Riding out wave of negativity

By ASHLEY CAMPBELL

When Samantha* began in her new job in PR and marketing, Simon, her employer, knew it was not a perfect fit.

She had previously been a journalist and had to learn new skills, adapt to a different environment and learn new ways of relating to clients and colleagues.

Still, he was confident her motivation would see her through. "It was a stretch to do this type of role, but that was what she wanted," he says.

Within a week she found the first major "fault" with her job.

Most of her colleagues used PCs but the designers, with whom Amanda worked closely, used Macs.

She told Simon she needed a Mac as well. "It's the only way I can work better with the designers," she said.

After canvassing opinion from others in similar roles, Simon thought the request was reasonable and a Mac would make Samantha's job easier. So he bought her one.

But the complaints didn't stop. She never met her deadlines because "the designers never got the work to her on time"; projects were always going wrong because "she always had to do everybody else's job"; she couldn't implement efficient processes because "she didn't have enough authority".

After a while her negativity started affecting everyone else. "People refused to deal with her. They started to go to her manager to pick up the pieces," Simon says.

Simon and Samantha's manager set up new processes to circumvent what she thought were the problems with her job and what her colleagues and clients thought were the problems with her. But it didn't work.

"When people would submit work to her, she would moan about them and say 'what rubbish'. She would always come into me and moan and complain and never do anything else about it," Simon says.

Then Samantha asked to go on a half-day course on dealing with negativity at work. Once they had got over the irony, Samantha's manager and Simon decided to find a course that would really help her.

They asked her to define what she wanted from the course. Then, on the basis of her requirements, they sent her on a two-day course on sales and consultancy.

"Part of it was about handling objections," says Simon. "It included learning to communicate, sales, how to be an internal consultant, how to master a meeting, read a room - all things that would help her.

"She came back and said it was a load of poppycock." Samantha no longer works for the company.

We have all worked with people like Samantha - people who see problems, never opportunities; people who view any management initiative as a conspiracy; people who always believe they are working with a bunch of incompetents.

Such negativity has a way of wearing colleagues down until the whole office feels swamped.

If one of our colleagues or staff has this attitude, how should we deal with it?

And why is it some people are like this in the first place?

Simon believes low self-esteem explains Samantha's negativity.

"I think negative people know their faults and are very clever at covering them by blaming other people, or the process, or the situation. They are always turning it around - it's never them."

Business coach and psychologist Iain McCormick agrees that this can often be the case.

"People like this often have low self-esteem and cannot get attention any other way. But by being negative it becomes a spiral," he says.

"Other reasons are anger at someone or something, bad management or a thousand other things."

One of those other things, says Jamie Ford, a specialist in attitude coaching and director of the Foresight Group, is personality.

Samantha's comments, for example, show that she had a pessimistic explanatory style. Such people tend not to cope well with setbacks, giving up early or making excuses rather than dealing with the problem.

And yet the field Samantha had moved into - PR and marketing - requires an optimist, someone who is keen constantly to meet people, deal with setbacks and turn them around.

"There was a total mismatch between the person and the requirements of the role," says Ford.

Unless specialist interview techniques or tests are used, it's unlikely a normal recruitment process would reveal this, he says, as everyone acts positively at an interview.

That's why more employers are turning to specialist testing as they realise the true costs of someone not working out in a position.

But once someone is in the role, the negativity has to be dealt with. The first step is to identify if the complaint is genuine.

"Genuine gripes are reasonable and have solutions," says McCormick. "Negative attitudes are the opposite."

Ford says managers can distinguish between the two by focusing on the requirements of the role. "What are the outcomes required, and what are the factors preventing that person from achieving those outcomes?"

You may find those factors relate to the work environment, such as work-flow processes, equipment or even your management style. These are genuine complaints that you can do something about.

If everyone who has been in the role has the same complaints, that is another indication they are genuine.

As McCormick says: "Management can create total chaos, and blame staff. It is also possible to appoint the wrong person continuously."

If you can't find genuine factors, you are dealing with a negative attitude. One of the first rules for dealing with negativity is: do not reward it.

If you give in to chronic complainers to keep them quiet, they learn that complaining gets results. "Why would they stop?" asks Ford.

This was possibly the first mistake that Samantha's employer made - buying her the Mac.

"She moaned and complained, they reinforced that behaviour by giving her the Mac," he says.

"The issue for management should be: does this particular function require a Mac? If the answer was 'no', then no Mac should have been provided."

Turning the situation around requires real leadership and early intervention, Ford says, something many managers are reluctant to do.

But if they don't, they risk the negativity infecting other staff.

To turn the situation around, says Ford, do not make an issue of the employee's attitude.

"You are going to get into awful conflict with the individual. They will feel it's an intrusion on their values."

McCormick says the manager should try to find out what is going on and what factors are causing the negativity.

"It is important to be open-minded and genuinely inquire about what is going on."

Ford and McCormick agree that identifying the inappropriate behaviour, describing its impact on colleagues and the workplace and offering appropriate help to change it offer the best chance of success.

In Samantha's case, says Ford, everybody would benefit from assertiveness training.

"It's a good thing, occasionally, to confront someone with the effects of their behaviour, saying 'when you do XYZ, I feel such and such - what I'd like from you is ... ' and then describe a different behaviour."

You may need to offer counselling and specialist training to help the individual meet the requirements.

If the situation is still not turned around, both Ford and McCormick agree that formal disciplinary and exit procedures may be your last resort.

* Names have been changed to protect anonymity.