and I'm very happy to introduce you to Guy Winch, a psychologist, who's gonna talk about

complaint psychology. If you really want his book, "The Squeaky Wheel," and you didn't

get it, please let the Authors at Google team know and we'll purchase books for you. Go

ahead.

>>Guy Winch: All right. Thank you. Am I on? Yes. Excellent. Alright.

So, welcome everyone and thanks for having me, Toma. Today, I'm going to tell you how

our complaining psychology affects our lives and our relationships.

Now, I know the topic of complaints is not one that elicits positive connotations for

most people, but I really hope to change that. Case in point, I want to tell you about the

day my book came out. Like most writers, I dreamed for years about the day I will be

able to see a book I wrote on the shelves of a bookstore.

So the day my book was published, I ran down to my local bookstore with my favorite pen

in hand, because my agent said, "Oh, they're going to ask you to sign books." So, I had

my pen. I ran up to the customer service desk where the customer service manager was standing

and said, "I’m Guy Winch and my book just came out."

And she said, "Winch. Oh. Let me see." And she looked it up and she goes, "Oh. Here it

is. The Squeaky Wheel. Complaining? Ooh, I hate people who complain. Ugh." And she turned

away.

[laughter]

I realized I won't be needing my pen. But I took comfort in the fact that if she hates

people who complain that much, she must really love her job as a customer service manager.

[laughter]

But I also understood how she felt. We complain more today than ever before in history. We

complain about everything from the weightiest global issues to the smallest details of our

daily lives.

We complain about the actions of our favorite television characters with the same immediacy

and passion as we do about the actions of our spouse or our friends. And yet, even our

best complainers, our kvetching prodigies, even the cream of our moaning crop rarely

get the results they want.

Today, we are all squeaky wheels, but we don't get the grease. We face daily frustrations

and irritations and we don't have a clue about how to address them effectively. Now, I can

see your faces and know what some of you are thinking but let me ask you this.

The last time your partner or your roommate or your colleague did something that really

annoyed you, did you say something to them about it? If you did, did you get the result

you wanted? The last time a sales person was rude to you in a store, did you speak to the

manager?

The last time the dish you ordered in a restaurant was not cooked properly, did you send it back?

Complaints are a much bigger factor in our life than we realize and not just because

we have so many of them, but mostly because of what happens to us psychologically when

we do.

The thing is the urge to complain triggers a powerful and negative psychological mindset

that impacts our feelings and our behaviors and dramatically affects our lives and our

relationships for the worse.

And we don't even realize that is happening. Now, when a psychologist tells you that the

mere urge to complain triggers powerful, hidden, destructive forces inside your mind, I understand

that can sound like pure theory.

[laughter]

So, the first topic I'll cover today is what the research tells us about complaining psychology.

I'll explain what this mindset does to us and what our complaining psychology is costing

us in various aspects of our lives.

Then, I'll tell you what you can do about it. I'll give you the recipe for preparing

a Complaint Sandwich and I'll tell you how to eat one as well. Google recently opened

a new call center. So, we'll talk about the challenges those folks might be facing and

we'll end with an inspiring story about extra-large brassieres and their occupants.

Hopefully by the end of today, I'll have changed your minds about complaints so you can see

them for the opportunities they truly are. But let's begin with the research. And here

we see the first gap between what we perceive we do and what we actually do.

Most people think they would speak up if they were on the losing end of a bad deal. If something

you purchased arrived in the wrong size, if it was broken, if it didn't do what it was

supposed to do, most of us think we would complain. And yet, study after study demonstrates

that when we are dissatisfied with certain purchases, 95% of us fail to complain to the

company in question, ninety-five percent. Only 5% of us speak up to the company. And

when we ask people why they haven't spoken up in these situations, this is what they

say. Here's how we justify why we don't complain. We believe complaining to the company will

require too much time and effort.

We believe the process of complaining will be too annoying and aggravating. We believe

that even if we did complain, we won't get a satisfying result. Now, these might seem

like compelling arguments except for one thing.

Those very same people will then relay the tale of consumer woe to an average of 16 friends

and acquaintances and getting re-aggravated every time they do it, expending incredible

time and effort in doing it and resolving nothing. So, do you see the paradox? We voice

our complaints to everyone except the people who can actually resolve them.

This same contradiction operates in every sphere of our lives. When we feel hurt or

annoyed or disappointed by something our partners or our friends or our family members did or

said, we usually don't voice complaints to them for all the same reasons.

We believe it will require hours of talking and discussion. We believe doing so will be

too aggravating because it will lead to an argument. And we believe that even if we tried

complaining to these people, it won't resolve the matter to our satisfaction. In other words,

we use the very same reasons to justify why we don't complain in our personal lives as

we do in our lives as consumers.

And here's the other similarity. Instead of complaining directly to our family members

or to our friends or our colleagues when we're upset with them, we complain about them to

our other family members, our other friends, and our other colleagues. I mean, let's be

honest.

Locker room acquaintances are more likely to hear what your spouse did to annoy you

than your actual spouse. Now sadly, all this effort in complaining to everyone doesn't

work. And what it does do is convince us that well, complaining doesn't work so why try?

And then the next time we're upset with something, we're even less likely to voice it to the

people who can fix it for us. This is a textbook example of a self-defeating prophecy and we

all do it. But perhaps the best illustration of how broken our complaining psychology truly

is, is the global phenomenon known as Complaints Choirs.

