The lead paragraph states “… Tom Allin says he isn’t a naysayer in a story in Thursday’s Marshall News Messenger and perhaps that is true. Perhaps.”

Want to hear my opinion? – sure you do!

A naysayer is a person that complains about a problem – real or imagined – and then put their head in the sand and does nothing to fix the problem. Naysayers are bad – very bad.

About the only thing worse than a naysayer is the person that looks around and sees no problem and just feels good while the problems around him go unaddressed. We agree that feeling positive about our self is good. “Feel good” stories are even good unless they lull us to sleep.

The data-driven realist does an assessment based on multiple data sources and determines status of the organization based on those data sources. Most important they use this information to take action.