Big Little ThingsGo ahead, be an asshole.
For the past week I’ve been having a super good and useful conversation with with a group of partners over email. We’d been trying to have this conversation for years, but kept getting caught up in scheduling bullshit, communication mode (should we have a conference call? should we use email?), and wildly differing response times. And nothing was getting done.
So I said something a little provocative. I said something calculated to make the group wonder if I was being an asshole or not. Some people got really pissed. Some got confused. And some took what I’d said at face value. But the conversation got started at last, and blossomed over the next few days into something really useful.
Now, I’m not recommending you use email to have important conversations. Hells no. But I am saying that sometimes it’s okay to be an asshole. Because every once in a great while, it’s the best way to get to the truth.
