Accentuate the Positive | BTalk Australia

(8min 09) How do you keep a positive attitude in the workplace when those around you are down? Who’s to blame for constant negative thinking and how do you change it?

In today’s BTalk Australia Phil Dobbie talks to Lorraine Pirhi, the Productivity Queen, on an attitude that she says in prevalent in the Australian workplace.

Add you own ideas on how to beat negative thinking in the Talkback section at the end of this post.

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• Today’s Transcript

Phil Dobbie: Hello, I’m Phil Dobbie and welcome to BTalk Australia. Today: staying positive in the workplace. We all know people whose attitude is negative all the time. Or maybe it’s you who’s negative. How do you spot those people and how do you stop them? Business coach Lorraine Pirhi is the productivity queen from the productivityqueen.com.au and she joins me. Now Lorraine, is it vital to stay positive all the time? It could be pretty exhausting to always take a positive view on everything, can’t it?

Lorraine Pirhi: Yeah. The reality is you’re not positive all the time. I don’t know anyone who is. But the way to keep your spirits up is to feed yourself with positive information on a regular basis. Do the basic things like turn off the news, don’t listen to any of that, stop watching TV, and be around positive people. And that really, if you do some of those things, that makes a mess of difference into how you see things.

Dobbie: Now some people are naturally up all the time and some people are a bit more constrained. Is it possible that those highly motivated people are going to misconstrue the more reserved nature of some people as being negative? Because you know it can be a cultural thing, for example, can’t it?

Pirhi: Yeah, yeah. Just because you’re high feeling and you’re up it doesn’t mean other people have to be exactly the same way. And there are some people that are actually smiling on the inside. It just doesn’t show on the face.

Dobbie: So how do you spot that? I guess you’ve got to be a little bit lenient, haven’t you, and accept people’s differences.

Pirhi: Well, you’ve got to be aware, you ask people questions. Don’t just talk at them all the time, actually hear what they have to say and it’s how you ask the right sort of questions. By their responses you’ll know very quickly whether they are one of those people you should steer clear of or spend some more time with.

Dobbie: So what are the telltale signs do you think when you are talking to somebody. Have you got an ability to tell pretty quickly whether someone’s attitude is always negative?

Pirhi: A couple of things: you can tell by the way they hold themselves, their posture, the speech, what they say in their speech. Is the speech on a negative, do they say negative words all the time? Also, what they do in their lives tells you a lot about them as well.

Dobbie: In their personal life you mean?

Pirhi: Yes, in their personal life. You know, are they a can do or a can’t do person, what sort of things do they do? What are their interests? Are they interested in positive things? Do they tend to go out to seminars and learn and grow? What sort of books do they like to read? It tells you a lot about a person when you find out what they do with themselves out of hours.

Dobbie: Do you think some people that fit into that negative bracket could actually be kidding themselves that they’re not?

Pirhi: They’re not negative?

Dobbie: Yeah.

Pirhi: Yeah, there are a lot of people around like that. They think they’re positive but they’re actually quite draining.

Dobbie: So (and they might be listening now) what questions should they be asking themselves?

Pirhi: Are they happy? Are they happy doing what they do? Do people like being around them? Give yourself a rating on your happiness attitude during the day. That can make a big difference too. Do you tend to walk with pride?

Dobbie: How do you stop yourself if you are around all those people? I mean how do you stop yourself from being dragged down because you may be slung into a work situation where you’ve got to sit next to someone who’s like that. How do you cope with that day in and day out?

Pirhi: That’s really difficult, isn’t it? My daughter’s in a situation like that where they’re all quite negative around her, but she’s the officer. The bottom line is you just have to keep yourself away from them as much as possible and, in all honesty, if the environment is that bad, remove yourself completely from it because it just drags you down and before you know it, misery loves company and you don’t want to be the company.

Dobbie: Is there a danger though that you can also be overly positive on things and lose your ability to see things critically? I mean I’ve been in situation where I’ve worked with very, very positive people and I’ve been thinking “Hang on, the company is doing the wrong thing here”. And you know I’ve been accused of being the negative one for trying to point out things that I think really need to be addressed. I think that happens quite a bit, doesn’t it, by people who are up all the time?

Pirhi: Yeah. I think you’ve got to be honest. There’s one thing — being positive, but you’ve got to hit the nail on the head and be honest. I’m like that. I’m often surrounded by people who are pseudo-positive and that’s great. But when something is not right I will stand up and say something, because otherwise they’ll end up harming themselves and those around them if they don’t see things for what they are.

Dobbie: Is it common? Is negativity in the workplace very common in Australia? I mean, Aussies are known as optimistic people. I would’ve thought it was the exception more than the norm.

Pirhi: No, I reckon that I don’t think so. I find while most people are pretty negative when you really look at it.

Dobbie: And so what effect is that having on the productivity in the workplace?

Pirhi: They don’t get much done. Or it’s too hard or it’s not their fault, it’s not my fault. So they tend not to do anything. It’s everybody else’s responsibility. And they don’t take responsibility for their own actions. In fact I think a majority of people are in jobs they don’t like. And that really affects how they feel and their outlook in their daily life. And they just don’t change the situation, get off their butt and do something.

Dobbie: Now are they in a job they don’t — is it because of the job or is it their attitude telling them that they don’t like it? Can it be turned around?

Pirhi: No, it really depends on the person. A lot of the time it’s their attitude. I mean in the workplace today unfortunately, we are lacking leaders and I constantly hear about poor management. People are in management and they’ve got no idea how to manage people. So that has a massive effect on the workplace itself. But it’s up to the individual. I mean we’re all responsible for ourselves. So it’s up to them to say, if I don’t like it here, what am I going to do to change it? What can I do? How can I approach this better? What options do I have? And then go make those changes.

Dobbie: So for New Year resolutions — we’re getting towards the end of the year — you’re a business coach, you deal with these problems all the time. What would you do if you had somebody who believes they might have some of these negative traits? What resolution should they be making for the New Year? How can they change their attitude?

Pirhi: I work predominately with small business owners and entrepreneurs and many of them have had that sort of negative attitude, particularly with staff and people who don’t perform. But when you look at them, essentially the owner is setting the culture. Some of the things I suggest to them first of all is that there are people that are negative because they don’t feel good about themselves. So one of the things I would suggest is go and get yourself fit and healthy. When you’re feeling fit and healthy and you’re looking good, you’re feeling good, you’re way more positive than if you’re overweight, you’re slow and things just don’t look too good — it’s all about your self-esteem. That’s one thing I’d do.  The other thing I’d do is feed yourself; feed your brain with positive, uplifting information. You can get CDs, you can go to seminars, read books that are positive and uplifting that are going to help you learn and grow right.

Dobbie: Makes a great deal of sense. Thanks so much for your time today Lorraine.

Pirhi: Thank you.