What was I Thinking: “Neg-Active” Thinking
What was I Thinking: “Neg-Active”
What about negative people? While inactive people are frustrating, negative people are exhausting.
As leaders, we work hard to inspire and motivate our staff and move the team forward, and with a sigh or a smirk (let alone a disparaging comment) a negative person can cripple our best efforts. Negative people are so frustrating that an entire business has developed around countering the negative person. The industry is motivational posters and sayings. Companies spend lots of dollars annually to line their halls and meeting rooms with inspirational business posters. You can almost tell what the naysayers in a company are saying by the countering themes of the posters that are on display. But again the tactic is at the surface problem of negative behavior and fails to address the root causes of negative thinking. The irony of the motivational market has been captured by the de-motivational market. There is a negative poster to counter every positive poster in the market and, I suspect given the cynical twist, the naysayers are winning. (After all, I am a positive person but just jaded enough that I enjoy the despair products as well.)
The problem is not the negative behavior. The problem is negative thinking and choices. How do negative people think? Some examples of “Neg-active” thoughts are:
No, Not, Never: Do not waste your time. It will never work.
Expect Negative/Exclude Positive: A good outcome is a fluke.
Gloom and Doom: The Sky is Falling.
Apprehensive: Everything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Condemning: That’s dumb.
Troubled: Not worth the risk.
Ill-fated: It is bound to fail.
Vindictive: I hope it fails.
Entrenched: Why change?
People who think in negative terms will make negative choices which result in negative expressions. If we want to change outcomes, we must challenge a person to change their thinking.