Complain Right, and Ye Shall Receive

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain -- and most fools do.
-- Dale Carnegie

Tact is the art of telling someone where to go so well that they actually look forward to the trip. So it is with complaints: A successful complaint doesn't just vent a problem -- it proceeds several steps along the path to changing the problem by giving the interested parties the tools and the motivation they need to fix it.

The trouble is, like compliments, effective complaints are hard to make and even harder to receive. Done properly, they can change negative circumstances for the better. But done incorrectly, they don't just backfire: they also feel terrible as you're making them.

So let's begin with a stationary target: the written letter of complaint, which has the advantage of being revisable ad infinitum and can be perfected before it is sent. Indeed, if your conflict-resolution muscles need tone, practicing on a written document before you try to complain in person can work wonders.

Incidentally, Miss Conduct has written many a letter of complaint, but she is only proud of two -- and they both resulted in offers of employment with the manufacturers to whom she complained.

The successful complaints combined three things: a compliment, evidence and a wish or question.

The compliment softens up the recipients, the evidence puts them in your shoes -- as a customer, supervisor or employee -- and the wish or question galvanizes them into action. (Preferably this is action that responds to your problem, not just mixing a stiff drink or opening a bottle of wine with dinner.)

The Soft Start-Up

As with any sort of criticism, your readers or listeners will not accept a problem -- or even a communication -- from someone who is entirely negative about a situation or relationship.

After all, salvaging the unsalvageable is wasted effort, and it's just no fun to listen to someone carp, as Carnegie observes above. So even if you believe you have a lost cause, don't let it show. It may require a herculean suspension of disbelief, but you must at least temporarily assume that there is some way your situation can work out positively.