Daryl McMahon

Cos RW said it in an interview after the first game after his appointment.

Thats not negativity. Thats analysis, which I do every second of every working day. I run a small business and employ people.

I read exactly the same thing and thought of this thread. It would seem we are ahead of the curve here. Goalkeepers have specialist coaches. Why not deadball specialists?

You like many of my family ran/run small businesses.  My son has three.  But that life was never for me. It’s not for everyone.   But fair play to those that do and succeed.  I really mean that.  

My natural home was the corporate world and I loved it.  But it demands a different mind set. Not better, nor worse. Just different. For me that meant study well into my 50s, exams, team sessions with phycologists plus associated tests so I could really understand the type of person I am and lay bare weaknesses.  Myers-Briggs being one simpler assessment.  But pretty accurate.  Loved all this.  My opportunities to create, innovative, lead were there, with budgets large enough to make things happen. And of course I employed many people across many disciplines and people who had a wide range of personalities and backgrounds.  Not a role that gave very much free time. But my choice.  

But as for negativity.  Negative emotions, negative outbursts.  They are not a cancer in business.  The only thing that risks this is how they are dealt with. The old saying, it’s not what happens but how you deal with it stuff (Neuro-linguistic programming).  I got off big time on all this techno-babble stuff.  Suppression, the pull yourself together comment, the ignoring.  Worst still is forcing people to act in a positive way when that’s not how they feel.  Cruel in my opinion.  That is not the right way to deal with negativity in my opinion and in my experience.  In fact there can be health benefits in the expression of negative emotions.  But enough said on this.  Google the benefits of negativity, all online.  A cancer they are not.

It will come together BB of that I'm sure, it's just taking time that's all.

Weeded out?  Maybe here is where we differ.  It’s good to understand why people are so negative.  Is it the job?  Do they feel valued?  Do they have difficulties in their private lives?  Is their negativity justified?  Are they just not handling stress?  or are they just miserable git’s?

There is a whole raft of reasons and surprisingly, despite me giving off the sense of being a difficult person, I genuinely cared for the people in my teams so if someone developed a negative attitude, I wanted to know why, then what I could do to help if I could.  Now in my experience that is something that builds a strong team rather than destroy it. People feeling valued.  In fact if you listen to RW he is a master in this area.

Frankly I don’t like the weeding out approach. Not at all. At work I was very positive, but will admit going through phases where I developed a negative approach. Dissolutioned, peeed off to put it mildly. Its being human. We all experience this stuff from time to time.  Even you I’d guess. Coming down like a ton of bricks ain’t an approach I would take.  Weeding out and sacking someone because they offer up a few negatives to me is wrong.  Ultimately it may happen, but there is plenty to do before you reach that point.  Getting rid is the last resort not the first action.  Gross misconduct accepted. Never to be tolerated.

Let Me tell you a story.  

On the Board of a company in negotiations about being taken over.  As you know, confidentiality is crucial.  Over a period of several months, these things drag on,  we detected a lot of negativity creeping in with our managers and staff alike.  The board were not investing, not developing new ideas, not developing future plans with staff.  Were people right to feel negative?   Absolutely.  This culminated with a photograph of clowns sitting around a table with some wag writing underneath “another board meeting in progress”.  That hurt.  Should we have weeded out the author?  Sacked them for a hugely negative attitude?  Slating management. Of course not. The ever growing negativity amongst staff was totally justified.  Committed people who felt the leadership had gone to pot.

So before weeding and sacking, find out the root cause.  Managers owe their staff that much.

Thinking about it, if you are coaching a group of young lads and one had a negative attitude to training.  Didn’t want to know, couldn’t be arsed stuff.  As a coach would you just bin him or try and find out what causes his attitude, change it for the better.  I’d like to think binning him would not be the first action.  He may have all sorts of problems at home and another rejection won’t help.

Sounds from the above that diversity of opinion is not to be tolerated let alone encouraged. Everyone singing from the same song sheet has its place but it’s potentially very dangerous to try and impose complete conformity without variation - be that be deemed negative or not - in my opinion.

Dohnut I believe in treating people the way I expect to be treated. I respect all my work colleagues. I want to work in a positive environment, I want people to have fun, work hard and achieve great results. I promote positivity in the work place, I encourage everyone to work together for the betterment of the wider team and business. The company I worked at before I retired at 46 I had a team of 20 spread out across Europe, it was a high performing team in a business with a 1.5bn turnover. I retired as I had had enough of the Americans, once I went the team followed me out the door as the new guy was horrible.

Build the right environment and the rest will fall into place.

5 years I was retired and now I work at a ftse 250 company, 16 people under me and in 20 months I've moved the function from a lowly score on the great places to work to my team being a 2 star rating, its not by luck, its by creating the right environment, treating people with respect, allowing them to do their jobs without interference and encouraging them all to evolve and develop. They give back so much more because of it.

I must be doing something right as I am up for manager of the year at the company awards night.

No I've not forced anyone out nor sacked anyone. I've a good blueprint for what works and what doesn't and apply it in the right way. I love my job, I love my team and I love my company all those facets make for success.

You mentioned about coaching, again you can't be negative you have to be positive and confident. You talk to the kids in a positive way, encouraging what they are good at and helping them improve what they need help with. You never say, that's rubbish do it again, you might say what could you improve in that last example and they tell you without you putting a negative in their head. They've worked it out themselves and then you encourage them to try again, be positive about what you're going to do and be confident in yourself and in your ability. No negatives delivered only positives. I'm like a social worker, coach, leader and role model for those kids to look up to and be inspired by. No negatives, only positives, help them to see they have a future, that they can achieve if they believe, that nothing is impossible.

I love helping others.

I find much of that very interesting Thor.  And not a million miles from my background.  The comment about treating people as you want to be treated is spot on.  I too worked ultimately for an American Parent company, turnover $15 billion.  And to be honest was not impressed.  The first reason being how they treated staff in general in a very hierarchical structure and another being how they often failed to give responsibility to lower ranks.  Of course limited to those areas I experienced . The U.K. and European sides of the business were chalk and cheese.  I read NTs book on pushback. An idea he pushed in the states but common practice in the U.K. businesses I worked in.  One example of the differences at one annual conference one of the workshops covered how to approach your manager on a difficult subject.  The Americans were interested, us Europeans dumbfounded.  They learned techniques, the Europeans Just fixed a meeting and talked.  But that was 20 years ago, I’m sure they have caught up.

Maybe I misinterpreted your weeding out comment.  Sounded like a witch hunt.    I like encouraging.  I’ve always believed if you have patience with people and encourage them, more often than not people respond. However unlike you I have moved people on.  But always a last resort having gone through the proper procedures.  I see that as a failure on my part.

Much prefer the carrot to the stick.  I believe the majority of people who work want to do a decent job and get recognition for it.  Even the moaners. Praise in public, bollock in private stuff.  In my experience even the most cynical of workers respond to coaching and public recognition and negative comments fade away.  They will always happen of course, it’s human nature.