25 Ways to Reduce Negativity in Your Workplace

Mar 15, 2021

Tired of working with seagulls? You know, those negative employees who constantly squawk and crap all over everything and everyone? Negativity at work is a huge drain – emotionally and financially, on your company! Here are 25 tips on how to reduce, how to minimize negativity in your workplace.

25 Ways to Manage Negativity at Work

Do you ever work with seagulls in your office? Do you suffer from excessive seagull-ism in your workplace?

Let me show you a very simple example to illustrate what I’m talking about. What do you notice about these five equations?

          5 x 5 = 25

          1 x 3 = 9

          3 x 2 = 6

          4 x 2 = 8

          1 x 1 = 1

Now I’ve shown this to tens thousands of people all over the planet.

And as a first human reaction, somebody in my audience always yells out: “You got it wrong! The second one’s wrong!”  

What does nobody ever say? “You got four right! You’ve got 80% right! That’s pretty good!”

But noooooooooo.

What do we do so quickly with one another? So often we focus on what’s not working, on what’s wrong instead of what’s right.  

And if that becomes your predominant communication style at work, you’re going to earn a reputation as a seagull!  Because what do seagulls do to people sometimes? That’s right. They crap all over us! So, you’ll be known as a seagull. One of those people who just constantly says,      

“You got one wrong.”

“It’ll never work.”  

“We tried it in 1974.”

“We don’t have the money for that!”

 “We don’t have the time!”

 “It’s against our policy.”

  “It’ll NEVER work.”  

  “If it’s such a good idea, why isn’t somebody else doing it?”

 

Do you know, in the typical workplace, it has been shown that there is, on average, 10 seagull, negative comments for every one positive comment that people hear in the workplace.

Now, I am NOT talking about putting on rose-colored glasses. I am certainly not talking about ignoring conflict because all that does is create more conflict. It just kicks it down the road and the conflict grows even bigger.

But I am talking about the need for us to be aware of how contagious our attitudes are, and of how we are coming across to one another. And are we being constructive with our ideas, with our suggestions? Are we being positive with our feedback and not destructive?  

Excessive negativity bums everyone out. It’s a huge cause of stress. It reduces trust in the workplace. It lowers collaboration at work. It  creates those silos where people just want to work in their own little kingdoms and not cooperate with one another. Negativity impacts creativity and innovation at work. It impacts every aspect of your workplace culture and your happiness.

Now let’s be clear. There’s no silver bullet to get rid of negativity in your workplace overnight. It takes an ongoing, intentional commitment on everybody’s part to make sure that negativity is kept at bay.

It takes a commitment to build the kind of workplace where people feel supported, valued, appreciated, and respected. It takes a commitment to open and honest and transparent communication so that negativity doesn’t overflow.

Here are, however, 25 specific ideas, 25 strategies you could try in your workplace to keep those seagulls at bay

1. Be sure you don’t hire any seagulls. Don’t hire brilliant jerks! You have to invest in your hiring and on-boarding practices. You have to hire intentionally first and foremost for attitude. Beryl Health call centers talks about how it’  s a real pain in the butt to get a job working with them because, as they say, an even bigger pain in the butt is trying to get rid of somebody who is a pain in the butt.  So, invest relentlessly in your hiring and on-boarding practices.

 

2. Teach everybody the 3L’s that Beryl Health uses: Lobby to change it, learn to live with it or leave! Every time somebody at Beryl Health is upset about something and is tempted to turn into a seagull, everybody understands that they have three choices that all start with a letter L. First, they can lobby to change it. So, if you have a better suggestion, of course, let us know! Secondly, sorry, but you’re going to have to learn to live with it because it’s a policy, a regulation or the law. It’s not going away. There’s nothing we can do about it. So, figure out a way to learn, to live with it. And thirdly, as a mature, responsible adult over the age of 12, if you’re really unhappy and you’re really turning into a seagull, you can leave.

 

3. Create a positive goal around everyone’s contribution to your culture. Make sure everyone understands that part of their job is to contribute to a positive team environment, a positive workplace environment. A bank in Copenhagen, Denmark does this very well, where all the employees understand that part of their job is to deliver phenomenal customer service, but an equally important part of their job is to contribute to a positive team environment that is so positive people want to show up to work on a Monday morning.

