As I have discussed in my book “Half a Glass: The Realist’s Guide” (In fact I dedicated Chapter 5 to it!) rumors and gossip are going to happen whether you want them to or not. The only decision you can make is if you want to know what’s being shared or be clueless to the information (or misinformation).  While you make think gossip is ugly and useless, science is proving otherwise.

The Myth: Rumors are ugly, horrible things (Only the good ones!).

The Reality: Rumors can be a viable way to know what is happening around you.

And now it seems that gossip can be good for your health and conscience:

Researchers found that when people in the study saw someone acting badly, their heart rates increased. But researchers found that it helped their heart rates when they were able to share what they witnessed with someone else, particularly to warn them of the potential exploitation.

“Spreading information about the person whom they had seen behave badly tended to make people feel better, quieting the frustration that drove their gossip,” study researcher Robb Willer, a social psychologist at UC Berkeley, said in a statement.

In addition, researchers found that people in the study were even willing to sacrifice money in order to let other people know of cheaters who were players in economic trust games — in this case, gossiping was a means of preventing other people from being taken advantage of, said study researcher Matthew Feinberg, who is also a social psychologist at UC Berkeley.

The research is published online in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

You don’t need to pass gossip along but be open to hear what’s happening around you. It builds trust and peace of mind.

Or so I’ve heard…

Buy Craig’s book “Half a Glass: The Realist’s Guide” to read more about how negative issues can be used for positive solutions.

The “Power of Positive Thinking” has been sold and marketed so much it’s been widely accepted as the way people “should” behave, think or act. Sadly, the truth behind the value of negative thoughts and emotions has been driven into the shadows, to be ignored and avoided. Thankfully, more and more people are coming to understand that our negative thoughts partnered with a positive attitude (they are not mutually exclusive) can be a powerful combination for personal and professional success.

I came across Dr. Roger Covin, Ph.D. His article at the Huffington Post showed the qualities of negative thinking:

The problem is that while positive thinking can yield some mental health benefits, an excessive and rigid search for positivity can bring about the opposite effect.

Sticking with the analogy of germs, negative thoughts and emotions (including stress) can be a good thing in moderation — like germs or viruses that stimulate the functioning of the immune system. There are a number of benefits of negativity, and at least some negativity in one’s life from time to time is probably desirable.

First, negative thinking can be adaptive. When problems arise, worry can be a constructive thing if it leads to problem-solving. Anxiety is useful when we are threatened and are in need of safety. (For example, you should feel some anxiety when driving in poor weather.) Sadness is a normal emotion in the context of loss. In fact, it is believed that the symptoms of depression evolved to facilitate the need for rest, protection and self-soothing.[1]

Second, negative life experiences (including negative thoughts and emotions) often play a significant role in maturation and character development. Guilt and shame not only allow us to recognize and correct mistakes we’ve made, but also to become a better person. Repeat experiences with frustration help build tolerance and may ultimately assist in the development of patience.

[1] Allen & Badcock (2003). The social risk hypothesis of depressed mood: Evolutionary, psychosocial, and neurobiological perspectives. Psychological Bulletin, 129, 887-913.

I’ll keep you posted as more and more people spread the word!

Motivation is always a hot topic for speakers, corporate leaders and managers alike. People look for new techniques on how to inspire, engage and otherwise influence employees. But rarely is the most obvious issue discussed: ‘What’s demotivating our people?’

Every person starts out a new job or position bubbling with energy. They’ve got ideas they want to share and goals to accomplish. In fact, if you hear a new hire say “Oh great…I’ve got to go start that horrible new job next week.” Fire them. Then fire the person who hired them, and hope it wasn’t you. Because, with few exceptions, most start out enthused and raring to go!

That enthusiasm doesn’t last forever, after a while (hopefully much later than sooner) people become less motivated. There are a number of reasons for this, perhaps through the complacency of knowing a job down pat, policy implementation, management styles or plain old personality conflicts. This reduction is what we need to focus on. The solution is not finding a short term booster shot that wears off in a few days or in some cases, as soon as the motivational meeting is over!

We need to think about our impact on demotivation and what are the things that cause it?

