You know the scene. The Grinch braces the sleigh full of stolen presents atop a mountain when he hears the faint sounds of the Whos down in Whoville singing.

They sing, he realizes even though they have lost all their Christmas goodies, including the roast beast.

He pauses. Joy erupts on his face. His heart expands two sizes and with Herculean effort he rights the sleigh and flies off into the village passing out gifts to everyone.

Ah, if only we could make the changes we need to make in our lives as well as Scrooge and the Grinch.

Maybe that’s why they are such wonderful Christmas characters; we know their deep changes didn’t come easily.

I have been reading “Seven Languages for Transformation,” about how the way we talk can change the way we work, and spending a lot of time reflecting on transformation change — the kind of change that both the Grinch and Scrooge experienced.

Both characters were marginalized, angry and lonely. Both characters were filled with complaints.

We’re like that. We’re creatures filled with complaints. They define us. We gather together like creatures and share our complaints, whether about the government, a work situation, a person, our health, etc., and allow the complaints to gain weight and traction.

Together we are the angry and marginalized, the ignored minority, the forgotten people. How dare they do this to us? How dare they hurt us so?

Yet, at the same time, we’re ashamed of our complaints. We know the world of complaints is a popular one, but we also know that it’s an unproductive and lonely place to live.

What good comes out of it? We just make Bob Crachit work harder and feel compelled to steal Cindy Lou’s toys, but we don’t make anything good happen.

Which is really what we want to do, according to the authors of “Seven Languages,” Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey. We want to see transformational change in ourselves and in others.

We complain because we care. We care deeply.

They say that we complain because we are committed to something, something valuable and noble. The secret lies in reframing the complaint as the commitment that it is.

Once we can reframe our complaint as a commitment, “I’m sick of being so fat!” to “I’m committed to a living a healthier lifestyle to be around for my grandchildren,” we can live with it for a while, examine it and look closely at it to determine the actions or inactions we take that keep us in the world of the complaint.

Then we can determine the conflicting commitments we have that keep us from changing, “I’m committed to eating a McDonald’s eggnog milkshake with my son every afternoon.” And, then, “If I don’t eat a milkshake with him every afternoon, I’ll miss valuable bonding time and I won’t be a good mother.”

This was just a silly example, but it works to illustrate that under our unspoken commitments are hidden assumptions, like, “I wouldn’t be able to bond with my son without eating an eggnog milkshake with him.” “He wouldn’t want to spend time with me if I didn’t feed him decadent, fattening desserts.”

Ouch.

The truth is that our hidden assumptions are most often not true — and worse yet, they are painful. But, by not reframing our complaints to the commitments they are, we can’t get near our hidden assumptions. Hidden assumptions rule us.

All you have to do is listen to talk radio for half an hour and you can guess at the dozens of hidden assumptions that exist on both sides of any issue. It’s maddening.

What is equally frustrating and maddening is that not only does it become OK in those instances to complain without examining conflicting commitments and hidden assumptions, but also it becomes acceptable to ignore those who do complain, instead of seeing them as people with valid and noble commitments.

I have worked for too many organizations that try, as most leaders do, to quell or shrink a complaint — fire the worst of the offenders and silence the rest, without recognizing that research shows that those workers who complain are typically the hardest workers, those who produce more, because they care.

So instead of recognizing the validity of complaints, for instance, a standard of low pay and poor working conditions, management would choose to “show appreciation” by throwing a pizza party. As if that somehow put more money into your wallet so you could pay for your kid’s braces.

I want a deeper understanding of the process that occurs when an organization ignores complaints, when it doesn’t see the complainers as committed people, when it dismisses them as “whiners” or “crazies.”

In my experience, the circular trap that Senge writes about in the “Fifth Discipline” takes place, especially if the complainers gather and join forces. They push against the organization encountering resistance to change.

The harder they push; the more resistance they face. The more resistance they face; the harder they push.

At some point, though, something happens. Something changes that propels the complainer to take a more destructive tactic. “If they didn’t listen to that, maybe they’ll listen to this!”

It becomes somehow acceptable for Grinch for instance, to dress his dog up as a reindeer and go down and steal Cindy Lou’s toys.

Why?

How did that get to be acceptable? How did that get to be a choice easily made? Why?

I saw it happen twice, once with a church group and the other time with the Grow the Park effort. At some point it became “acceptable” to cross an ethical and moral line, to make a decision to do something that would “hurt” the other side.

What changed here and how can you stop it?

Every time I listen to a story of a school shooting or a terrorist attack, I ask the same question: “What happened to get this person or group with a legitimate complaint to the place where they would commit such a big, ugly destructive act?”

At what points and where did communication break down? And most importantly, what could have been done to change the culture of the organization so that the complainer felt heard and felt that his/her commitment was validated?

It’s a huge question. Here it is the day after Christmas and I am asking these questions. I know I should be drinking eggnog shakes (Well, maybe not.). Still, it is the end of the year and a New Year dawns and if we want to make transformational changes in our lives and in organizations that we care about, we must ask the questions. We must reframe our complaints to commitments.

We must not just quell our complaints with New Year’s resolutions that have no strength to transform us. We must reframe our complaints to commitments and see what lies beneath.

Good luck. Keep me abreast, especially if you discover the answers.

Mary Colborn is a Port Orchard resident.