What’s it all about Alfie? Why your opinions don’t matter at work

Cilla Black’s version of Alfie is probably the most excruciatingly bad, unlistenable, nails-scraping-on-a-blackboard experience any person could reasonably be expected to endure. I am fairly sure it is routinely used after suspects have suffered a special rendition to a detainment facility.

Apart from the sublime version by Gregg Arthur and Craig Scott, I have never heard a version of Nat King Cole’s Nature Boy that has not made me swear by my radio.

By this point, some readers may suspect that I am once more guilty of expressing an opinion. Although I find it exceedingly unlikely, I do concede that there may be one of two of you that thoroughly enjoy the work of Ms Black. And clearly Nature Boy has its fans and many interpreters. It is not my fault, that they are generally misguided.

Opinions, then, clearly divide and provoke and being divisive may not be a receipt for career success. For music critics, it is their job to express opinions, for most of the rest of us, not so much.

Employers paranoid about their reputations, in a world where social media-led boycotts can cause real dollar damage to profits and share prices, increasingly are placing limits on their employees’ public statements. Non-disparagement clauses are often written into contracts.

Public declarations that one’s boss is a fraud, or that the oil they sell has a distinct fragrance of snake about it, may seem to be rather obvious and therefore generally easy career pitfalls to avoid. It is the relatively more private opinions expressed within the workforce that may serve to trip you up more frequently, and potentially with the same career catastrophic results.

The trouble with opinions, like recollections, they vary. The mere act of holding an opinion is no guarantee of the veracity of that opinion. Nor is it guaranteed to be universally popular. In highly politicised work environments, an expression of admiration or support for Jones from accounts, may be all it takes to have you marked down as a Red Shirt, when the Blue Shirts take power, and poor old Jones is dispatched via a hastily arranged outplacement program. The purge may extend to anyone labelled as a Jones supporter.

Pointing out the obvious deficiencies in a new program at work, may seem constructive and honest, but don’t underestimate the potential for creating new enemies among those who adopted, procured or designed the programs, that need them to be seen as successful.