do it. Can I plank? I want to do the ice bucket challenge, we can do running man, rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb
[Barbara enters]
Barbara: What are all of you talking about?
Patricia: We were talking about the mannequin challenge and we…
Barbara: That thing is stupid, the mannequin challenge is stupid. Why do you care about it?
Patricia: We were going to make…
Barbara: Yeah Mannequin Challenge is dumb, forget about it.
Saif: The idea is good, we are going to…
Barbara: Oh forget it, it’s stupid, count me out
Team: *cries and gives up*
See Barbara has immediately gone for the negative in any situation, without even hearing the idea. She’s straight away assumed she wouldn’t like it. But, if she actually listened, and had some rational thought, she would hear the idea was a great one, and then maybe collaborate and insert some of her ideas as well (in the planning stage, don’t be Joe).
So, do you have a Barbara in your team? Or are you the Barbara? DigiGround can help you with your Barbara problem.
