The BRM’s Guide to Debbie Downers, Negative Nelsons, and Prima Donna Partners

by Bob Faw

Here is a little-known fact: if you have the expectation that a person will be negative, that will show in your face, tone, and even in the words that you choose. Your bias will be evident, and in turn the person will react negatively to everything that you communicate, verbally and otherwise. This is a concept called the Chameleon Effect. As this principle demonstrates, people tend to respond to an experience in ways that reproduce exactly what others expect of them. Some people would call this a self-fulfilling prophecy, but the Chameleon Effect is the scientific term for it.

Negative partners tend to fall into three categories:

1. People with chronic negative attitudes. (You can’t help but feel sad for people who are in this situation.)
2. People who are just going through a negative time, but who have high potential if they are energized.
3. People who you believe are negative, but in reality it’s only your perspective. (For example, if a person disagrees with you in a meeting, you can see them as negative.)

Does someone you know fall into one of these categories? The great news is that there are ways to turn around a negative situation by using a few simple tools. Like most skills and tools, the more you use them, the easier they become to use!

Create positive balance

Start by creating a positive list that will help rebalance your negativity bias. To do this, prime yourself with what is good about the negative person, such as focusing on their skills or past accomplishments. Take some time and come up with a solid list, if you can. This should help you mentally overcome your negative feelings toward their behavior or attitude. Remember that these must be sincere—fake positivity tends to backfire!

Initiate a win-win

Next, think about the behavior or attitude that you want to see this colleague exhibit, and consider the incentive for the person to shift their behavior. If you can communicate the effect that this good behavior will have on their relationships and their job satisfaction, you will have a better chance of getting what you want out of them. It’s easy to forget that we need to appeal to our colleague’s better interest, not just our own or that of the company.

For example: I have a colleague who kills ideas in meetings a lot, which shuts down creativity. I wanted to run our review meetings more positively and productively, and I knew it would help people to share best practices and build creativity—i.e. energizing morale. I figured that the incentive for my idea-killing colleague is to please our clients, so before a momentous meeting I told her, “In order to dazzle our client, I’d like to start by seeing what has dazzled them in the past, to make sure we keep doing it. Then I want to stay focused on how to really impress the client by brainstorming how to do it even better next time.” My colleague agreed to give it a try, and it worked so well that now it’s our agreed-upon way to review. She’s also more open to my ideas in general.

Power up

When you’re working with negative partners, it can be helpful to use power reframes. If they fall into the second or third aforementioned categories, approaching them with a power reframe gives them the opportunity to live into the change you would like to see.

To create a power reframe, start by presenting two benefits that will appeal to them before you tell them the behavior that you want from them. For example, if you’ve got an intelligent partner who doesn’t value collaboration, but yearns for advancement and praise from a boss, you can create a power reframe such as, “When this project is successful, it’s going to really show who can get things done in your organization. I’ve heard senior execs here are always looking for people that can manage tough change programs. I want to be sure that people can see how quickly we help each other get things done.” (This is better than saying, “You’re a terrible team player. Stop being a prima donna and get your act together.”)

(You know you’re tempted to say this sometimes. I know I am.)

The power reframe allows partners an opportunity to envision a better future for themselves, as well as the cross-team goal. People are more likely to go along with you when they see that it will help them get what they want. The key to an effective power reframe is that it must be authentic, and it must contain incentives that are important to that person. Otherwise, you’ll sound like a used car salesman trying to sell a car with three wheels.

Note: power reframes can be much harder than they sound, so it helps to rehearse your power reframe before you walk into the situation. I’ve been using power reframes for years, but I can still be at a loss for reframing words when I’m in the middle of a frustrating situation.

Get excited

Another technique that can really help is to get to know negative partners better. If you can discover something about them that you can genuinely get excited and care about, this will help you work with them. I’ve had experiences with people who started out with a negative attitude, but once I developed a connection with them, they turned around and we had a great relationship.

The Golden Rule works in many situations, but with many relationships the Platinum Rule works even better: Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.

Learn more

To get more insight into developing a positive influence on key relationships in your role as a BRM, register for the workshop Powerful Communication that I am presenting at the upcoming BRMConnect 2016 conference in Charlotte, NC, on April 12, 2016!

^{To learn more about other training programs, visit: www.corpedgroup.com.}