Teambuilding and the Negative Attitude

Every team has one, the Negative Nelly. A person that complains about everything, brings down the group and makes life miserable for everyone involved. These negative attitudes can turn a productive team into a under performer in no time. When you’re trying to build up and excite your team, the Negative Nelly can be a burden, but there are ways to deal with the negative attitude and help bring the team around.

Focus on Behavior and Not Attitude

People develop a bad attitude for numerous reasons and many have nothing to do with the job. They could be insecure about their own abilities and choose to point out everything that could go wrong. They could be going through something difficult in their personal life and project it onto their professional life.

It’s difficult to change a person’s attitude when you don’t know the cause of the problem. Instead, focus on their behavior and try and put a stop to that. When they complain about a person or project or stir the pot with idle gossip, take them aside and ask if they know that what they’re saying is a problem. They’ll likely not realize or accept it’s a problem and you get to point out what problems are being created and the behavior you expect from them.

Keep Things Positive

You can’t control what the negative employee will do, but you can be as positive as possible to counteract his toxic thinking. You’re the leader and team’s role model. Don’t let a person’s negative attitude get to you or else you risk making matters even worse.

When the team sees their leader being impacted, it brings down their morale even further. Make sure you’re the paragon of positivity with your team and especially around the person with the bad attitude. Who knows, maybe your attitude will rub off, and they’ll lighten up.

Team Building in Maryland for Negative Nelly

There could be many reasons why your employee chooses to be negative, but by going through various team building exercises, that person may move past them. Teamwork and working together can help them overcome their insecurities and find out that they have more things in common with the team than they thought.

Teambuilding exercises such as ropes courses can bring teams together and teach them to better work together. Upward Enterprises specializes in creating an experience that will impact your team and bring them to a better place. If you want to take your team to the next level, then contact us and we’ll challenge them.