How do you handle idiots?

I was laughing with a friend the other week about the number of people in any given workplace who are just simply idiots?

We weren't talking about people who are perhaps a little less bright - we were sharing stories about the sort of muppet who wastes everyones time and energy with their postings on the bulletin-board/corporate blog.

Every IC person recognises the type (although they come in all shapes and sizes) - some wear patterened bow ties in lieu of personalities, others have extensive wardrobes of  black tee shirts (often preserved from Def Leppard’s glory days playing the Milton Keynes Bowl). 

Others speak in a strained and convoluted English (assuming that linguistic dexterity is in itself amusing) and often hail each other with ‘Greetings’ rather than a simple ‘hello’.  Some could take Lord of the Rings or the works of Terry Pratchett as their specialist subject on Mastermind…

Instead of making helpful postings they ask ‘clever’ questions about the price of sauté potatoes in the canteen or waste time reliving the humorous moments of last night’s team outing to the pub.  Others will see the bulletin board as an opportunity to play Perry Mason interrogating senior management about their personal adherance to corporate policy on one subject after another.

Often they are highly intelligent people who are very good at their jobs – that’s why their line managers never say anything about their incessant time-wasting (either that or their manager can't face talking to them more often than the annual performance review).

However they have the common characteristic of being harmless in the wild but a nightmare in captivitity and with access to communication technology.

But they are a dangerous hazard to IC managers.  Their regular contributions on-line fora make it easy to mistake them for the authentic voice of the organisation.  On top of that, defending their imaginary corporate right to free speech can be a costly and pointless exercise for internal communicators.  And to cap it all, like flashers in a park - when they're lurking,  no one else is going to come to play - making any discussion group a waste of time and an embarssment.

I wonder if there is any benchmark data on the typical proportion of an average workforce is made up of plonkers?  I hope Melcrum develop something soon...but in the meantime, all advice on keeping them off the blog/discussion board most welcome...

Liam

Comments

[Matt O'Neill]

Greetings Liam,

That's an interesting post you got there. I can understand your point, but am yet to come across it.

With the various podcasts / blogs / networks we build and manage for clients, I haven't come across these characteristics in any users so far. This is based on experience across public and private sector bodies, and to date, includes international organisations such as the UN. Maybe it's on the horizon? Maybe have just been lucky?

In fact, having been working on one financial services company podcast for the past six months, comments and questions on both the telephone comments line / email have been positive and pro-active. Part of me wonders if this is self censorship amongst listeners / contributors?

Cheers,

M

[Sue]

We had an on line forum at a previous organisation that had its moments. When things eventually got too much, we stepped in, reminded everyone about the forum guidelines and said we were going to get firmer about moderating posts.

We removed things that contravened the deadlines (didn't happen often) and found contributors were good self-regulators anyway.

And actually there were some pretty good debates on there on the odd occasion when people had a go at senior managers. Some good points made on both sides, and I was pleased to see them being debated. Fair play, sometimes when people kept having a go it was because there was a genuine issue and senior leaders just weren't responding to it. I used to email them myself to say 'oi! There's no wonder people are going nuts - what are you doing about this?'

We also tried to get some of the more vociferous people on board as testers/sounding boards - they were generally pleased to be asked and gave us credit for it.

Externally I look at the Digital Spy forums when I'm in procrastination mode and there are some pretty stupid comments made sometimes, but there's usually someone prepared to wade in and point out that they're stupid and call in a moderator if things are getting too bad. As long as there are decent guidelines, I think people mostly sort themselves out.

[Timm]

Trolls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29) are a common problem in Internet discussion boards. The most common solution is guidelines and moderation. Also, giving board users an "ignore" button helps.

[Sue]

Trolls! What an excellent word! I think, Timm, you were also the person that taught me about 'flogs' (false blogs - things pretending to be blogs but actually not-so-smart pieces of marketing). Do let us know any more interesting terms to add to our vocabulary - as you know, Liam is most keen that I should expand mine ...!

[Timm]

Sue, I've got another one for you: "Social Network Fatigue" - what you get if you are invited to too many online social networks.