[jariel]

"We'll tell a higher-up why his new plan is stupid and that we're not very excited to waste our time on it"

There's a difference between 'what my instinct is' and 'thoughtful communication'.

It's possible in these kinds of situations that 'the plan is objectively dumb' and surely therefore someone might not be interested ... but I've seen more often than not people not really understand why something is initiated, what the objectives are etc. and just make narrow assumptions with belligerance, which they believe is 'being direct'. It's 'direct' in a way, in that it's a 'direct articulation of a narrow set of assumptions' - but that doesn't make it good or professional.

"This is dumb, I don't want to work on it" is surely direct, but it's also essentially an immature and unprofessional way of communicating.

More appropriately it would be: "I don't think this plan will achieve the understanding I have of the objectives for this, this and this reason, but here are some alterations that might work" - or "Technically, I don't think this will work because of this reason, but I don't understand what the non-technical objectives are so my feedback is limited to that scope" - or "I think these areas are more risky than implied, but these areas will work" or better "This won't work for these reasons, but fill us in on the strategic objectives and we can fill in the blanks with something that will, if we can".

I personally appreciate 'directness' a lot, but a lot of people misunderstand that to be 'what I think off the top of my head without trying to actually address the issue'.

And yest, there's way too much sensitivity around criticism going on. Legit criticism needs to be allowed. It's also really hard for some people to separate themselves form their critique or their work and so communications sometimes gets mangled on both sides.

[sabellito]

Couldn't agree more. In my experience, self-proclaimed direct people are often just violent communicators.

George Carlin said, "Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?".

I think this thought applies to directedness as well.

[watwut]

I don't like your alternatives, because they are not the same thing. They also use too many words and assume you have mythical improvement.

But also, "this is dumb" is insulting. It is not direct, it it's just insult with 0 information.

"This won't work" or "this will cause issues" or "this is complicated" would be better equivalents, because they actuality hint to what your issue is and wont insult. The management, if it listens and have good reasons is then fully able to modify their own plan or stick with it while noting objections. They are also fully able to explain why they are doing it is objection seem to miss the mark.

[krono]

Floor-level employees voicing discontent in only a few words to a director who just happened to walk past their station, is still infinitely more information than when they had kept their mouths shut and eyes down.

It's then up to that director to hear them out and find out what their concerns are really all about. Perhaps they should be given a bit more information, so they can also see the bigger picture and how it'll benefit them too.

Some really high leverage opportunities can come out of this.