This is the Chicago Choir. But all over the world people are gathering in town squares

and concert halls to sing their complaints to originally composed music, at times accompanied

by symphony orchestras. I wish I was kidding. I'm not. You can look them up on YouTube.

There are many of them with hundreds of thousands of page views. Now, here is, for example,

is St. Petersburg Complaints Choir in Russia. Here is the Tokyo Complaints Choir. Here is

the Cairo Complaints Choir, albeit before the uprising. I'm not sure they're singing

currently.

There are many, many others. Now, since this phenomenon was a Finnish invention, here's

the Helsinki Complaints Choir. The Helsinki Complaints Choir has two main complaints.

Their first complaint is that their trams, their public transportation systems smell

like urine.

And their second complaint is they don't get laid enough. Well, maybe they shouldn't take

the trams to their dates. Do you know what I'm saying?

[laughter]

Here's why this phenomenon is so tragic. Think of how many hours go into preparing the concepts

and the lyrics and the composing and the matching outfits. If the Helsinki Choir stood outside

their City Hall and sang to their politicians, "If you don't clean up our trams, we won't

vote for you," someone would clean their trams.

But they don't do that. None of the choirs do. They have this amazing platform and none

of the choirs use it to actually try and fix the things they're singing about. None of

them. So, they sing in Times Square and their concert halls and it's all very funny, but

nothing changes.

By the way, I recently mentioned the Helsinki Choir in a keynote address I gave a few weeks

ago because I thought if I mention one of the American choirs, there's the Chicago and

Philadelphia and Memphis and others I didn't wanna offend anyone in the audience.

So, I did Helsinki and the minute I finished my talk, a woman marches up to me and she

goes, "I'm from Helsinki."

[laughter]

So that's awkward. And then she says to me, "Helsinki is a great city. It's where they

made Angry Birds."

[laughter]

And I'm thinking, Angry Birds? That's the best she had? I mean, Helsinki is lovely.

It's got far more going for it than Angry Birds. But the thing about Angry Birds is

Angry Birds don't call each other up and go, "Can you believe what those pigs did? They

stole my eggs. I'm just fuming about it." They don't. Angry Birds take action.

[laughter]

They launch themselves at those pigs. Angry Birds in Helsinki get stuff done. Angry people?

Not so much. It's true. You don't see choir members launching themselves into the air.

You don't see the choir members smashing into the trams.

[laughter]

By the way, I should point out no actual choir members were hurt during the preparation of

these slides.

[laughter] The thing is the mindset we bring to complaining

situations is broken. We have a fundamental apprehension about complaining. We have a

deep-seated belief that we will not be heard.

We feel helpless and powerless about being able to get results and so we don't even try

to complain effectively. But because we have so many complaints, how we deal or rather,

not deal with them could have a real impact on our lives and the evidence for that is

all around us.

In terms of results, most of us have a shelf in our closet, or our garage, where we put

all the purchases that arrived in the wrong size or that were missing a crucial piece

that we were going to return, but we never quite got around to making the call. I call

it "the shelf of complaining shame," frankly.

But some people have clothing and programs and electronics and hundreds and thousands

of dollars’ worth of products on that shelf. Most people have pet peeves, for example,

about their partners; things their loved ones do that drive them absolutely crazy.

Sexual behaviors that can be distracting or relationship habits that can be really hurtful

or personal habits that can be slightly revolting. Now, we don't know how to complain about this

stuff and the more important stuff. And the things is that those kinds of things can really

erode our feelings over time and hasten and bring about the end of our relationships.

In our communities, most of our neighbors are upset about the same things we are. They

also think there should be a traffic light on that corner. They also find it annoying

to arrive for a doctor's appointment on time and then spend over an hour in the waiting

room anyway.

They also get annoyed when the local grocery store doesn't take expired products off their

shelves. But no one speaks up about those things. And have you ever spoken up about

such things? We don't feel we can do anything about these situations, about these small

and not so small irritations when they happen.

But walking around feeling defeated and upset and powerless on a regular basis affects our

mood. And it affects our self-esteem. And it can even affect our mental health. But

if we knew how to complain effectively, if we had the tools, if we mastered the techniques

that could get us results, if we had confidence in our complaining ability, we could turn

all those problems around.

And doing so would improve our quality of lives in so many different ways. For example,

currently only 1% of our complaints reach company executives, reach the actual decision-makers

who can change things. So, that's why things don't change.

And if we complained more effectively and they knew about it, they would improve products.

They would improve services. They would improve their procedures. All things we would gain

from. Our relationships would become stronger and more satisfying and longer lasting.

We know from research that couples that are able to discuss a complaint productively have

much higher marital satisfaction and much longer marital longevity than couples who

do not. It's a really huge thing in relationships. Our communities would function more smoothly

and do better for us.

For example, I'm sure some of you know this, but when women spoke out about having to wait

twice as long for bathrooms than men in sporting arenas and concert halls, places like New

York City passed the Potty Parity Bill. Have you heard of it? Well, great. Some of you

have, most of them men for some reason.

[laughter]

But now, the new Mets Stadium and Yankee Stadium and new construction has twice as many stalls

for women than it does for men. Those things really affect our lives when we do them. Getting

results when we have complaints would make us feel empowered, assertive, and effective.

And all the books and the magazines that say "feel empowered," well, they're getting something

very wrong because personal empowerment is not about a feeling. It's about having actual