I’ve been reading an opinion on so called ‘can-do’ attitudes in the workplace – particularly in development teams.

Some managers encourage heroic behavior when they focus on can-do attitudes. By elevating can-do attitudes above accurate-and-sometimes-gloomy status reporting, such project managers undercut their ability to take corrective action. They don’t even know they need to take corrective action until the damage has been done. As Tom DeMarco says, can-do attitudes escalate minor setbacks into true disasters ( DeMarco 1995 ).

I know a few project managers like that. I’ll happily tell them what they “can-do” with their “we have no problems, only solutions” policies.