MOTIVATION
Topic 12:
Transforming Negative Attitude


Study Questions

What Is a Negative Talk?

Why Negative Talk Matters?

The Nature of Negative Attitudes Are Catching
(But So Are Positive Ones)

Types of Negative Talk

Accepting vs. Rejecting

Narrowing vs. Expanding

Victimized (bị bắt nạt) vs. In Charge

Blaming (đổ lỗi) vs. Understanding

Conflicting vs. Cooperating


What Is a Negative talk?

It is the talk we do that puts down ourselves,

others, or a situation; it is complaining about
each other or events that take place in our
lives.

Read the Case in Point , page 159

“You just can’t win with the HR department.
They always find some way to make it tough
to collect on your travel expense claims”

“There are no way to get this mailing out on
time”


Why Negative Talk Matters?

Reflecting employee’ s victim condition

A conflict – oriented approach.

Uncooperative spirit

Leading others to accept frustrations blindly
rather than try to improve them

So negative attitudes will hurt all efforts of
manager to build motivation in workplace.


The Nature of Negative Attitudes Are

Catching
(But So Are Positive Ones)

Negative attitudes can spill over from one
area to another.

It can quickly destroy motivation in
workplace.

Someone who has a feeling of helplessness
or victimization can quickly spread that sense
to others.


The Nature of Negative Attitudes Are
Catching
(But So Are Positive Ones)

Because of its nature of catching, it is
important to transform negative to positive
attitude.

Manager for instance should make positive
spreading quickly as negative one to build
motivation.

A simple conversation or an open
questioning techniques can shift negative to
positive talk.



To Recognize Negative Attitudes

The way of talk determines what people want
to say.

A negative talking style also spreads that
negative viewpoint to others

To produce positive attitudes, people need to
learn to recognize negative forms of attitude
talk.


Types of Negative Talk

Accepting vs. Rejecting

Narrowing vs. Expanding

Victimized (bị bắt nạt) vs. In Charge

Blaming (đổ lỗi) vs. Understanding

Conflicting vs. Cooperating

Do exercise 9-1 to find out how your
workplace is.



Accepting vs. Rejecting

Accepting is a kind of negative talk that describes
an unconscious accepting of limits or boundaries

Oppositely, rejecting is an effort to eliminate limits,
boundaries.

When facing a problem, people react either giving
up or finding a way of solving problem

Example: “ There ‘s no way too get this mailing out on
time” or “There must be some way to get this mailing out
on time”



Accepting vs. Rejecting

You should model a different kind of attitude
in your talk so that it will come to mind when
employees are in limitation.

To make sure employees responding in that
manner, manager need to put in place
positive talk about barriers and limits

When hearing negative talk, manager need
politely, even humorously, rephrase their talk
into positive ways.


Exercise 9-2


Narrowing vs. Expanding

Narrowing is the ways of negative talk in
which there is only one or a few ways to
approach limits.

It leads us limited by preconceived notion
(định kiến) instead of taking the initiative to
create more choices

Example “Fred is terrible forgetful, I guess I
am going to stop giving him any important
responsibilities”


Narrowing vs. Expanding

To avoid this kind of negative thinking and talk,

Using brainstorming to open up your thinking and
try to surface new approach.

Creative behavior by shifting the conversation to
a discussion of creative alternatives.

Ex: A manager says “I don’t know what to do. I can

either fire her or overlook her poor performance”. You
as a manager can provide an advice “you can come
up with some new options to consider”

Either –or, if- then, yes-no are bipolar thinking
which are sometime not the most options, you
need to ask employees to open up the
discussion.


Victimized (b b t n t) vs. In Chargeị ắ ạ

This is a negative talk that a person say how
bad thing happens to her/ him in which
she/he can’ t do or is unable to change
situation.

This kind of attitude will destroy/ saps
motivation and hurt initiatives and productivity


Victimized (b b t n t) vs. In Chargeị ắ ạ

Ask question to stimulate employees to think about
how they might gain some control over the
circumstances.

Advise employees “you should talk to the team
leader alone about this problem” to encourage her
to image ways of talking personal charge of trying

to fix her problem.

Encourage her to communicate with team leader
through your assistance

When the employees says “if I could have a one to
one meeting with team leader, maybe I could
discuss the problem”, you are successful in doing
empowerment (trao quyền).


Blaming (đ l i) vs. Understandingổ ỗ

Blaming is a kind of negative talks by which
people say someone is responsible for
something done badly or not done.

To prevent it happens again, manager and
employee should discover the whys instead
of the who to make people in organization a
broader understanding of the root causes

“Why dis this happen?” “which aspects of
our production process make us vulnerable
to this kind of slowdown and what can we
do to redesign them so it won’t happen
again?”
Samovar,L & Porter, R Communication Between Cultures 1995



Blaming (đ l i) vs. Understandingổ ỗ

“Why did this happen?”

“Which aspects of our production process
make us vulnerable to this kind of slowdown
and what can we do to redesign them so it
won’t happen again?”

When manager make these questions,
he/she transform blame- oriented negative
talk into positive talk to make easier to get
right in future.


Conflicting vs. Cooperating

It is a serious disagreement that makes people feel
unhappy, angry and hate to face the person they had
conflict with. So it hurts motivation.

Conflict makes people use energy for their disagreement.

It hurts motivation.

Manager should encourage people to shift from telling to
asking why the other person did that instead of telling
what they did.

Manager more over ask yourself whether you are trying to

seek understanding and help them or just let natural
defensive response take control.


Conflicting vs. Cooperating

Solution after asking is that

Let the call go to the answering system

Get portable phones and take them down to the
coffee room when important calls are expected

Similarly, the question might soon indicate that
Rick only said so because he was frustrated about
the telephone problem. And the whole thing will
blow over quickly.


Manager becomes visible target of
attacking

Managers are the one who control many aspect
of employees. It is natural for them to focus their
frustration on him/her.

It is common in workplace

“Really been a jerk lately”


“Don’t work as hard as employees ”

“ Never listen”

The first step to transform negative talk is to
recognize it as a symptom of frustrations (thất
vọng)


Manager becomes visible target of
attacking

Encourage them not accept the status quo (hiện
trạng) and it helps them to see there are other
ways to communicate with you.

Getting them out of victim role and put them in
charge of solving the problem

Ending the blame game and shift their focus to
understanding why the problem arose

Expand their view of options, expanding their
initially narrow perspective

Sidestep (step one side) their conflict oriented
approach and invites them to cooperate in solving
the problem.