Where Negativity at Work Comes From, and How to Fix It

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1:59When you're thinking about how to run a great organization, truer words than these have never been spoken. Where there's a void in communication, negativity will fill it. Where there's a void in communication, negativity will fill it. That is John, who knows a lot about, well, that problem. My name is John Gordon. I'm an author of 28 books. We have a training company where we develop positive leaders, build stronger teams, and help people with their positive mindsets. And I really like this focus that John has on the word positive because, well, when there's an absence of leadership, when there's an absence of communication, the thing that fills the void is negativity.

2:45That's what he was saying at the very beginning of this episode. And it's not just about negative communication. And negativity manifests in a variety of ways, in a variety of unhealthy reasons that it comes to the surface. So to be a great leader, John argues, you have to understand what the absence of your leadership creates. And you have to be aware of the problems that would manifest when you are not solving those problems with great leadership. It's a really interesting way of thinking about it. You as a leader can and should be a force for positivity. And where there is negativity, there is actually an absence of leadership.

3:29So, okay, what do you do? How do you think like a positive leader? What does it even mean to fill that void? That's what we're talking about today on Problem Solvers with John Gordon. John, by the way, he said he is the author of 28 books. That's a lot of books. His most recent is called The One Truth. It is, as he describes, the answer to mental toughness, the key to mental health, the key to confidence and performance, all of which are very important for leaders to have too. Today, John Gordon, the positive power of leadership coming up after the break. I lost my job in 2008, right before my wedding, actually.

4:12Getting let go would turn out to be my first step toward passive income, a fluid and dynamic way of earning income while changing lives at the same time. I found that online businesses are the best way to do that. It completely changed my life. My name is Pat Flynn. I created the Smart Passive Income podcast back in 2010 for anyone who's ever felt even a little bit like I did when I got let go. People who want to create and sustain a passive income stream online so they can spend more time with the ones they love, achieve the lifestyle they desire and turn their passion into a thriving business.

4:46Whether you have a side hustle already in the works, or you don't even know where to begin, or you just want to crush it with what you got, this show has it all. Wherever you're at in your journey as an online entrepreneur, you're not alone in your quest. Hit subscribe so you don't miss a beat. There's a new episode of the Smart Passive Income Podcast coming your way every Wednesday and Friday, wherever you'd like to listen to podcasts. Let's get started. All right, we are back talking with John Gordon about positive leadership and what happens in its absence, negativity. And to start, I had asked John to explain to me what that negativity looks like, how it is created, how it is recognized.

5:28It all starts with a team or organization that people feel separate. They They don't feel connected to the mission. They don't feel like they're engaged. They don't feel like they're involved. They don't feel included. And so a big part of positive leadership is actually to communicate with your team. Where there's avoiding communication, negativity will fill it. It's also about connection. As a leader, are you developing a connection with those that you lead? We know about psychological safety and emotional safety. When people feel connected, they're more committed. when they know that they're free to share ideas without worry about being ridiculed.

6:05That allows them to come up with genius ideas as an organization, as a team. We know that Project Aristotle, the Google research project they did on teamwork, found that the best teams came from the B teams, not the A teams, not the ones with the most geniuses in their field or the rock stars in their industry. It came from the B teams, the ones who had psychological safety. They felt free to share ideas back and forth. there was a connection amongst the team. And then that led to a greater commitment. You'll never have commitment without connection. So if you want to be a team that's committed, you must be a connected team.

6:40And we see that all the time. And when people don't feel connected, they're then not committed. And so a big part of commitment is connection. As a leader, we encourage leaders all the time to connect one-on-one with those that you lead and then develop connections amongst your team. We have various exercises to help leaders do that. But just one-on-one conversations. If you're a leader, pick one person every day on your team with direct reports and meet with that person. Talk to that person. See how they're doing. The next day, do it again. We're talking five to 10-minute conversations. It doesn't have to be a long time, but it is essential to do that, to develop that connection.

7:19And then there's that commitment that develops when we are connected, but every day to make people feel involved and part of a team where negativity can breed and grow, we're demonstrating commitment to them. They know we care about them. They know that we are involved in their life. They know that we're focused on we, not me. An organization going through change, for instance, a lot of times there's a lot of change initiatives happening. And if you're an organization, you're an employee, and you feel like your leader doesn't have your best interest at heart. You're not thinking about your next job.

