Business Insight Zone

Tell someone they’re “wrong” and they’ll spend lots of energy defending themselves, or else they’ll get discouraged. Tell them they’re “right” and they may get smug or complacent.

My word of choice, then — especially in the areas of business and interpersonal relations — is “fruitful.”

Things are good not because they’re logically correct or ideologically pure, but because they bear the right kind of fruit. Things are bad because they bear bitter fruit, or shriveled fruit, or no fruit, or unsustainable fruit.

It’s not about “smart” or “dumb,” and it’s not about characterizing individuals as good or evil, because intelligent people of good will can easily do things that are unfruitful. (Believe me, I speak from protracted experience.)

When you’re doing it right, it’s because you’re doing it fruitfully.

Take a look at yourself, your team, your family, your company, your community of interest:

What are the fruits of your labors?

~

More food for thought:

• Gretchen Rubin: Watch the Characterization
• Chris Brogan: You’re Doing It Wrong
• Yours truly: Really?

~

Photo by David Penny, used under a CC-Share Alike license.

Category: The language of business