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How to Rid Your Team of Negativity

Looking to manage pessimism on your team can seem like a losing battle. Negativity, left alone, will ultimately throttle productivity and increase turnover.

However, as a manager, you do have significant control over the situation, and the best way to confront negativity is to focus on the impacts it has on everybody. Essentially you are looking to change negative habits, which is much easier than trying to confront negative personalities and dispositions.

The following tips are great ways to break negative habits and get the positivity flowing again.

Find the source

Negativity doesn’t just form out of thin air. It has a root cause and determining the cause of your negativity is the first step toward getting rid of it.

Bring employees into your office on an individual basis and ask them open-ended questions about the most frustrating parts of their jobs. These interviewers must pinpoint the source of negativity if it is to be addressed.

Involve everyone in developing a solution

It’s essential to request input from everyone in the group when confronting negativity. Something that often helps counter negativity is shared vulnerability.

In a group setting, ask each person on the team a way they have added to negativity on the team. Then, ask the team member to agree to a solution together. By turning over the issue to your team, it increases the chance they will go in a new direction because when people vocalize what needs to be done, they are more prone to make it happen.

Have the group outline solutions and ask them to help uphold this new code of conduct moving forward.

Using negativity

In trying to rid your team of negativity, you shouldn’t try to squash any skepticism or dissent. In many cases, someone’s unhappiness is based on an instinct or insight that might be very useful to the team. For instance, negative opinions before the Space Shuttle Challenger’s disastrous last flight would have been tragically validated.

Dissenting opinions question peoples’ preconceived notions and test ideas. A team member who some may see as annoying actually adds a dimension to the overall dynamic. Provided that she or he is not just creating chaos and drama, the person may offer views that otherwise wouldn’t appear in a more harmonious team.

Keep the lines of communication open

After you’ve detailed a plan and put it into action, check in with individuals and the group as a whole. Changing bad habits takes time. You can’t expect permanent changes after a single meeting or the development of a plan. Adapt accordingly, and you should be capable of keep a few bad habits from dampening the positive spirit of your team members.

At Career Concepts, we support managers at our client companies through custom staffing solutions and managed services. If you would like to learn more about how we can help your organization, please contact us today.

Blog published date

Apr 12, 2017
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