7:53You're thinking about your next project. You're thinking about how do I survive and how do I take care of me? You're not focused on the team and the organization. And that's why teams also suffer during times of change because leaders don't drive or build the relationships necessary to get through the change and thrive through the change. So all these things are real key in terms of communication, connection and commitment but negativity will also surface when there's jealousy when there's envy when they feel like some people are getting preferential treatment and again that goes to difficult conversations that we must have as leaders and teams nick nurse the former coach of the toronto raptors when they won the nba championship he put an elephant on his desk it was a reminder we're going to deal with the elephant in the room and we tell the story a lot in our trainings now so now we have leaders around the country putting elephants on their desk as a reminder we're going to deal with the issues yeah not live elephants i hope not live elephants but you know these little statues that are created but we're going to deal with the issues we're going to have the difficult conversations and we're going to make sure that we bring them to the surface so we can deal with them, talk about them, address them so they don't breed and grow and become bigger issues.

9:13The U.S. women's soccer team on their march to win the World Cup a few years ago, after every match they got together and they talked about who messed up, who needed to play better, how they needed to improve. I said, no one took it personal. I was asking Allie along this. She said, no, we all wanted to be great together. We found the key is a small ego and a big mission as a team. So we have a star three model that we put together actually to help leaders and teams deal with the negativity and have the difficult conversations. And it starts with the S, which is small ego, big mission. And then you go to the T, tell the truth.

9:54We got to have truth tellers. We got to talk about the truth and we got to address it. A, assume positive intent. That's essential. When you're having those meetings, assume the other person is giving and sharing positive intent and you are as well. And then R, it's R3, R3. The first R is respect. Respect everyone and their opinion. You may disagree, but respect them and allow them to have their opinion. Realize it's all about the relationship. Don't allow the disagreement to ruin the relationship. We saw a lot of this in society the last few years with the pandemic. People lost friends, family members in terms of not seeing them.

10:33I'm not talking about dying, but just not seeing each other, not staying connected anymore because they disagree with each other. And now they're no longer friends. With my friends and I, we disagreed at times. We always said, you know what, we're going to make sure that our relationship, which is the most important thing, stays the most important thing. So we might disagree, but let's focus on the relationships and companies and organizations need to do this as well. And then the other R is rules of engagement. This is essential. How will we have the difficult conversation? This is key for marriages, for partners as well.

11:07You disagree. Well, how are we going to engage in the conversation? You have to have the rules so that way, okay, we're not going to be emotionally charged, for instance, might be a rule. Another rule might be everything you say in the meeting, right, stays in the meeting or no after the meeting comments, no meeting after the meeting, which happens so often. Like after the meeting, you walk out, you're like, oh, that was stupid to hear what so-and-so said. No, you say it in the meeting. If you're going to say it, you can't see it outside the meeting. And those rules help you develop a standard that everyone understands.

11:39And that allows for healthy, positive conflict, we call it. It's conflict, but it's positive because the goal is to lead to growth, not division, to lead to unity, oneness, instead of separation. And this all goes to communication. Communication shares the same etymology as communion or community or commune. And what is that? To join together with. The goal of communication is to become one team, one united team. And you're powerful when you are one team and you're united. When you are a divided team and there's division, you become a weak team. So the whole goal is to come together in community to develop connection and oneness rather than separation and division.

12:24John, I think I just triggered an entire keynote speech of yours in that. And so there's a lot to unpack there and I'm going to try to do it because you gave me so many things to follow up on. Here's the first, if we go back about five minutes. Sorry about that. No, it's good. You got a lot. You got a lot of wisdom to share. So one thing that really jumped out at me was when you were talking about how connection will not happen without it being fostered. And what that made me think of, honestly, was moments in which I have been in a very negative workspace where I didn't feel connected to the company and when people around me did not either.

13:07And you know, the interesting thing is that when you're in that space, rather than in the position that you're in, for example, where you're working with leaders to try to create the better space. But when you're on the other side of that, you're the employee who's feeling negative. Connection actually does happen. It's just that it happens with other people who also feel negative. And then you end up bonding over that, which is always what ended up happening with me and colleagues who were not happy together. We bonded over that, which just reinforced how negative we felt about the company. So it's an interesting thing to think about.

13:41And I say this to prompt your thoughts on it and how leaders can identify this as a problem and then start to engage with it, that connection is a natural thing that humans will do. So if you don't guide their connecting instincts towards each other for a positive contribution to the company, then what will happen is that they will not be independent entities floating in space. They will connect with each other in ways that you do not necessarily want them to as a leader looking to create a constructive environment. And that can calcify into a really, truly dysfunctional team. So how does a leader begin to recognize that and maybe step into the middle of it and start to pick it apart and create something more positive?

14:26I love that you just shared that. And that was a real brilliant insight in terms of the fact that people are going to connect, but they will connect in a negative way over negative things. And misery loves company. So they get together, they start complaining and that fosters more and more negativity. I wrote a book called the no complaining rule that says you're not allowed to complain unless you come with a solution. And so you get rid of mindless complaining, people coming together and complain. Everyone's focused on solutions, which allows you to get together. I think as a leader, as you said, you got to be aware of how people are feeling and you have to understand what they're going through and where they are.

