Let's Invent a New Word or Phrase: What do you call someone who "opts out of participating in something but then complains about the outcome."

This question came in an email yesterday from Mozilla's Asa Dotzler, who is renowned for his skill as an open-source marketer, especially in spreading the Firefox browser.  The engine that propels any open source community is having a wide range of smart and hardworking people who generate and refine solutions, and are eager to step in and fix them when things go wrong.  So maintaining norms that encourage people to participate in generating solutions and making decisions-- rather than those who don't pitch in or help make decisions but always complain bitterly about the outcome  -- is crucial to any open source community. 

I would add that the same goes for life inside organizations: Some people refuse to speak-up or pitch-in when ideas are being developed, are unable or unwilling to go to key meetings, and generally don't have the will, time, or inclination to help their colleagues, but then repeatedly shoot-down the decisions that are made, refuse to help implement them, and bad mouth their more hardworking colleagues.  They are destructive assholes in my book.  Indeed, as Jeff Pfeffer and I showed in The Knowing-Doing Gap, there are some organizations where people seem to get rewarded and promoted for shooting down other people and their ideas --- not for generating, proposing, and implementing ideas.  At one large bank we studied, we saw and were told about episode after episode where people who proposed new ideas were ripped to pieces. The people who got ahead in the organization had learned it was career suicide to actually develop and push ideas -- the rewards were all given to critics who not only took down the new ideas, but also took down people who developed and proposed them.

To return to Asa and his friends at Mozilla, they want to discourage this kind of behavior (and so do people in a lot of other workplaces), and are trying to come-up with a punchy, sticky, and fun word to describe these destructive characters.  Here is what Asa wrote me:

A few of us at the office today realized that we didn't have a good word for someone who opts out of participating in something but then complains about the outcome. The most obvious example is someone who doesn't vote and then laments the election results. Ideally this word wouldn't be specific to simply expressing a preference (as in voting) because we'd like it to also include people who, given the opportunity to participate in something much more involved (say, stopping global warming,) fail to take advantage that offer and then complain about the results.  

We came up with a few multi-hyphenated phrases, what I'm calling the "German" approach, but it sure would be nice to have a single, short, and at least somewhat derogatory sounding term for this kind of person.  If you know of an existing English word, or care to help by making one up, we'd love to hear from you.

 

We'll also definitely credit any new word to the creator if we manage to push a that new word into popular use.

I can't come up with anything good.  Terms like "lazy complainers," "destructive second-guessers," and "listless lamenters" don't cut it.  In the spirit of the open source movement, I asked Asa if I could put this out here and see if the readers of Work Matters could come up with something better. We would love to see your ideas. Language is a powerful thing, and it would be great to have powerful word to describe this destructive behavior and/or the people who do it again and again.

Comments

[Andy Imboden]

Unconscientious objector

[borkborkbork]

'Submarine' is brilliant. +1 to whoever suggested that.

[Hobie Swan]

Or we could turn to enomology and call them "dung beetles." Some dung beetles roll up feces into big balls to feed on. (They'll even fight over a dung ball.) Another kind buries feces as soon as they find it. A third kind simply lives in feces. So it seems like the people you describe should fit into at least one of these categories. But these beetles all serve some kind of ecological purpose. Is it possible that these corporate dung beetles do too?

[Carol Murchie]

I worked in a toxic environment where what I had to contribute (namely what the law says and what good corporate governance is) was considered rubbish to the "leaders" (it was a nonprofit) however it never stopped me from saying what I had to say and I never stopped trying to come up with new ideas and new procedures to make things better within my own sphere of influence. Therein lies the big difference from those who never seem to be there "at the creation" because they simply only know how to hack other people's work to pieces or have the misguided notion that being negative makes them look superior to everyone else.

Actually, good old Charles Dickens might have beat us to the punch with "The Artful Dodger".

[Bob_G]

If an organization finds itself populated with large numbers of the "non-participating disgruntled," perhaps a little self-examination is in order. Are they really all just a bunch of worthless whiners? Or is it *possible* that the organization has somehow attracted them, or even created them? Is this, in fact, a symptom of an assh*le environment, rather than simple flawed characters? People who have been ignored, abused, and had their ideas twisted and/or stolen are easily dismissed as having a "bad attitude." Do not blame the victims, folks. This is a complex and nuanced problem.

