Welcome to life. You will always have a negative person
nearby no matter how hard you try to escape them. What do you do, however, if
you hire or work with a negative person? Well, I have a few tried and tested
tips that work!
First, try to avoid them if possible. Sure, you work with
them but that doesn’t mean you need to engage with them beyond a professional
level. If they hang out in a certain snacking area, bring your own food. If
they show up at your desk to “talk”, excuse yourself and find some copying to
do. If they're customers that you can't
avoid, stay cordial and friendly but don't get sucked into a deeper
relationship. Finally, make sure you draw boundaries with these people and YOU
have to stick to them because they surely will not.
You also want to avoid being too positive with them. Reverse
psychology doesn’t work on negative people. In fact, it is a breeding bed of
challenging encounters for them. They will feed on counter-acting your
positivity with negativity. Remember to remain neutral and to not get sucked
into their negativity- which is harder done than said.
Finally, changed their words around and re-present
them. Negative people use negative tones
and phrases. If client A states “well,
you know, if this is the best you can do then I guess it is ok”, simply reword
it back to them. This tricks them into thinking what they said is acceptable,
when really it isn’t and you are putting it back in their face- politely, of
course. A good example of re-presenting the example above would be to say, “You’re
right. This is the best work I can do and I’m glad we see eye to eye on the
final product.” See how this worked? It
is amazing what can be accomplished by simply rephrasing something, right?!
It’s hard to be upbeat when you have a negative person
around. Sometimes you have to deal with him or her- there is no escape. In
these situations just remember my tips above.
Until tomorrow,
Coco the CEO
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