What to Say When: A Co-Worker is Negative

What do people gain from being negative in the workplace? It certainly doesn’t lead to measurable financial gain, so what else could it be? The answer is for social reward and satisfaction. Negative people often create and feed off a negative atmosphere, and when that happens, it can run wild throughout the team. And when a negative atmosphere has been established, a person can be seen as popular if they contribute to it. So how do you keep this from happening? Confronting the negative person, or debating the merits of their argument, doesn’t work. This course demonstrates a simple solution to isolate the negativity. Learn how to quickly snuff out any embers of negativity before they spread throughout your workplace.

This course is part of the What To Say When series on workplace communication. These short vignettes present common communication dilemmas in the workplace. Human Resource expert Hugh Murray shares communication strategies and tactics for navigating these situations.

Each vignette features narrative examples for employees to see the wrong and right way to handle a problem, and ends with a short assessment to measure learner comprehension. Each course also includes a leader guide, so you can use this course in a group setting, and a downloadable “key points” document to help you remember the communication strategy. These courses make for great training on their own, or used as a series.

   This course is in the Video On Demand format, to read about Video On Demand features click here.

All employees interested in learning to combat negativity in the workplace

• Effective Communications: Using Open-Ended Questions
• Effective Communications: Electronic Communications
• Effective Communications: Creating Win-Win Scenarios