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:

1. Give Incentives, especially monetary incentives, for display of positive attitude.  This always work, even if the amount is small, because people appreciate such tokens
2. Train them, coach them and educate them. If you cannot do this on your own, it makes sense to send them for external training
3. 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
4. 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
5. 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
6. 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
7. 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.  
8. 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.