15:02We talk about positivity. I think there's a lot of people out there talking about toxic positivity, where you're just glossing over the concerns of people. You're like, oh, just be positive. Oh, we'll get through this. Now you have to meet people where they are, understand what they're feeling, why they're feeling that way, address their needs and concerns, and talk about how do we move forward on a path forward. When I got to the Tampa Bay Lightning to speak to them during training camp, they had just lost in the first round the year before. And here we are in training camp, and they're talking about last year.

15:35and they're complaining, they're being negative and they're talking about the past. I said, listen, we can't look backwards. We gotta look forwards. I said, let's not be bitter, let's get better. I said, let's focus on what we're creating, not what happened in the past. And I gave them research. I showed them that teams that feel like they're defending something don't do very well. But teams that are attacking a new opportunity, they do great. And that became their mindset and perspective going forward. How do we attack a new opportunity? I think as leaders, we have to basically, at the cultural level, talk to our team and say, this is what we expect of you.

16:10And this is what you can expect from us. It's our job to build relationships. It's our job to earn your trust. It's our job to communicate to you and connect with you. And if you're feeling another way, and we're doing all these things, but you're feeling another way, let's find out why. Is it us or is it you? And we have to be real and understand who is responsible for that. A lot of times it's a mixture of both, but sometimes it's the leaders, but a lot of times it also is the employees that they're just being very negative. There's one person that's really negative. We call them an energy vampire and they're rallying other people around them.

16:45So I always tell leaders, identify who your positive folks are in terms of who has optimism, who has belief, who's on the bus, who's moving with you in the right direction. Doug Coden had to do this at Campbell's Soup and he became a good friend. I worked with them. And then from there, you look at the middle of the road people, who are the people that go either way? And you've got to start getting those people on the bus with you, start engaging them and make sure that everything you're doing is right in terms of leadership to engage them. and those people that are really really far apart they're very separate they're the group that's getting together they're the group that just is not going to be happy no matter what or again are you doing something that could change that group if you're doing everything right okay great now you have to basically say to that group we're going to build a culture so strong we need to be a part of it and if you're not you're just not going to fit in and the goal is to build a culture where if they don't fit in they'll get off the bus themselves you won't even have to let them off but you may have to if they start sabotaging the team.

17:47So there's a long process here and there's many different nuances to this. That's why we work with a lot of leaders. There's no cut. There's no cookie cutter solution. It has to be a customized solution, but it's understanding the issues and then just making sure you're addressing the negativity and talking about it and having those conversations. And I always say, Jason, if you knew someone had your best interest at heart, would you be more open to their feedback? Sure. Of course. Yeah, of course. And that's what you have to do as leaders. What you're saying here, I think, is going to feed naturally into something that I wanted to follow up with before, which was an interesting point you made about how leaders either succeed or fail in leading their team through change.

18:28Because the answer that you gave, and I'd like you to dig into it a little bit more, was that it doesn't really start at the moment of change. It starts long before it. Because if you're laying that foundation of connection and of communication beforehand, then I guess what you're doing is you're building the trust such that the team understands that you, just like you said a second ago, have their best interests at heart. But tell me a little bit more about that, how leaders can either be helping their teams through change, but really anticipating that change long before it happens so that by the time it comes, the team is strong enough that it can navigate that change together.

19:11Where there's avoiding communication, negativity will fill it, as I said earlier. So when there's fear and there's uncertainty, that fear grows even more. And so we have to recognize that as leaders, that people can be motivated by either fear or by love. They're going to be moving away from you in the mission or moving towards you in the mission. And so when we recognize that they're fearful, there's uncertainty, we got to close the gap in our communication. But it happens at every level with trust. you said earlier trust is essential so if you're building the communication you're building the connection you're building the relationship and you're taking the time to invest in that relationship and relationships to the foundation upon which great teams and organizations are built and you have these great relationships when you're going through the change you're able to now lead people through the change because relationships drive real motivation and people always follow the leader first and the vision second.

20:08So you might be saying, hey, we're going here. This is what it looks like. This is great. But if they don't have a relationship with you and they don't think you care about them, they're not getting on your bus to go with you to that destination. So you got to paint the future. You got to show them the vision. This is what it looks like. This is where we're going. We're excited about that. You got to show them how they are involved in that process, how it includes them, how they contribute to that brighter, better future. That's a big part of leadership, rallying people towards the future and engaging them and showing them how they're involved and how they can contribute to it.

