Dealing with Negativity at Work

Have you ever worked with one of those people who are so unfailingly negative that they tend to suck all of the life out of a room? The person who has an objection to every idea and a snide comment for every cheerful effort? 

It’s a rare workplace environment that hasn’t experienced the corrosive effects of chronic negativity. Negativity can spread like a cancer in a team, eating away at everyone's engagement until the whole group is infected with negative thoughts.  If not stopped, it can even continue to spread among departments, regions... and even infect an entire company. 

So how does it start?  Many studies have been conducted on this, and all have generally found these to be the top five reasons:

    1. An excessive workload   
    2. Concerns about management’s ability to lead the company forward successfully
    3. Anxiety about the future, particular longer-term job, income and retirement security
    4. Lack of challenge in their work, and boredom.
    5. Insufficient recognition, and concerns that pay isn’t commensurate with performance

The facts.  Some people exude negativity. They don’t like their jobs or they don’t like their company. Their bosses are always jerks and they are always treated unfairly. The company is always going down the tube and customers are worthless. You know these people.  With them, your best course of action is avoidance.  On the other hand, sometimes normally positive people are negative. Some of the time, too, their reasons for negativity are legitimate. The good news is that unlike cancer, there is a cure. Enthusiasm and positive attitudes can spread just as quickly - improving performance and increasing productivity!

Tips for Dealing With Occasional Negativity:

• Listen to the employee or coworker’s complaints until you are certain that they feel heard. Sometimes people repeat negative sentiments over and over because they don’t feel like you have really listened to them. Ask questions. Clarify their statements. Make sure you have actively listened.
• Decide if you believe the employee or coworker has legitimate reasons for their negativity. If you decide affirmatively, ask if they’d like your help to solve the problem. If they ask for help, provide advice or ideas for how the coworker can address the reason for their negativity.  Do not get sucked into the problem, only provide brief suggestions for a way out.
• If you decide the concerns are not legitimate, tell them what you think. Tell the coworker you care about their concern and about their happiness at work, but you disagree with their assessment of the situation.  Don't spend additional time listening to their complaints, you will only encourage growing negativity and, potentially, behavior.
• If the coworker just wants to complain to a friendly ear, they don’t want your advice or assistance to address the situation. Listen, but set limits. Long term complaining saps your energy and positive outlook. Don’t allow that to happen. Walk away. Tell the coworker you’d prefer to move on to more positive subjects.

 Tips for Dealing With Recurring Negativity:

• Avoid the person as much as possible. Just as you set limits with the coworkers whose negativity you believe is baseless or unwarranted, you need to set limits with genuinely negative people.
• If you are forced, through your role in the company, to work with a negative person, set limits. Do not allow yourself to be drawn into negative discussions. Tell the negative coworker, you prefer to think about your job positively. Avoid providing a sympathetic audience for the negativity.
• If you're feeling threatened by this person, don’t play into their use of fear to keep you from speaking up. Be specific about the behavior you want to stop and tell them how their behavior is affecting you. Restate what you’re asking them to change. Keep it very brief, document what was said and share it with your supervisor. You need to engage them so they know that you are trying to fix the problem. If this is harassment, they need to take action to address it. If you’re the supervisor of the abusive employee, you need to fire them. You’re enabling their behavior and your inaction could also expose your company to a lawsuit.
• If negativity among employees in the company is persistent, if the issues that warrant negativity are left unaddressed, and the negativity affects your ability to professionally perform your work, you may want to consider moving on.

"Negativity is expensive. It costs companies millions of dollars each year."   - Gary Topchik, Managing Workplace Negativity