Your Positivity Must Be Greater than All the Negativity

I remember telling my dad that I was going to be a writer and speaker, that I had found my calling. His response was, “What the heck do you want to do that for? That won't amount to anything. That's a load of junk. Just focus on your restaurants.” He used other words I can't print. At the time, I still owned a few restaurant franchises and my father thought I should just focus on that. A restaurant was practical. Writing and speaking was just a fantasy. A few years after my dad gave me his “encouraging” advice, I appeared on the Today Show. The episode was called “Get Energized Today.” It was my first time on national television and I was terrified. I coached several people on the show about having more energy and optimism for their life and work and, as I walked out of the studio, my dad called me on the phone. He said, “Your mother and I just saw you on television. You really made a difference. We are so proud of you. We always knew you could do it.” I knew my dad didn't remember being negative in the past and I realized in that moment that every one of us will deal with negativity and naysayers on our journey. Not everyone will have the same vision as you. Not everyone will believe in your dreams. Not everyone will get on your bus. But to succeed, your positive energy must be greater than all the negativity.

Gandhi said, “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet,” and neither should you. You may have a negative team. You may have negative customers, patients, neighbors, or parents. The first rule of thumb when weeding the negative is to not let it bring you down. Be more positive than the negativity you face. Don't be afraid of it. Negativity is like a barking dog. It seems powerful, but when you look right in its eyes, it runs away. Negativity is no match for your courage and positivity. I know because I've worked with many positive leaders and watched how they have confronted, transformed, and removed the negativity and achieved amazing results.

No Energy Vampires Allowed

In 2011 Mark Richt, the head football coach of the University of Georgia at the time, had his team read The Energy Bus and invited me to speak to the team. I spoke before the season and, unfortunately, they lost their first two games. Georgia had been underperforming during the previous few seasons and the media was reporting that Richt was on the hot seat and would lose his job if this season didn't go well. I texted him after the second loss and said “I am sorry I didn't help more. I believe in this team. I believe you all are going to turn it around.” Richt texted me back and said, “Jon, the guys are still on the bus. In years past we've allowed energy vampires to ruin this team but not this year. This year we won't allow it.” In the team meeting room, Richt had an artist draw a large picture of an energy vampire on the wall facing the seats where the players sit. If a player or coach acted like an energy vampire, the team took his picture from the media guide and put it on the wall. No one wanted to be on the wall. It was a message from Richt to his team that they would stay positive through their adversity and challenges. It worked, and the team went on to win the next 10 games in a row and made it to the SEC Championship.

Why Wait?

I shared this story with the University of Tennessee football team a few years after working with UGA and, when I was finished speaking, coach Butch Jones told the team the meeting was over but then called out the names of 10 guys and told them to stay. I asked Butch who these guys were and he said, “Oh, these are our energy vampires.” I said, “Oh, you are going to deal with that now?” He said, “Yes. Why wait?” After the meeting, Butch walked out of the room and into the hallway where I was speaking to the athletic director. I asked him how it went. He said, “Powerful. Most of the guys admitted they were being energy vampires and have committed to being a positive influence on our team. They are going to be difference makers for us this season. But a few of the guys don't get it, won't change, and we will have to let them off the bus.” Tennessee overcame a lot of adversity that season and made their first bowl game in years. They were a great example how a team that stays positive together wins together. I'll never forget Butch's words: “Why wait?” To build a winning team you must create a positive culture where negativity can't breed and grow, and the sooner you start confronting, transforming, weeding, and removing it from your team, the stronger and more positively contagious your culture and team will be.

The First Step Is to Transform

The first step in dealing with an energy vampire on your team is not to remove but to transform. No one really wants to be an energy vampire. These people are likely negative for a reason. The first steps should always be to listen with empathy and love, and try to understand and transform. For example, Martin, a leader with the company Seventh Generation, told me that he put a sign on his door that said Energy vampires welcome. Expect to be transformed. He had a lot of great conversations and was able to transform a lot of negative energy into positive results.

