Transforming Negative Attitude

MOTIVATION Topic 12: Transforming Negative Attitude Study Questions What Is a Negative Talk? Why Negative Talk Matters? The Nature of Negative Attitudes Are Catching (But So Are Positive Ones) Types of Negative Talk Accepting vs. Rejecting Narrowing vs. Expanding Victimized (bị bắt nạt) vs. In Charge Blaming (đổ lỗi) vs. Understanding Conflicting vs. Cooperating What Is a Negative talk? It is the talk we do that puts down ourselves, others, or a situation; it is complaining about each other or events that take place in our lives. Read the Case in Point , page 159 “You just can’t win with the HR department. They always find some way to make it tough to collect on your travel expense claims” “There are no way to get this mailing out on time” Why Negative Talk Matters? Reflecting employee’ s victim condition A conflict – oriented approach. Uncooperative spirit Leading others to accept frustrations blindly rather than try to improve them So negative attitudes will hurt all efforts of manager to build motivation in workplace. The Nature of Negative Attitudes Are Catching(But So Are Positive Ones) Negative attitudes can spill over from one area to another. It can quickly destroy motivation in workplace. Someone who has a feeling of helplessness or victimization can quickly spread that sense to others. The Nature of Negative Attitudes Are Catching(But So Are Positive Ones) Because of its nature of catching, it is important to transform negative to positive attitude. Manager for instance should make positive spreading quickly as negative one to build motivation. A simple conversation or an open questioning techniques can shift negative to positive talk. To Recognize Negative Attitudes The way of talk determines what people want to say. A negative talking style also spreads that negative viewpoint to others To produce positive attitudes, people need to learn to recognize negative forms of attitude talk. Types of Negative Talk Accepting vs. Rejecting Narrowing vs. Expanding Victimized (bị bắt nạt) vs. In Charge Blaming (đổ lỗi) vs. Understanding Conflicting vs. Cooperating Do exercise 9-1 to find out how your workplace is. Accepting vs. Rejecting Accepting is a kind of negative talk that describes an unconscious accepting of limits or boundaries Oppositely, rejecting is an effort to eliminate limits, boundaries. When facing a problem, people react either giving up or finding a way of solving problem Example: “ There ‘s no way too get this mailing out on time” or “There must be some way to get this mailing out on time” Accepting vs. Rejecting You should model a different kind of attitude in your talk so that it will come to mind when employees are in limitation. To make sure employees responding in that manner, manager need to put in place positive talk about barriers and limits When hearing negative talk, manager need politely, even humorously, rephrase their talk into positive ways. Exercise 9-2 Narrowing vs. Expanding Narrowing is the ways of negative talk in which there is only one or a few ways to approach limits. It leads us limited by preconceived notion (định kiến) instead of taking the initiative to create more choices Example “Fred is terrible forgetful, I guess I am going to stop giving him any important responsibilities” Narrowing vs. Expanding To avoid this kind of negative thinking and talk, Using brainstorming to open up your thinking and try to surface new approach. Creative behavior by shifting the conversation to a discussion of creative alternatives. Ex: A manager says “I don’t know what to do. I can either fire her or overlook her poor performance”. You as a manager can provide an advice “you can come up with some new options to consider” Either –or, if- then, yes-no are bipolar thinking which are sometime not the most options, you need to ask employees to open up the discussion. Victimized (bị bắt nạt) vs. In Charge This is a negative talk that a person say how bad thing happens to her/ him in which she/he can’ t do or is unable to change situation. This kind of attitude will destroy/ saps motivation and hurt initiatives and productivity Victimized (bị bắt nạt) vs. In Charge Ask question to stimulate employees to think about how they might gain some control over the circumstances. Advise employees “you should talk to the team leader alone about this problem” to encourage her to image ways of talking personal charge of trying to fix her problem. Encourage her to communicate with team leader through your assistance When the employees says “if I could have a one to one meeting with team leader, maybe I could discuss the problem”, you are successful in doing empowerment (trao quyền). Blaming (đổ lỗi) vs. Understanding Blaming is a kind of negative talks by which people say someone is responsible for something done badly or not done. To prevent it happens again, manager and employee should discover the whys instead of the who to make people in organization a broader understanding of the root causes “Why dis this happen?” “which aspects of our production process make us vulnerable to this kind of slowdown and what can we do to redesign them so it won’t happen again?” 	Samovar,L & Porter, R Communication Between Cultures 1995 Blaming (đổ lỗi) vs. Understanding “Why did this happen?” “Which aspects of our production process make us vulnerable to this kind of slowdown and what can we do to redesign them so it won’t happen again?” When manager make these questions, he/she transform blame- oriented negative talk into positive talk to make easier to get right in future. Conflicting vs. Cooperating It is a serious disagreement that makes people feel unhappy, angry and hate to face the person they had conflict with. So it hurts motivation. Conflict makes people use energy for their disagreement. It hurts motivation. Manager should encourage people to shift from telling to asking why the other person did that instead of telling what they did. Manager more over ask yourself whether you are trying to seek understanding and help them or just let natural defensive response take control. Conflicting vs. Cooperating Solution after asking is that Let the call go to the answering system Get portable phones and take them down to the coffee room when important calls are expected Similarly, the question might soon indicate that Rick only said so because he was frustrated about the telephone problem. And the whole thing will blow over quickly. Manager becomes visible target of attacking Managers are the one who control many aspect of employees. It is natural for them to focus their frustration on him/her. It is common in workplace “Really been a jerk lately” “Don’t work as hard as employees ” “ Never listen” The first step to transform negative talk is to recognize it as a symptom of frustrations (thất vọng) Manager becomes visible target of attacking Encourage them not accept the status quo (hiện trạng) and it helps them to see there are other ways to communicate with you. Getting them out of victim role and put them in charge of solving the problem Ending the blame game and shift their focus to understanding why the problem arose Expand their view of options, expanding their initially narrow perspective Sidestep (step one side) their conflict oriented approach and invites them to cooperate in solving the problem.