One of the great things about negative thinking is that it fosters innovation. Finding improvements to already useful items is the sign of someone not satisfied. Why build a better mouse trap? You have a mouse trap! If it didn’t work it would be called the “Rat Buffett”. But we find things that need improvements.
Positive thinking can sometimes breed complacency. A positive thinking worker looks around and says “I love this place! Don’t change a thing!” Where a negative thinker says “I love this place! It would be even better if…” Does that mean you want to stock your office with negative thinking people. Not necessarily, but a few scattered around can really improve things.
Complacency is very dangerous when it comes to safety. Today I’m in Atlanta giving a keynote to Motiva Enterprises about safety and one of the key points I’ll make is that complacency is the start of a dangerous workplace. When you come to work in an environment that has dangers, you can’t relax. You can’t get comfortable. Doing so gets people hurt. Or worse. If you show up to work and nothing happens, and nothing happened last week and nothing dangerous happened last month, you let your guard down. Negative thinking reminds us that we’re working in a dangerous environment and we need to be alert. Do we need to worry so much that we’re scared? Of course not! But a little fear, a little doubt reminds us to be more careful.
So if you work in a dangerous workplace, try not to relax too much. Don’t worry, but be aware.
We wouldn’t want to have to change your nickname to “Stumpy” would we?
