3 Strategies to Keep a Work Positive Environment in a Negative Election Year

Welcome to the 2012 Election—the Year of Negativity. Like the weather, everyone’s talking about it, yet no one is doing anything about it…

…yet it does have a negative effect on your business.

The advent of 24/7 information channels creates 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 work environment.

Mission focus scatters. Morale suffers. Productivity follows. Profits diminish.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Here are 3 strategies to keep your environment a Work Positive one in this negative election year:

Limit Your Screen Timer
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.

The truth is a teaspoon of TV news won’t kill your business…but a teaspoon every day for a month might.

Limit your screen time. Spread out your doses. Do you watch every evening? Is the break room TV on a negative news channel all day?

The poison of negative news accumulates in your mind. It diminishes your positive, mental perceptions which shows up in your bottom line at the end of the month.

Employ Pull, Not Push, Mediar
So how do you stay informed?

Employ pull, not push, media. That is, work your editorial license to control personal exposure to content. 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.

Your customers already interact with your business in this way using social media.

Focus on What You Can Dor
Most of today’s political conversations are negatively-oriented about what someone isn’t doing, or can’t do. Such verbal influences chart your self-talk for the rest of the day and shift your focus to what you aren’t doing, or can’t do. Your mental perceptions determine your physical actions.

Focus on what you can do to create a Work Positive environment.

Cold call a prospect.

Handwrite a thank you note to your best customer.

Innovate a new product.

Go make it rain rather than talking about who won’t.

Do something that moves your business forward in a tangible manner and experience renewed focus on your mission, improved morale, greater productivity, and increased profits…all of which create a Work Positive environment!