1. Micromanaging. It’s an obvious demotivator but rarely understood by managers. You hired someone to do a job…so let them do it! Nothing starts pecking away at a desire to work than being lorded over, having someone ‘hover around’ or any other form of obnoxious micromanaging. By showing your employees faith in their judgment and allowing them to utilize their skills in the way they do best -letting them, you know, do what you hired them to do- you’ll go a long way in keeping them motivated.

2. Ignoring feedback. Often corporate leaders and managers say they have an “open door” policy. But do they bring an open mind to that policy? A good manager, CEO or leader in general is open to hearing new ideas, constructive criticism and the occasional warning. Yes, they have the final say and guide the “vision” of the project/company/plan but they also have to be able to get to the information that allows them to guide everyone to the finish line.

If you ask for ideas in an open forum or meeting, do any that oppose your view get acted upon or even considered? If you ignore good ideas that do not share your viewpoint, your team will see that and remember it. They realize that if small ideas are ignored in meetings, there is no way their larger objection or concerns will be addressed in private. Frustration will build and the idea that they’re stuck in a situation without getting out erodes their motivation. You need to be open and flexible, not a black hole where good ideas are absorbed, never to be seen or heard from again.

3. Unrealistic goals. I have a friend who worked in sales. On what seemed like a whim, his manager set some very high, nearly unobtainable goals. The worst part about it was that these goals were pulled out of thin air. They were not market driven, historically related to previous goals or based on any additional information. They were simply arbitrary goals placed on the team because the owner of the company needed a certain amount of revenue in a certain amount of time. Through poor judgment and mismanagement, a burden was placed onto the sales force, causing a ripple effect (or in this case a tsunami) of dread, stress and helplessness on the entire staff. Think they went out motivated?

Just to put the cherry on the top of this little fiasco, he sat the entire sales staff down and played the famous scene with Alec Baldwin from “Glen Gary/Glenn Ross” where Alec’s character goes on to threaten, degrade and offend the sales staff to “motivate” them. It’s no surprise that a few months later that company went out of business. It only really motivated everyone to update their resumes and look for other jobs.

Challenging the staff to achieve, to push a little harder, to reach goals is a major part of success. It builds teams and drives productivity. This works only if they can achieve or at least come close to the goal. Otherwise it just undercuts all they have been collectively working towards. If the goal is not something everyone can at least imagine is possible, the stress involved to reach that goal may be too much.

In order to find out if you are the ‘demotivator’, what we need to ask ourselves is:

“What things am I doing to demotivate?” “Am I listening to help or to placate?” “What policies are causing undue stress?” “Are my expectations and goals realistic, not just to me but to my people”.

We need to really look at ourselves as leaders and managers to recognize things that we do that may have adverse effects on our workers. Often the more we change our style to fit the situation, the less we need to rely on motivational quick fixes and gimmicks.

Although I still think Ice Cream Fridays are a great idea!

One of the biggest thing that really gets my goat (for the record I do not own a goat) is people who insist on believing (and it’s not the believing part, but the insistence on telling other people) that a positive attitude can cure all their ills. It’s just not true.

The condescension of positivity shames people into thinking they must be positive thinkers to get anywhere in the world, overcome their sicknesses and overall, to just be a better person than negative folks.  Yet, positive thinking doesn’t offer any greater strength than any other type of thinking. Certainly not in the health department. I stumbled upon this article in the Daily Mail that spoke about how the American obsession with positive thinking can actually hurt your recovery:

Try to stay positive . . . it’s become a common call to those who are ill as the belief has grown that having a positive attitude will not only help you get through illness, but make you better quicker.

But is it true? In fact, there’s no evidence that teaching yourself to have a positive attitude makes you physically healthier. A recent study of cancer patients in Finland and Sweden found no association between survival rates and whether people were positive or negative in their outlook.

The study, in the American Journal of Epidemiology, looked at 4,600 people with cancer over 30 years, and found that whether they were extrovert or neurotic, their attitude to life had no relationship with how long they survived their illness.

It’s not an isolated finding. An analysis of research by Dr James Coyne, professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, found that there were no good quality studies showing that ‘positive psychology’ had any effect on physical health.

In one of his own large studies, he found that the sense of emotional wellbeing of cancer patients had no effect on how long they lived.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2081407/Why-staying-positive-WONT-speed-recovery.html#ixzz1iQJ5F2yQ

But there’s too much money to be made by writing books on what people WANT to hear vs. the facts. It’s much easier to sell candy than medicine. The reality is getting sick sucks. Having a serious illness can be devastating. Having to pretend that everything is going to be great instead of confronting your true feelings and working through them openly and honestly…that sounds like a true sickness.

