Negativity in the workplace

You’ll often just have to put up with difficult people. But it’s appropriate and imperative to deal with winners, complainers, and blamers when their behavior is negatively affecting your work or the productivity of your team.

Your most important resources are the people you work with. So when the negative behavior of difficult coworkers impacts your productivity, you’ll have to take action. Difficult people don’t change their behavior overnight. They don’t change because you’ve confronted or shunned them, or just because you’ve told them to. …

Everyone makes mistakes. In fact, human error can occur in an almost infinite number of ways. But at work, individuals who are experienced and knowledgeable are expected to anticipate negative outcomes and avoid them. When workplace errors inevitably occur, employees have two choices: accept responsibility or play the “blame game.”

Blamers share a common characteristic — they find it easier to attack a person or situation than to tackle a problem. But there isn’t just one type of person who becomes a blamer.

A number of different causes can cause blaming behavior. Some people consider it a sign of weakness…

Passive-aggressive behavior

People with passive-aggressive personalities typically come across as quiet and shy. Additionally, you’ll notice they’re always nice, never defend themselves, and don’t assert themselves.

You can also recognize passive-aggressive people by other common behaviors:

• talking about others, in a harmful way, behind their backs,
• playing dumb to either frustrate others or gain some type of advantage,
• not taking responsibility for their actions, and
• rarely saying what they really mean.

Passive-aggressive personality types want to be understood as nice, agreeable, and helpful, and they work very hard to project this image. The key to the behavior of passive-aggressive people is their…

Types of Negative People

It’s important to remember that everyone — even you — can be negative from time to time. But when negative behaviors begin to cause harm to others or derail productivity, it’s time to take action.

Negativity can have a detrimental effect on individuals, teams, and organizations. It reduces productivity damages relationships affects morale

Difficult people often have specific behavioral traits that make them identifiable and, in some ways, predictable. By recognizing and categorizing negative behavior, you can take steps to deal with it. Three very common behavior types express negativity in the workplace: whiners, complainers, and blamers.

Recognizing whiners

The first common…

Benefits of dealing with aggression

You will likely face hostile-aggressive behavior at work. You may think ignoring it is a viable option, but this is unrealistic. Also, dealing with hostile-aggressive behavior provides benefits you’ll want to take advantage of:

• increased productivity — Dealing effectively with hostile-aggressive people helps you reduce the stress caused by their bad behavior. And a less stressful work environment facilitates improved health and increased workplace productivity.
• improved self-esteem — Improved self-esteem is another possible benefit. Suppose you interpret a hostile- aggressive person’s behavior as a personal attack — this can be damaging to your self-esteem. …

Preparing to deal with difficult people

It would be great if there was one easy answer when it comes to dealing with difficult people. But there isn’t. You’ll need to deal with each difficult person you encounter individually.

Sometimes, a difficult person has traits from multiple types of difficult behavior. For example, someone may exhibit traits of a negative person, but at times also be aggressive or manipulative. But you don’t need to feel overwhelmed by all the combinations of behavior you might encounter. Even though the answers for each difficult person’s behavior are different, the methods of finding those answers are the same.

One thing…

Causes of difficult behavior

When a person acts disruptively in the workplace, coworkers are often quick to label that person as difficult.

But in most cases, it’s not people that are difficult, but rather their behavior. People will often use difficult behavior if, in the past, it’s helped them get what they want or need. It’s easier to understand difficult people if you can identify the reasons behind their behavior.

The difficult people in your office probably don’t think they’re difficult. In fact, they probably think you’re the difficult one. After all, you’re what’s standing between them and what they want. But if you…

Utility and rights

What is it that makes “right” right? Over the centuries, civilization’s greatest thinkers have tried to answer this question. None have come up with an explanation that satisfies everyone. People’s ideas about what the right solution to an ethical problem often depends on their perspectives.

You may have responded with one or more of the common perspectives most people use to decide what’s right or wrong. These four commonly used perspectives are utility, rights, fairness, and relationships.

The first way to judge whether an action is right or wrong is to examine its utility, or usefulness. …