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

So it happens a lot, and I. Sometimes I point it out. I'm like, what's making you so negative? I never say, why so negative? Because it's. Ironically, the question why? Is actually, it's an emotional question. It can be perceived as aggressive. I'm like, what's making 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. The other thing is to just allow them to. To feel that way. So it's like, oh, yeah, I hear you acknowledging the negativity and then sort of moving on. But. But I also find that being focused on where the future is is important. And by the way, not all negativity is bad, you know? You know, people who, you know, are sometimes very often criticized at work because they're always pointing out the problems. And you. You hear bosses say, don't bring me problems. Bring me solutions. Like, well, if I knew the solution, I wouldn't be coming to you. You know, I mean, there's two. There's two types of negative Nellies. You know, there's one that is always negative and offers no solution and stands on the sidelines. We have. I don't need those people in an organization, but the people who constantly bring problems, but they're willing to roll up their sleeves and try and find a solution. Those people are extremely valuable inside an organization because they're helping us see things, cover our blind spots that we're not seeing, and they're willing to roll up their sleeves. So not all negativity is bad. It's what we do with that negativity afterwards. We're willing to work together, willing to just sort of lean back and lean out. And I'll. Like I said, I'll say it. I'll say, I don't know what's making you negative. Tell me more. We in our. In our company have a rule which is if the reaction is above a 5, it's about something else. You know, it's like, why did you leave the fridge open? It's like, clearly not about the fridge. Right, right, right. You always leave the fridge open. Okay. Do not react about the fridge. Sure. Absolutely. So it's the same thing. We find that in work, like, people sometimes get very amped up about something, and you sort of pay attention. Like, that reaction to what we're talking about don't match. This is about something else. And this is where good leadership and good human skills come into play, which is, are you able to read the room and figure out what's going on here? Are they having a bad day? Is there something else, or is there something that I don't know about the work that we're doing that I can easily help address and fix? Or did somebody just hangry or tired and that's okay too? Companies so rarely teach us the human skills of how to have difficult conversations. So if somebody's constantly negative and it is actually bringing you or the team down, how do you address that without making it overly aggressive? How do you address that in a way that they will hear you? And so the ability to say, I need to have a difficult conversation with you on third in Thursday's meeting, you were so negative. It brought the team's energy down. And I'm. I fear that if you continue to bring that negative energy to all of our meetings, that it's going to demoralize the team and then learn to be quiet and allow somebody to soak that in like that. That interaction. We don't teach that. And so usually it comes out wrong and usually it escalates or usually we avoid it. We get passive aggressive at work as well, and so things never get addressed. But I think learning the skills of difficult human interaction, by the way human interaction is very often difficult.

Is a massive opportunity for corporate America today.