[Rich Crocco]

I agree with the earlier comment which stated this behavior fall under "passive-aggressive. Could also be categorized as "risk-averse."

[Geoff B]

How about "Feckler"? Not so perjurative as to be offensive, but derogatory nonetheless. Look up "feckless" as the root.

[dblwyo]

Indulging myself first: voters, politicians, Republicans (sorry but)or executives.

Slightly more seriously:
Obsticators
Peaksneakandstab
Bureausnakes or organoreptiles
Ambuscadors
Rectalinear Revanchists
La Legion Denoument de Outre'

Honestly:
Survivors
Ricebowlists
HeadInTheWallet

[wabrom]

Passhole aggressors?

[Dances With Books]

Dave wrote: "The people you are talking about don't sound necessarily all bad. What if they work at a place where they feel disenfranchised, so they are discouraged from contributing to decisions, then regularly see the decisions go bad? The toxic workplace you described could even be a result of that kind of thing persisting for a long time. If this kind of thing is happening, I think it would help if the people who do participate make more of a special effort to get feedback upfront from the "nonparticipating complainers".

I think you are all jumping on the trashing bandwagon a little too fast. I happen to work in one of those very toxic environments where you are pretty much discouraged to contribute, when you do contribute, your feedback is pretty much disregarded and the administration does what they want anyways (meaning they "pretend" to want feedback, but only go through the motions), and very often decisions made do go down south, affecting those of us on the frontlines. So yes, after a while, those like us who actually care just stop giving the feedback or saying anything.

And I do tend to like Carlin's explanation on why he did not vote. Because, when it comes to elected officials, if you keep electing poop (to use a more polite term than Carlin uses), you will get that. I, on the other hand, who stayed out of it, can't be blamed for the mess you made. I refuse to take the blame for asshats who make bad decisions in spite of getting good advice (ie they choose to ignore the good advice). So, you know, lay off a bit. It is not always as simple as you think.

[Greg]

One creature even lower than the above. They are ones who, after shooting down an idea or project, come back in six months or a year presenting the same thing as their own idea...and get rewarded.

This phenomenon is seen in large, bureaucratic organizations.

[working girl]

Depending on who you ask, 'Pragmatists who want to get on with their work' or 'Enemies of the people.' Assuming you are in the enemies of the people camp, how about Kvetchers? 'No kvetching!' Kinda kvetchy, no?

[Walter Underwood]

"whiner"

This is one sub-type of people who complain but don't contribute.

In many cases, these people are called "customers". Or maybe, "ex-customers".

[Bob]

How about Croptic? Somebody who CRabs about things and OPTS out.

[Belinda M]

This may be a little too harsh for what you are describing but I am thinking of those people that meet the criteria;
- NarcisisTIC
- OpportunisTIC
- CriTIC
- ParrasiTIC
They are all 'Ticks' - vultures of the entomology world that feed off a 'host', in some cases causing paralysis. The paralysis male tick feeds off a female tick that is feeding from a host. It's a kind of organisational ecology!

[patricia Tryon]

Grabplainers or, maybe even more descriptively, grabitchers. They grab onto something after the work has been done and then start complaining or "itching" about it.

[Erin O'Keefe]

Fun - some words to play with:

Stealth Saboteur

Sabotage Artist

Undercover Asshole

Intermittent Asshole

[bret simmons]

I think we call those folks politicians, Bob.

[Dave]

The people you are talking about don't sound necessarily all bad. What if they work at a place where they feel disenfranchised, so they are discouraged from contributing to decisions, then regularly see the decisions go bad? The toxic workplace you described could even be a result of that kind of thing persisting for a long time. If this kind of thing is happening, I think it would help if the people who do participate make more of a special effort to get feedback upfront from the "nonparticipating complainers".

[Carol Murchie]

I have to credit a Scottish colleague who, years ago, declared he apparently was hired to manage a group of "articulate complainers".

"Inverted cheerleaders" comes to my mind; goes with the people who suffer from rectal-cranial inversion syndrome.

"Regressive achievers" also comes to mind, too.