5 Ways to Handle Negativity in the Workplace
What a great little article this turned out to be! Point one is something I strongly agree with – find the root cause and don’t just blame one single person! In my opinion and from experience this is what most managers tend to do with negativity in the workplace. One of my favorite sayings “when you point the finger at someone else there’s always three fingers pointing back at you” is very relevant here (try it now by pointing and look at your hand)! As employers we need to be looking at a whole lot more than just “one person” and try to find what is making that “one person” negative in the first place! Mental illness, frustration with process, bad management and / or leadership within the company, issues at home? These are all valid things to consider when trying to deal with a negative individual.
The article also talks about what you can do at interview level to try and find if someone is negative before you even think about hiring them. Why being calm is a must and if you have negativity pointing its evil head up, keep it contained and deal with it immediately! The mentality of “it’ll just go away” is joked about a lot in business but this article challenges that point head on!
Most importantly the article reminds us what is the key factor when fighting this issue – fight negativity with positivity and what other benefits that in itself has on the workplace! Positive attitude(s) will ultimately drive the general feel and keeping positivity up will in turn keep negativity down and out of that place we call work!
For a short, quick piece the article has some great points and reminders around an issue that can be difficult to deal with and indeed a real threat to productivity! Well worth giving up a couple of minutes to have a read! Enjoy!