Why clever companies have the will to whinge

By James Arnold BBC News Online business reporter

Managers are often better moaners than their staff

Having a good old moan about work always makes you feel better.

According to a book* published in the US on Friday, however, it may also be good for your employer.

John Weeks, professor of organisational behaviour at business school Insead, spent a year working at and studying the culture of a well-known but anonymous British High Street bank.

What he found there was a culture of shocking negativity, riddled by chronic criticism from top to bottom.

But complaints do not indicate any sort of organisational sickness, Professor Weeks concluded - indeed, they may even be the key to the bank's success.

Gurus and grumblers

Professor Weeks launched his project - at a bank he gives the pseudonym BritArm - in order to investigate received management wisdom.

A host of books from business gurus such as Tom Peters has, he feels, created a somewhat unthinking stereotype of corporate "excellence".

The ritual of making derogatory remarks and receiving empathy in return... is a glue that strengthens the bonds between the individual and the group John Weeks

For most people, this excellence is usually characterised by rapid decision-making, innovation and lack of bureaucracy.

But as Professor Weeks points out, those characteristics are dangerously elastic: an "adventurous" company that fails suddenly becomes a "reckless" company; a "bureaucratic" company that succeeds is seen as "disciplined".

Whatever the criteria, the situation at BritArm seemed alarmingly grim.

"No one in BritArm, from the chief executive down to the junior clerks, has a good word to say about that organisation's culture," Professor Weeks writes.

"Never once during the fieldwork that I conducted in BritArm did I hear it mentioned in a positive context."

Colleague moaned to colleague; more significantly, managers made no bones about expressing their cynicism in front of staff.

'Warm glow of adversity'

Yet BritArm was one of the most successful and efficient banks in the country.

And Professor Weeks' conclusion is that complaint may have contributed to that success.

While working in the uncomfortable surroundings of the bank's Securities Centre, Professor Weeks complained to a colleague, who retorted: "Now you know what it is like to be a BritArm securities clerk."

"This struck me," Professor Weeks writes.

"If she was right, then being a securities clerk at BritArm feels like basking in the warm glow of adversity with sympathisers all around. I felt more like a part of the team than I ever had before.

"The ritual of making derogatory remarks about some aspect of the Bank and receiving empathy in return... is a glue that strengthens the bonds between the individual and the group."

The meaning of moaning

Not only does complaining bind teams together, it also curiously strengthens loyalty.

Don't call it whingeing - call it team-building

Insiders are allowed to moan because they know what's going on; outsiders who criticise - and many people criticise British High Street banks - are resented and opposed by bank staff.

Nor are complainers necessarily identifying real faults: in the same way that people talk about the weather without really meaning it, whingeing is a sociable activity.

Better still, a culture of constant complaint creates an organisation that is constantly dissatisfied, and hungry for change - no matter that change, when it comes, is almost always worse than what was there before.

The so-called "excellent" firms lauded by the gurus are often vulnerable to complacency - BritArm certainly is not.

Britain bleats best

All firms have their discontents, but Professor Weeks reckons this is an area where the British really excel.

The British talent for self-deprecation is well known; disciplined Japanese companies and straight-laced Americans may not appreciate the subtleties of the issue, he says.

But companies should not assume that criticism is an unmixed blessing.

"If everyone is complaining, then there is a danger that vital complaints could be drowned out," Professor Weeks says.

"In a noisy cocktail party, you have to raise your voice to be heard - but then people wonder why you're shouting."

By all means complain - but do try to be polite about it.

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*Unpopular Culture: The Culture of Complaint in a British Bank. John Weeks, Chicago University Press, December 2003.