 

4. Create some fun, visible reminders for everyone to keep that seagull voice in check. Use fun posters, fun quotes of the day, funny signs – just something to remind employees, something highly visible. AFA JCDecaux, an outdoor advertising company based in Copenhagen,  Denmark, did a very simple thing to remind everybody of the importance of their attitude and how they might be coming across to other people. They put up plexiglass cases all over their offices and supplied everyone with hundreds of green and red balls. And all you have to do, as you’re going about your workday, is drop in a green ball if something’s going well, if you’re happy, you’re in a good mood, you had a small win or you had a good conversation with somebody; a red ball if you’re a frustrated about something. It just serves as a visual cue, a visual reminder to think about your attitude and how you’re coming across.

 

5. Create an anti-seagull campaign in your workplace with the slogan, “less squawk, more talk!”

 

6. Turn complainers into explainers. Coach people, train employees on how to constructively bring their concerns forward rather than destructively complaining about them. There is a difference between complaining and explaining. Complainers tend to blame storm by looking for somebody to blame. Whereas explainers brainstorm – they are focused on finding a solution. Complainers focus on what isn’t working, whereas explainers focus on the future and what can be done to improve things in the future. So, coach people on how to shift from a complaining mindset and complaining style of communication to explaining.  For more ideas on coaching people to shift from a negative complaining approach to an explaining approach, go to Turn Complainers Into Explainers.

 

7. Listen, REALLY listen with an open mind when somebody complains to you about something.  Here’s the deal. Maybe it’s Bob who complains about everything under the sun. We all know that, but what if this ONE time Bob is right and he’s bringing up a really serious issue that has to be addressed?  So, always adopt, as hard as it can be to do so, the mindset that maybe the person is right? What if their concerns really are valid? So listen actively for what’s really communicated. Listen to what’s not being said.  Listen to what’s being said under the surface. Listen with empathy, put yourself in their shoes and ask the question. “What if they are right?” You know, it could be that they’re just not very good at communicating,  they’re not very good at communicating in a constructive way because they’ve never been taught, and they just don’t know how! It doesn’t mean their concerns aren’t valid.

8. Keep a tally with a week-long awareness campaign. Have everyone use an app on their smartphone or even hand out those old-fashioned handheld counters that museum attendants use, and then have everyone track the number of negative comments they make in the course of the week. Then debrief at the end of the week and give out some fun prizes. Even just raising awareness through a campaign like this goes a long way towards people being more self-aware of how they’re coming across and minimizing negativity.

9. The smile transfer protocol program. My friend Barry Williams initiated this idea a workplace where he encouraged everyone, for an entire week, to keep track of how many smiles they generated on other people. Not how often they smiled, but how often employees could get a smile out of other people? And then he would reward a small prize at the end of the week to whoever generated the most number smiles.

 

10. Create a gossip blocker campaign. Netflix does this brilliantly. Now look, I get it. Everybody likes gossip at a certain level, right? It’s fun to gossip sometimes, but so much gossip in the workplace is negative. It’s destructive. It’s toxic. It is soul-sucking.  So, Netflix has a protocol in place that all their employees adhere to very well that you are not to talk behind anyone’s back without talking directly to that person. So, if you come up to me and start talking about griping about Susan, I’m going to stop you there and say, “You know what? I don’t want to hear it. Bob, you need to talk directly to Susan!”

11. Create a “possip” campaign in your workplace – positive gossip. It’s a word I made up. I think it’s going to sweep the nation! Create a positive campaign where you encourage everyone to talk behind each other’s back, but only in a hundred percent positive way!

 

12. Create a morning mindset ritual. A ritual to remind everyone, to remind everyone of the power of choosing their attitude and the power of choosing how they communicate with one another throughout the workday.  A dirt simple one is to just go around your team and have everybody yell out on scale of 1 to 10, how they’re doing so you can identify the weak links – the people who yell out “1.5” so that everyone can support those people. But you also do this to just raise awareness of the power of intention and choosing a more positive attitude and positive constructive approach.

13. Create positive energy in your workplace by encouraging everyone to hide in creative locations: Thank-you notes, appreciation notes, and gratitude notes all over your office in different, interesting, funny locations. So, throughout the workday people stumble upon them in unexpected ways and they get a little jolt of unexpected, positive energy.

 

14. Encourage the practice of daily intentions. So many inspiring leaders that I know value the power of daily intentions, where they write down at the start of the day, two to four things they want to make sure they commit to every day. Then, at the end of the workday, they review the list to hold themselves accountable. You can do this at an individual level or you could do this publicly in a team setting where everybody shares what they are working on intentionally. Make sure, of course, part of that daily intention is making sure you are going to be positive and constructive in how you come across with all your colleagues.

