Addressing Conflict with Care: Simon Sinek's Approach to Workplace Negativity

So it happens a lot um and sometimes I point it out. I think what makes you so negative. I never say why so negative because ironically the question why is actually an emotional question. May be perceived as aggressive. I'm like what makes you so negative, like there's a lot of good things happening here. I want to know more, so replacing judgment with curiosity is one part, um, the other thing is just allowing them to feel that way, so it's like, oh yeah. I hear you acknowledge the

negativity

and then move on, but I also find that focusing on where the future is is important and by the way, not all

negativity

is bad, you know, you know people who are sometimes very often critical of it in the work because they are always pointing out problems and you hear bosses say, "Don't bring me problems, bring me solutions." It's like, "Well, if I knew the solution, I wouldn't come to you." there are two there are two types of negatives n you know, there is one that is always negative and does not offer any solution and stays on the sidelines.

I don't need such people in an organization, of course, but people who constantly bring problems, but are willing to roll up their sleeves, try to find a solution. Those people are extremely valuable within an organization because they help us see things that cover our unseeable blind spots and are willing to roll up their sleeves. their sleeves, so not all negativity is bad, it's what we do with that negativity afterwards, we're willing to work together or just sit back and lean out and like, I said, I'll say it. I'll say I I I don't know what makes you negative, yeah, tell me more, we in our company have a rule which is if the reaction is over five it's something else, you know, it's like why did you leave the refrigerator open?

Hm, clearly it's not about the refrigerator, right, right, um. You always leave the refrigerator open, okay, don't react to the refrigerator, sure, absolutely, so it's the same thing we find at work, people sometimes get really angry about something and you pay attention to it. I like that the reaction to what we're talking about doesn't match, it's about something else and this is where good leadership and good people skills come into play, meaning can you read the room and figure out what's going on here? having a bad day, is there something else or is there something I don't know about the work we are doing that I can help address and fix easily or is someone just hungry or tired and that's okay too, companies rarely teach us ? the human skills of how to have a difficult conversation, so if someone is constantly negative and it's really bringing you or the team down, how do you address that without making them too aggressive?

How do you

approach

that in a way that they hear you and thus the ability to say: I need to have a difficult conversation with you thirdly in the meeting on Thursday, you were so negative that it lowered the energy of the team and I'm afraid that if you continue to bring that negative energy to all our meetings, that will go to demoralize the team and then learn to be quiet and allow someone to absorb that so that interaction we don't teach that and it usually goes wrong and it usually escalates or we generally avoid it we become passive-aggressive in the I work like Well, things are never addressed, um uh, but I think that learning the skills of difficult human interaction because of the way that human interaction is very often difficult, um uh, is a great opportunity for American companies of today.