How to Handle a Negative Personality at Work

Before we go too far let's get a few definitions sorted out first: we are looking here at handling a 'negative personality'. What we mean is the sort of person who, at work, is always negative, regardless of the subject matter or issue.
Identifying a negative personality

We are not talking about the person who is arguing against your idea in one or two areas: that may well be helpful conflict: forcing thinking and preventing OSINTOTs. An OSINTOT is "Oh, Sugar, I Never Thought Of That": for example; the boss announces that he is going to take all the sales team away to the Caribbean for a week long all expenses paid 'conference' to reward them for a job-well-done but spouses and partners aren't invited. Someone points out that this may well be counter productive for sales people in long term relationships whose partners may not see this as a benefit but as another week apart. The boss ignores the comment and labels the commentator as being negative. Two sales people decline to go on the trip and an argument ensues that results in the top performer quitting.

It might help to identify the sort of behaviours we see from genuinely negative people:

never a smile at work unless it is at someone else's misfortuneconstant whining about the job/hours/clueless bosses/useless colleagues/poor facilities/inadequate tools/low paynegative response to every aspect of every suggestion that anyone (other than themselves) ever makesnever misses an opportunity to point out how busy they are and or how hard they workknows his or her rights and is constantly reminding people that they know themlooks at every issue in relation to his or her rights regardless of any other considerationtakes full advantage of every one of his or her rights (eg refuses to answer the phone during meal break even if it is actually driving them mad with ringing)either is a clock watcher (never arrives before contracted hours and always leaves spot on contracted stopping time) ora martyr (always comes in early and goes home late but doesn't actually do anything very productive during this extra time)sees 'customers' (whoever the customers are) as a nuisance that gets in their way, rather than as the people who ultimately pay their wages.makes a beeline for any new employee and immediately starts to drip feed a diet of negativity into themcarries out all actions with the speed of a stunned slug and the grace of an overflowing septic tanknever does anything immediately; every request has to be done later "because I'm just soooo busy"

Why we need to actively handle a negative personality- there are three fundamental reasons why we need to handle a negative personality and they are slightly different if you are a manager trying to manage them or a team member trying to work with (or in spite of) them.

Negative personalities are self-destructive: their bahaviour is career limiting and, studies suggest, even life limiting. If you have any sort of humanist streak then you will want to try to help them to hep themselves to cheer up.Negative personalities are harder to manage than balanced or positive people: the more time and effort you have to put into managing a negative person (or if you are a co-worker dealing with or even avoiding them) the less time you have for managing the more productive staff (or doing your own job properly)Negative people infect others: they put off customers (let's be honest here haven't you ever had an experience as a customer and thought that you'd never go back to that supplier simply because a staff member made you feel as if you were as welcome as a dose of the 'flu?). They put off other staff members, This happens in several ways: other staff members have to spend valuable time listening to their woes and gripes. Other staff members have any potential enthusiasm they may have slowly ground down by the consistent negativity. Good staff member who have ambition and joie de vivre can't take it so they actually leave and go elsewhere, and what you are left with is an increasingly toxic work environment where the general attitude is that life is hard, managers are incompetent and we are all just hanging on for our pensions! Finally negative people actually put off potential employees with chutzpah and encourage people like them to joy your organisation.

There are three ways to handle the issue of a negative personality at work:

Isolate the negative personality- Sir Earnest Shackleton was a past master at isolating negative people from his team, especially the younger or more 'corruptable' members. He kept the negative people close to him so that he could influence and manage their negativity, rather than pushing them away (the more intuitive action) and therefore allowing them freedom to infect others. If you can isolate negative people from others in a more literal sense then do so, remote working, home working or moving to a solo job may be a viable option IF the person actually produces results. Beware of 'isolation' that actually exposes; a business had a senior administrator who had a negative personality and was infecting all her colleagues, the manager decided to isolate her in a literal sense; put her in a job where she worked alone. His solution: the Reception Desk. "Nice work, Einstein! Now every customer who rings or visits is exposed to her negativity". To be fair she did insult a customer in her third week, so badly that she was summarily dismissed, so the end result was possibly good but a very good customer was sacrificed on the way.Convert their negativity- Explain the rationale for actions and procedures that they complain about, ask them for their opinions, where possible give them the choice of how to do things. Take time to ask them to consider the upside of the things they compain about, take time to ask them how much worse things could be for them (in the current economic climate having a job you think of as 'lousy' with an employer you think of as 'rubbish' for a boss you think of as an 'idiot' is still better than being out of work and out of hope!) You will note that most of the conversion approach is about them doing the talking rather than you telling them; this geves them the feeling that someone gives a damn what they think and it gives them some ownership of their opinions rather than being a passive listener to yours.Distract their negativitySometimes you can distract them by giving them extra responsibility; this is a strategy that has its dangers so be careful. A man in a company had a reputation for being completely toxic but the management had never actually managed this effectively. The company brought in a Quality programme and the man was sent on the first training session (just as a matter of course, not specially selected), on the first day he muttered and criticised and whined and argued and was a general pain to the trainer. On the second day he applied to be a 'champion' of the new quality programme- it was doing all the things he felt the company should have been doing for years. He got the job and went on to be a real asset to the company.Remove the negative person-If you try everything and still fail then the only sensible option is to remove the negative person from the team permanently. Whether you counsel them out, make their role redundant, or sack them is entirely a matter for you but you can't just leave them there as a proof of your failure to manage. and finally please, please don't take the 'shove them sideways into a sinecure job' approach. This will just perpetuate the Peter Principle and pass the headache on to someone else in the organisation; it actually reinforces the behaviors that you can't bear!