ENCOURAGE YOUR PARTNERS TO SPEAK THEIR MINDS




Credit: Deviant Art

  It is natural for us as  human  beings  to prefer the company  of people who are always - or  always seem to be - in  agreement with everything we say or do. I am talking about the kind of people who never object to our words, deeds or plans and indeed, seem more than happy to nod their heads in agreement and go ahead with our plans, even though they have much more than a gut feeling that we are wrong. The kind of people who seem to have a boundless ability to take the most horrendous of verbal insults we dish out to them, sometimes with a cheerful smile. I think we all know one or two of such eager-to-please-and-agree-with-everything-we-do people; veritable Yes-men and Yes-women.

Indeed, due to our innate tendency to seek and always crave the company of  sycophants, we human beings subconsciously erroneously make "the pronounced possession of sycophantic tendencies" one of the major criteria in our selection of partners. Partners in this context qualifies people we work together with towards the achievement of a common goal. Team members if you like. So in this context, the tag encompasses spouses, friends, colleagues (where senior or junior) and every other kind of aide (housemaids, drivers etc). The choice of such partner(s) (sycophantic partners) reduces the chances of the achievement of the desired objective(s). Usually, it is the case that even if short term objectives are achieved, long term aims or goals are usually scuttled as a result of the choice of sycophants as partners.

In the corporate environment, if an employee seems to always be in agreement with his manager and other colleagues - and is smiley and generally always nice - he could be keeping scores in his head and simply biding his time, waiting for his day of vengeance. Or he could be the passive aggressive type, secretly scuttling or sabotaging his manager's, and department's efforts, and consequently, his organisation's operations. You see, sycophants possess a keen understanding of the fact that people naturally have a preference for being around ever-smiling, upbeat people who are always in agreement with them, as opposed to the  ever-frowning, perpetually downcast, dissidents. Maybe we possess this preference because smiley, perpetually-agreeing people come across as "good", "safe" people, and "frowners" and dissidents as "bad" or"evil" people. Or maybe it is simply because moods are contagious, and adulation is mood-boosting, thus we seek out the smiley  sycophants in order to continually experience a mood boost. Whatever the reason, sycophants  understand that people love to feel real good about themselves; feel superior to others; feel like they can do no wrong, and sycophants most readily feed this craving for adulation and affirmation.

However, it has to be understood that the partner who is ever in agreement  might not be a sycophant in the true sense of the word, but might just be a team player trying exhibiting his team spirit by being patient and understanding (hallmarks of maturity). The problem is, there is only so much a person can take, and he or she is likely to reach their limit and explode in their manager's face.
Finally, he or she could be the truly patient type, but humans have a mental facility called MEMORY. Having taken so much nonsense from the errant partner over the years, in future, and in a position of power, they could recall all the hurt and anger they had been made to suffer and decide to seek revenge. Remember, the desire to seek revenge is part and parcel of the human nature.

For this reason, I would rather have a partner that speaks his or her  mind quite harshly, than the one who never speaks and seems to have an infinite capacity to take insults. The former can be advised to "calm down" or be more gentle when speaking their mind, but the latter might believe that his ability to remain calm and quiet even in the face of the most horrible of treatments and insults is the hallmark of a disciplined individual. However, I am of convinced that the latter usually already has his or her  mind set on revenge in the future and is just biding their time, waiting for the perfect opportunity to unleash their vitriol.