 

15. Create a giant “can control/can’t control” board in your office someplace in a meeting room, in your lunchroom or even on your intranet site. A huge part of stress and negativity comes out of this feeling of a loss of control and we end up feeling helpless, so all we can do is complain about it. This may sound a little cheesy, but it works very effectively to remind people that there’s so many things that you CAN control, including your attitude, your reaction to things that happen, your reaction to Bob’s negativity etc. And write down the things you can’t control as a reminder that there’s no use in turning into a seagull about those things, because you can’t control them anyways! So focus on the things that you have positive, constructive power over.  

16. Hold regular “good neighbor” meetings. Every three months get your team together and simply talk about behaviors and attitudes that will contribute to a more positive team environment. What does it take to be a better neighbor at work?

 

17. Turn this into a fundraising event! Whenever someone says something that is an obvious kind of negative, seagull statement, they have to put a dollar into your party fund or your charity fund.

 

    18.  Celebrate your small wins. One of the ways we reduce negativity at work is by ramping up the positivity at work. So, make sure you continuously celebrate the small wins, the small progress you are making at an individual level, at a team level, and at a company level.

 

19. Give everyone a voice. One of the reasons negativity thrives in so many workplaces is because people don’t feel they have an outlet – that they’re not being heard. They don’t feel like they have a real voice. Make sure you are intentional about creating real opportunities for real conversations and for real feedback from all of your employees.

 

20. Ask for ideas and solutions. Make sure that everyone understands that you welcome and value suggestions and ideas, but you do not welcome and value seagull-ism. If employees have complaints make sure people understand they have to come forward with at least one or two alternative ideas, one or two solutions that will work for everyone. And if somebody comes to you and they’re complaining and turning into a seagull, try to shift them into a solution-focused mode. Partner with them and say, “Okay, what can we do to solve this? It doesn’t help anyone to just complain about it – let’s focus on solutions.”

 

21. Give people an outlet to express their seagull voice in a fun way. For example, in one company I worked we had a “whine and cheese section” on our meeting agendas where you were allowed to whine in an exaggerated way. But the agreement was, “whine now, and then forever hold your peace” because we don’t want you whining out in the hallways – so here’s your chance to get it off your chest, but in a fun, playful way. We also used to do a “rumor mill” section in our meetings so people could bring up uncomfortable rumors, but in a fun way.

 

22. Reward employees for the negative stuff that happens, reward people for the stressful events in the workplace. A bank manager in New York was frustrated because the tellers weren’t helping the obnoxious regulars. In fact, they were pretending to hide behind the counter when they would come in. So, he rewarded their stress by introducing the “jerkiest customer of the week” award and at the end of every week, whoever had to deal with the most obnoxious jerk coming into the bank would get a small reward. It helped reduce the negativity because it flipped it around into something fun and they would get a positive reward for dealing with it.

 

23. Reward your positivity champions. We get more of the behaviors and attitudes we reward and recognize. So, reward those people that are contributing to a positive workplace culture. Give out a “Ha Ha Award to whoever best keeps everyone laughing during really challenging, difficult times or an “I Got Your Back Award” to whoever best looks out for each other’s mental and physical well-being at work.

 

24. Ignore the fun-suckers. Honestly, there are times where you just have to make the call to ignore the fun suckers and not let them drag you down. I cannot tell you how many of my clients talk about how they don’t do certain things because of the 5% of their employees who are the fun suckers, so they just don’t even bother doing any fun initiatives.  Don’t give them that much power!  There are times when the best strategy is to, as difficult as it can be, ignore the fun suckers!

25. Infuse your workplace with a spirit of fun and humor. Make sure your meetings embrace a lot of humor because they are important touchpoints. Create fun rituals and traditions to infuse your workplace culture with a spirit of fun. The more fun you have in your workplace, the more positive humor you have in the workplace, the harder it is for seagulls to thrive.

What about you? What do you do in your workplace to keep those seagulls at bay? What do you do to encourage a more positive workplace environment and minimize the negativity at work in your workplace? We would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment in the comment box so we can all learn from your experience.

Michael Kerr is a Hall of Fame business speaker and the author of 8 books, including The Humor Advantage: Why Some Businesses are Laughing All the Way to the Bank and The Jerk-Free Workplace.