20:43Because people want to be part of something greater than themselves. They want to feel like they're contributing. They want to have - And sorry, I just want to interrupt. And when they see change, they often worry that they don't have a role in that change, that the change is going to negate the value that they are bringing currently to the before change. that's the uncertainty and fear basically coming up and saying change is happening and you're not going to be a part of it so as the leader you have to let them know that they're valued they're included why you need them and what role they can play in that change people love change actually everyone says oh people don't like change so we love change what we don't like is transition we don't like going through the transition we love what change produces but we don't like the transition of going through it.

21:29And so we have to help people through the transition to experience the change that they'll ultimately love. But it's all the little nuances that we're talking about here, valuing the person, developing the relationship, listening, communicating. And a lot of times there's really not even honest communication or transparency about what's going on. And so people don't know, they don't hear, they don't see. So of course they assume the worst and they act accordingly.

21:58What you just said there reminds me of a conversation that I had a long time ago with someone about how to lead through change. And the person said this thing that really stuck with me, which was that leaders often forget that when they are introducing a change to their team, they, the leader, have had a lot of time to adapt to that change already. They've been able to think about it. They were part of crafting it, perhaps. They've done the hard work themselves of getting through that, as you said, transition, which is the hard part. And now they're introducing it to their teams. And to them, it's old hat.

22:36But to the team, it's brand new. And they may forget that. And therefore, they don't give their teams the grace of being able to adapt to it, to go through the transition and to recognize that that transition is hard. How should leaders engage with people in that moment so that they are giving their teams the grace and the space necessary to adapt to it? That's such a great point. And I really believe that they need to make time to listen and get together with their team and have some conversations and have some fireside chats or some lunches where you sit down, ask me anything, ask me questions.

23:13And again, it goes back to talking, listening, having a conversation and then allowing people to process the change and the transition that's happening. If you do that as a leader, you make time to do that. What's happening today is people are so busy. They're so stressed. They're running so hard thinking about what they have to do next that we're forgetting to take time to invest in the relationship that allows everyone to be more successful. So it's about taking that time and just having those conversations, allowing people of process and walk with them. See, if you're ahead of them, because you already know where you're going, but you're not walking with them because you're far ahead.

23:54Now there's separation. Walk with them to create oneness where you're part of the change, part of the growth, part of the movement of them moving forward with you. And part of the connection. That's a really nice visual because a lot of what we've been talking about here is making sure that you're connected to people. And that visual of walking ahead of your team is the exact opposite of being connected with them. If you're up ahead and your team is feeling lost and they're all together behind you, well, now they're going to be connected, but it's not going to be to you, right? Exactly. And that's my biggest challenge, honestly, as a leader myself.

24:31When I have a vision so often before my team does, I see it so clearly and they don't. Visionary leaders really struggle with this. Entrepreneurs often struggle with this. Steve Jobs struggled with this because he had the vision and he would get very frustrated that other people didn't see it. And so you have to not just be a visionary, but a teacher. So you see it, you know where people need to go. You have to teach them and walk with them along the way as they learn the lesson that you already got a while ago. And now you have to make sure that they're processing it, learning it and discovering it for themselves.

25:08That takes patience. That takes time. It takes energy, but that's the key. People call me a motivational speaker sometimes, and I hate that. People call Ken Blanchard a motivational speaker. No, he's a business leader and author. I call myself an inspirational teacher. I like to inspire, but my job and my goal is to teach ideas that I see ahead of time and then teach people to be able to implement those ideas. Yeah, it's funny. I also hate the phrase motivational speaker. I do a lot of speaking, probably not as much as you, but I am regularly told that the thing that mattered the most that I said was something very tactical that people could implement and remember and use.

25:51And that's the exact opposite of motivation. Motivation, you get up and you rah, rah, and people maybe feel good in the moment, but then they have literally nothing to do with it afterwards. Because as soon as the feeling goes away, they don't have anything to sustain. So you need to be somebody as a leader who not just helps people feel good about the thing that you're doing, but also gives them the tactical tools and the path and the process necessary to execute it. Jason, I was with a CEO the other day on the treadmill next to him at the gym. He had implemented my book, The Energy Bus, with his company, a very large transportation company.

26:30This is in Florida. He lives in Cincinnati. So he comes down to Florida, has a place there. And so I was, I was seeing him. I hadn't seen him in a while. And he said, John, we're going to reintroduce the energy bus. It's been seven years into our company. He said, let me ask you something. How many leaders that you've worked with? How many companies, organizations do you think after you speak and give a keynote or they've even read your book have actually implemented the practices, the principles, and the ideas into what they do on a daily basis. I thought for a moment, I was like, wow, 10 % maybe.