3 Strategies to Work Positive in a Negative Election Year
Aug 04, 2024
Welcome to the 2024 Election—the Year of Negativity.
Like the weather, everyone’s talking about it, and no one is doing anything about it.
It does have a negative effect on your work culture.
The 24/7 information channels create a constant media feeding frenzy of irrelevant, trivial snatches of negative spin hurled by candidates at one another. This hourly barrage of unsubstantiated negativity drains positivity from your teams and diminishes the productivity and engagement you desire in the work culture.
People and profits stop growing.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Here are 3 strategies to Work Positive in this negative election year:
Limit Screen Time
If I told you eating a teaspoon of arsenic won’t kill you and you believed me daily for a month, what’s the outcome?
The truth is a teaspoon won’t kill you, but a teaspoon every day for a month might.
A teaspoon of negative election news won’t kill your positive culture…but a teaspoon every day between now and election day might.
Limit your screen time. Spread out your doses. Is the break room TV on a negative news channel all day? Do conversations prior to a Zoom meeting focus on politics?
The poison of such negativity accumulates in everyone’s mind. It diminishes the team’s positive, mental perceptions which show up in the bottom line at the end of the month.
Engage Pull instead of Push Media
So how do you stay informed without succumbing to the negtativity?
Employ pull, not push, media. That is, work your editorial license to control content exposure. TV news channels push on you what they want you to receive regardless of political persuasion.
Use smartphone apps to regulate what you choose to read on your schedule. This pull media gives you back the power to choose, which is what this “experiment in democracy” is all about. Select a variety of perspectives. Ferret out the facts. Form your own opinions. Critically think for yourself. Respect others’ viewpoints.
Encourage your team members to do the same. Tell your story of how transitioning from push to pull media freed you from the tyranny of the negative election urgent.
Focus on What You Can Do
Most of today’s political conversations are negatively-oriented about what someone else isn’t doing, or can’t do.
It’s the blame game on steroids.
This verbal influence charts your and your team’s self-talk for the rest of the day when you marinate your brain in it during your morning routine. Your focus shifts from what you can do to what you can’t; from what you want to accomplish to what you haven’t. Your mental perceptions determine your physical actions.
Focus on what you can do as a member of a Work Positive culture.
Call a favorite client.
Handwrite a thank you note to your best customer.
Innovate on a new, exciting product.
Go make it rain rather than talking about who won’t.
Grow people and profits and create a Work Positive culture even in a negative election year as you and your team:
- Limit screen time;
- Engage pull instead of push media, and;
- Focus on what you can do.
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