“Be positive!”
Sometimes people offer that advice at the worst possible times, times when you would sooner take a few days to just sit and be a sad sap. But the truth is, having a positive attitude—a real positive attitude that emanates from the inside out—may be the only chance you have to inspire your team and encourage collaborative output.
Tunnel Vision and Problem-Oriented Thinking: By-Products of Negativity
A negative person is unpleasant company. There’s always the threat of drama lurking around the next corner. For the sourpuss, no matter what happens, that heavy sense of foreboding leaves him or her waiting for the other shoe to come cascading from the sky. The danger of keeping company with a negative person is not just in the fact that others eventually tire of their bellyaching. According to a study released by the Association for Psychological Science, negativity is contagious. So the old saying, “Misery loves company” is spot-on. Spend enough time with a negative person and you may find yourself reacting to situations more negatively as well. Not only that, a person’s expectations of negative events happening in the future can influence how they remember the past.
Where team dynamics are concerned, few things put out the fire of creativity and inspiration quicker than negativity. Our biological response to a negative event is solely to find an escape route. We essentially develop tunnel vision. For most people, the habit of negative thinking shrinks their ability to come up with creative ideas.
If you are a manager who, like most of the population, has a tendency toward pessimism, you have to find a way to strike a healthy balance between being pessimistic and developing a positive thinking style. Pessimism is necessary in business. It can be a great tool for identifying possible challenges. Once problems have been pinpointed, you and your team can work together to find solutions, hopefully before those challenges actually arise. That said, there’s no need to be Mary Poppins. Perhaps more Willy Wonka.
Possibilities and Solutions-Oriented Thinking: By-Products of Positivity
On the flip side, our natural response to positive events is to begin seeing more possibilities in life. Positive thoughts create positive emotions, and positive emotions open up your mind to explore more options. You are more likely to look for more solutions to problems. In order for positivity to have an impact on you and your team, it has to be authentic. Positive words and actions flow from a positive mind. Whether you are managing people or managing yourself, reprogramming your mind so that your default setting is positivity has been proven to increase productivity, improve your immune system and promote creative thinking.
In short, the key to your slump may simply be to change your mind.