The Spiral of Negativity

A former colleague of mine often refers to something called the “spiral of negativity”: the self-reinforcing nature of negative comments and perspective and how, over time, they spiral an organization or team into the ground.

Let’s face it, most people have been caught in a negativity spiral at some time or another.  In the workplace especially, negativity is often it is a symptom of a dysfunctional organization.  Hierarchical, command and control organizations with poor communication and low trust are ripe for negativity as leaders and staff feel unconnected and victimized by the decision making apparatus.  The rumor mill and an enduring assumption of the worst becomes ingrained in the culture and its tough to break.

Leaders who are trying to break a spiral of negativity can borrow a few ideas from flight school.  Pilots are trained to recognize a spiral dive and recovery is relatively simple: reduce power, level the wings, pull out of the dive and resume normal power.

Leaders can apply this method in their organizations to stop the spiral of negativity:

Recognize the Problem

If the culture of negativity is really ingrained, it can be tough to recognize it as a problem.  Effective leaders are able to see the proverbial forest for the trees and understand the risks to team morale, retention and organizational performance by letting negativity continue.

Reduce Power

Once the leader has recognized there is a problem, like a pilot, they must immediately reduce the power that is driving the spiral dive.  Taking the power out of negativity takes some finesse but can be as simple as challenging people making negative comments to counterbalance it with a positive comment.  Or, encouraging staff and colleagues to bring solutions to the table instead only criticism.  Sometimes leaders have to acknowledge to their staff and colleagues that there may be some truth in the negative comments and commit to making improvements to, for example, decision making and communication.

Level the Wings

Taking some of the wind out of the sails of negativity is only part of the solution – because there is a strong downward momentum that is caused by a culture of negativity.  The leader (and the pilot) must take effective and decisive action to stop the downward spin.  Leveling the wings, so to speak, means reframing how the organization thinks and communicates.  Effective leaders will start asking questions to understand what is feeding the culture of negativity.

Pull Out of the Dive

Changing the culture means taking a hard look at how people interact, how decisions are making and how things are communicated.  It means being honest to feedback and understanding the root cause of the negativity may lie with leadership.  Getting out of the dive and back to level flight means that negativity must be replaced by authentic and open communication.  Leaders and staff need to understand the damage caused by negativity. A purposeful recalibration of the organizational culture is sometimes necessary to stop the downward tendency that is reinforced by negativity.

Back to Cruise Power

Pilots learn that once you have recovered from the spiral dive, power must be added to avoid stalling the aircraft and creating a new problem.  This is the same in leadership.  A failure to reinforce the new culture through consistent action, open communication and trust building will simply lead to a reversion to the old patterns of behavior.

Leaders -like pilots- must be skilled at recognizing the spiral dive of negativity and then have the courage and commitment to take the simply and decisive steps to recover from it.   Failure to stop the spiral of negativity will lead to serious damage (and potentially destruction) of the team and, ultimately, the organization.