Thats right.

From now until the end of 2011, I’m offering anyone who signs up for my newsletter a free PDF version of my book on understanding and utilizing negativity.

Sign up today and get the introduction tomorrow. Then each week the next chapter will be sent directly to your email where you can download the PDF at your convienence.

Use the form on the website or go to http://eepurl.com/hCoK2 and register.

Please share this post and the link to the signup form to anyone you’d like! But act fast (WOW…that sounds Infomercially…sorry) because this offer is only good until Dec. 31st.

Happy Holidays!

Here’s a topic that I actually address in my own self-help book “Half a Glass: The Realist’s Guide”  (not my choice, the publisher categorized it as self-help, I always thought and still do, that it’s a great management book!) as well as my “Getting a Grip on Negativity” keynote. I strongly believe this and I find many people tend to agree:

Most self-help books are crap!

They only distract from and delay growth.

Do they all suck? Of course not but the most popular ones are the quick-fix oriented ones, like “The Secret”. Want the real secret?? The secret is to write a vague book with no accountability, no real action plan other than wishing and rake in dough. The “4 Hour Work Week”? The book took me 5 hours to read! And then it pretty much lays out a plan of outsourcing your life at a considerable cost. So yeah, if you make $500,000 a year, you can work 4 hours a week by delegating and outsourcing. “Who moved my Cheese?” I did. What are you going to do about it? The book claims most people, absent their vital cheese, would whine and die of starvation, but I know in Texas we’d find the person, shoot them, drag them back onto our property and take our cheese back. Or go look for other cheese.  That would work too.

As this article from the Daily Mail points out:

In his book Sham: How The Self-Help  Movement Made America Helpless, author Steve Salerno argues that there are huge costs associated with the public acceptance of the self-help movement.

Buying into the overblown claims such books make, he argues, can lead to you blaming yourself for failure when you don’t achieve the  outcome you hoped for — and avoiding treatments that actually work. I tend to agree.

Furthermore, very little of the advice offered in self-help books has been tested scientifically, despite the fact that there are ways to do so. Indeed, there have been many good scientific studies on how to become happier

There are plenty of great books out there. But not one has an all-in-one easy fix. And certainly there are more books out there that are more about making you feel like you can do something than give the tools to help you actually do something.

If it sounds to good (or easy) to be true…guess what? Yeah, it is. Self-improvement takes work, a real thought out plan of attack. I think the “Motivation” poster from Despair Inc. sums it up nicely:

If a pretty poster (or book) and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon.

What say you? What books do you think hurt, help or stand out in some way?

Before you get all bent out of shape: This is not a post promoting being a jerk, being mean or rude. This post is to discredit the myth that only positive happy people succeed and anyone who exhibits a whiff of negative thinking or even less than positive thinking is doomed to failure.

Sorry folks. You don’t need to be full of sunshine and unicorn farts to get somewhere in your career. And apparently recent research proves this. After crunching the numbers, it seems that the less “agreeable” you are the more money you’re likely to make. Why? “Disagreeable” people aren’t afraid to ask for what they want.

From the Wall Street Journal:

The researchers examined “agreeableness” using self-reported survey data and found that men who measured below average on agreeableness earned about 18% more—or $9,772 more annually in their sample—than nicer guys. Ruder women, meanwhile, earned about 5% or $1,828 more than their agreeable counterparts.

Nevermind that they label anyone who is “disagreeable” as mean. Goes to show how people really want compliance from others and if you pipe up to bring an opposing view, you’re “mean” or “negative”.  Anyway…

The researchers analyzed data collected over nearly 20 years from three different surveys, which sampled roughly 10,000 workers comprising a wide range of professions, salaries and ages. (The three surveys measured the notion of “agreeableness” in different ways.) They also conducted a separate study of 460 business students who were asked to act as human-resource managers for a fictional company and presented with short descriptions for candidates for a consultant position. Men who were described as highly agreeable were less likely to get the job.

The key to all this, in my humble opinion, is to be yourself as much as possible. Conforming to fit other people’s views of “agreeable” or “disagreeable” will only hurt you in the long run. Just remember, if you work hard and be smart about life, any personality can succeed.

