Harm Done By Negative People At Work

July 24, 2009

Interview with Tim O'Leary author of Warriors, Workers, Whiners, & Weasels [1]
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Mike Carruthers:
Every business or organization has negative people in it and they're usually pretty good at spreading their negativity.

Tim O'Leary:
And in a few months - take an otherwise pretty terrific company where people were pretty happy and convince people that's it's a terrible place; that it's not doing well.

Tim O'Leary

Tim O'Leary, author of the book Warriors, Workers, Whiners, & Weasels [1] says managers need to be able to spot these people quickly.

Because they are like a cancer and they're going to spread and they're going to recruit more people that are kind of on the cusp. It's like if your kids are hanging around other bad kids, you get them away from the bad kids before that becomes the norm - and that's pretty much the situation.

These people who Tim calls whiners and weasels can cost an organization a lot if left alone and they're often left alone.

The problem is that they are often fairly talented individuals and sometimes they're hard to spot. I have certainly run into weasels that have really built their way through organizations and when they want to apply themselves, they can be valuable.

Tim says it's important to realize that people in every organization will follow someone and they would prefer to follow someone who leads them in the right direction.

They want somebody that's positive; that gives them a clear vision for the future; that goes out and follows that philosophy, as opposed to somebody who is just bringing down the organization. But given no choice, it's easy for a lot of people to go to the negative if they have a leader to take them there.

To listen to the complete unedited interview click here. [2]