Turning People from Negative to Positive in 8 Ways

As we know, the job of a manager is to get the highest performance from its available people. Bosses often expect managers to be coaching and guiding their team, and turn people with negative mindset into positive mindst. In our courses, we teach the 8 Ways to Turn People from Negative into Positive Mindset as follows:

Give Incentives, especially monetary incentives, for display of positive attitude. This always work, even if the amount is small, because people appreciate such tokens
Train them, coach them and educate them. If you cannot do this on your own, it makes sense to send them for external training
Give them 2 choices, and let them know of the consequences of their choices. People often prefer the positive attitude choice as they shun the negative consequences
Peer pressure always work, for no one wants to be the odd one out. Like in wedding dinners, peer pressure will turn non-drinkers into drinkers
Assume that they are positive, and empower them to put the positive attitude into work. People will feel guilty the moment they realize that you think highly of them and they will work to prove to you that they are positive too
Boost their Morale. Often poor morale produce negative attitudes, as morale is what people feel deep inside of them. You can easily boost morale by accentuating the positive and let them know that you believe in them
Doubt that they are positive. People like to rise up to challenges, and when you doubt that they are positive, they will work to prove it to you that they positive.
Follow the Leader. The fastest way is you as the leader to be positive and they will follow you in no time.

By Andy Ng, Chief Trainer at Asia Trainers. The next run for our best-selling How to Be a Better Manager course is in January 2015. For details, click here.

Comments

What an Executive Coach and Business Coach Does

The Secret Under the Mattress: Why would a 79-year Man Bet So Big on 4D?

It was 2007 when we discovered his secret. While moving my father’s mattress, we found them: heaps and heaps of Singapore Pools 4D tickets. They were stacked in layers, a paper trail of lost hopes. What shocked us most wasn’t just the volume, but the stakes. He wasn’t betting a few dollars for fun. He was punting hundreds of dollars per draw—nearly ten times a month. At the time, my siblings and I were furious. Our father was a 79-year-old retiree. We wondered, with a mix of anger and confusion, why a man at his stage of life would need to win such "big money." What was he going to do with the money? We saw it as a reckless habit, a sign of poor judgment in his final years. Some of us would say, "If I were to give him money to buy 4D, why don't I use the money and buy 4D myself? At least I have better discipline". It has taken me two decades, and the experience of raising my own three grown-up children, to finally see the truth that was hidden under that matt...

Head Bleeding when the Chair Falls

The Weight of Silence: What Were We Really Arguing About? My earliest memories are punctuated by the sound of shouting. In 1970, when I was barely 6 years old, I stood as a small witness to the fierce quarrels between my father and my late eldest brother Kah Yang (he passed away in 1971 at the age of 17). As I grew up, these contradictions became the soundtrack of our lives, usually centered around our family's shoe shop and clothing stalls in Chinatown. In the court of family opinion, the verdict was almost always the same: my father was "wrong." He was judged as a man who didn't fulfill his role, who wasn't "burdening" enough for the family’s success. But as I look back from the vantage point of 2026, I have to ask: Was that actually true? Let me finally put to rest what my father did right: the truths that were buried under decades of criticism: Unseen Labor: He worked grueling, long hours. I remember him hauling boxes of goods and equipment to set u...

Business and Money Tips

Search This Blog