If managers were paid a bonus to lower the turnover rate among their staff, they would pay more attention to getting rid of conflict and friction. Managers are rated by sales numbers, but those numbers don’t happen in a vacuum. Toxic attitudes among personnel have a negative impact on productivity. Let’s look at some personality traits that produce morale-harming friction, and what you can do about them.
A Generally Negative or Pessimistic Outlook
Some people whine and complain because they think their bellyaching will get them sympathy. It’s self-defeating, because the (chronic) complainer drives people away from themselves. So goodbye team spirit and cooperation. But if you can convince the chronic complainer to instead become an encourager to his coworkers, then he will have all the attention he wants.
A Person Who is Eaten Up with Envy
A victim in disguise, some people feel shorted by life (maybe for good reason) but can’t get over the loss. How best to deal with such a person? Remember of the old saying: “Don’t trust the person who doesn’t congratulate you on your success.”
The Prima Donna
Every sales team seems to have one of these. Sure, you can congratulate yourself on your achievements. Why not. You’ve earned them. But when pride turns into gloating, that spells trouble for your relationships at work. Specifically, the overbearing attitude breeds resentment among fellow workers, and that negative energy hinders their potential and productivity. If you’ve fallen into this trap don’t worry about it. Life will soon take it down a notch for you. Then all you have to do is be gracious about the ‘attitude adjustment’ you’ve been handed and soon you’ll be ‘one of the gang’ again at work. A sense of humor helps too.
The Victim
Tons of material has been researched and written about this phenomenon, probably because it’s so common. But why would anybody want to see themselves as a victim throughout life? Maybe at one time they were victimized in a major way, and haven’t been able to let go of the painful event. Or, maybe they are afraid to strive as hard as they can for success, but fail to achieve it, and then suffer embarrassment. Fear, either real or imagined, holds people back. Perhaps the victims in your shop simply want sympathy from the people around them, but, as with the negative or pessimistic person, sympathy is a poor substitute for respect and genuine warmth. Whatever the underlying reasons, people who feel they are victims don’t usually achieve their full potential in sales. Make sense? As a manager how can you help them contribute more? Read the next part about the self-absorbed person:
The Self-Absorbed Person
It’s hard to see why, but some people are only concerned about themselves. That’s all they ever think about, and every conversation with them ends up being about them. What can their manager do to help that person join in the collective team effort? Chances are the self-absorbed person is oblivious (insensitive) to the sufferings of the people around them. It’s sort of like Ebenezer Scrooge, the self-absorbed villain in Charles Dicken’s ‘A Christmas Carol.’ But, like him, when the self-absorbed person begins to see other people as they really are, then they are able to take themselves a lot less seriously.
Greed, for some personalities, can be a by-product of working under a commission pay plan. Also, becoming overly concerned about others’ earnings is another attitude trap. The best advice a manager could give is to tell people to worry about what is going on at their own desk, or for technicians, in their own service bay instead of focusing on what everybody else is doing.