Sarcasm is an odd thing. I find that those that don’t find sarcasm funny or useful often are not very good at it themselves. It’s not as easy as just rolling your eyes and saying “Yeah, Right.” It takes skill, timing and a touch of rebellion that most people are not comfortable with. Yet, it can be quite the useful tool if you use it right. Often, the “line” of decorum is the issue. People don’t know where this “line” is and often go well over it when trying to be sarcastic, thus offending some people. So some restraint is called for as well, another skill people rarely master.  Sarcasm can relieve stress, acknowledge absurdity in a given situation and ground people to reality. It can also solve problems. I even have proof! From bnet.com:

The researchers asked 375 engineering students to pretend they were customer service agents. The students first listened to a recorded conversation between another customer service agent and a customer who was either neutral or hostile. In some of the conversations, the angry customer was sarcastic rather than openly hostile. The students were then asked to complete a straightforward problem-solving task or one that required more creativity.

• Anger helps with analytic problem solving. People who heard an angry conversation did better at the more analytic problem.
• Anger hinders creativity. People who heard the angry conversation did worse at the more creative problem.
• Sarcasm may help creativity. People who heard the sarcastic conversation did the best at creative problem-solving. It could be that the humor of sarcasm made the ‘anger’ less threatening. Also, just listening to sarcasm, and figuring out the true intent of the speaker, might get the brain thinking in a more creative way.

 See…problem solved!

Being the go to guy on negative thinking for many of my friends and colleagues, I often get sent articles from various sources on negativity. Some are from acquaintences who don’t know me very well yet feel compelled to send articles on how I’m wrong. Others are from other speakers or friends sending articles that agree with my ideas or shines a light on a topic I might like incorporate into my programs. Today, I got dozens of tweets and emails on this one particular article from FastCompany.com Heidi Grant Halvorson Ph.D. titled How “Positive” Thinking Sets You Up To Fail“. She hits many of the points I talk about everyday but I wanted to highlight a particular part that I thought was spot on:

In fact, study after study shows that people who think not only about their dreams, but about the obstacles that lie in the way of realizing their dreams–who visualize the steps they will take to make success happen, rather than just the success itself–vastly outperform those who sit back and wait for the universe to reward them for all their positive thinking. Whether it’s starting a relationship with your secret crush, landing a job, recovering from major surgery, or losing weight, research shows that if you don’t keep it real you’re going to be really screwed.

A new set of studies by NYU psychologists Heather Barry Kappes and Gabriele Oettingen offers insight into why this kind of thinking isn’t just useless, but actually sets you up for failure. These researchers found that people who imagined an uncertain and challenging future reported feeling significantly more energized, and accomplished much more, than those who idealized their future. The purely “positive” thinkers’ lower energy levels even showed up in objective, physiological measurements. (Ironically, these studies showed that the more important it was to the participant that the dream come true, the more idealizing sapped their motivation!)

Kappes and Oettingen argue that when we focus solely on imagining the future of our dreams, our minds enjoy and indulge in those images as if they are real. They might be reachable, realistic dreams or impossible, unrealistic ones, but none of that matters because we don’t bother to think about the odds of getting there or the hurdles that will have to be overcome. We’re too busy enjoying the fantasy.

 I don’t have any letters after my name, but it’s refreshing to see “negative” thinking is working it’s way into the mainstream in positive ways. 

If you’d like to read my take on the subject of negative thinking, you can get my book “Half a Glass: The Realist’s Guide” or head over to the books website http://www.therealistsguide.com and download the introduction.

Last night, Jon Stewart’s guest Juan Williams brought up a point that I whole heartedly agree with: You can’t bring up opposing viewpoints without being marginalized or dismissed by the opposition.

I see this with people’s perspective towards negative thinking. If you bring up an objection, identify a flaw or see an issue that might cause a problem, you are instantly labeled “Negative” and “Un-helpful”. No one wants to think their idea may have unseen issues. They want compliance and they want totally loyalty to their proposed idea.

A good manager, CEO or leader in general is open to hearing new ideas and honest constructive cristicsim. When ego gets in the way, your company may move forward, but you will have a hard time keeping the superstars from going somewhere else where they are heard.