Richt also had a number of his players come to his office and tell him they weren't going to be energy vampires anymore. Several of the players from that team are thriving in the NFL. Several have become successful businessmen and it's rewarding to hear how the experience was a defining moment for a bunch of them. Mark didn't just kick them off the bus. He confronted the negativity, invited them onto the bus, sought to transform them—and it worked.

Start at the Culture Level

I have found that the best way to deal with energy vampires in your organization is at the culture level, where you set the expectation that people who drain the energy of others will not be tolerated. You talk about the negative impact of negativity. You explain that one person can't make a team but one person can break a team. You talk about what a great culture looks like and how you want everyone to be a positive contributor to it. You make it clear what a great team looks like, and it doesn't look like a bunch of energy vampires. By putting the energy vampires' pictures on the wall, Richt was in essence telling his team, “We will not allow negativity to sabotage our team and goals.” Shawn Eichhorst did the same thing by putting a “No energy vampires allowed” sign above his office door when he became the new athletic director at Nebraska. He wasn't shunning people, but rather letting them know he was building a positive culture and wouldn't allow negativity to sabotage their university and athletic programs. He faced a barrage of negativity in his early years but slowly and steadily built his culture with a positive, principles-based approach and transformed many hearts and minds along the way. I've worked with Eichhorst and Nebraska Athletics for five years and have witnessed the effectiveness of his approach. I've also heard from a number of school principles and business leaders who have addressed negativity at the culture level as well. While they didn't utilize Richt's strategy of putting energy vampires' pictures on the wall (I think they made the right choice, by the way), they made it clear in staff meetings, book discussions, and viewings of some of our videos, that negativity drains others and sabotages team performance. It is not acceptable. This works wonders for most people in an organization. When you feed the positive and create a culture where energy vampires are uncomfortable being negative, they will either change or walk off the bus themselves. Whether they stay and become positive or leave and stay negative, you will have improved your culture and moved your team in the right direction.

Remove the Negativity

But what if the energy vampires don't leave? What if they remain energy vampires and stay on the bus? I see this all the time. Not everyone is willing to change. No matter how much you try to help someone transform and grow there will be some who are negative no matter what you do. I heard from a school principal who invited all of her staff on the Energy Bus. She shared her vision for the road ahead and asked who was all in. All but two teachers bought in. She did everything she could to get those two teachers to be positive contributors. She documented and documented and documented, which you have to do for legal and personnel reasons, and eventually she had to let them off the bus. She told me that now they are on another bus somewhere else and her staff is feeling more positive and energized than ever. Two negative teachers were infecting their culture and mission to impact the lives of children. But since they were removed, the culture, morale, and energy has improved dramatically. If transforming the negativity doesn't work, you must remove it. Your job as a leader is to create an environment where your people can do their best work without being affected by an energy vampire. You have to feed and weed, weed and feed.

Sooner or Later

I'm often asked how soon an energy vampire should be removed. How soon is too soon or how late is too late? I can't give you a definitive answer. Every situation is different. When I owned a few restaurants, I definitely kept a few energy vampires on my team longer than I should have. I had one manager at a store that wasn't doing very well. Sales kept dropping and since it was the location furthest from my home, I spent the least amount of time there. I decided to sell that location to a friend and former manager who lived in the area and wanted to open his own place. I had a meeting with the negative manger to let him know what was going on and to reassure him that I had found him another job managing another franchise owned by the other franchisee in town. I wanted to make sure he was taken care of. I'll never forget what he said to me. “You know, Jon, I think I'm going to use this opportunity to get out of the restaurant business because I hate this f—in' job. I smile at the customers like you ask me to, but I hate every single one of them.” I sure didn't do a good job of hiring a positive leader for that location and, looking back, I knew he wasn't a good manager, but I honestly have trouble letting people go. If I could do it again I would have let him go sooner. Yet, there were also times I kept people I probably shouldn't have and eventually helped them transform. That's why there's no perfect answer here, but it's something you should continue to evaluate and think about as you lead your team and organization and deal with energy vampires.

One other note on this topic: Even if you let someone off the bus, it doesn't mean you have to let them out of your life. I tell college coaches all the time that even if you have to remove a player from the team, you should still try to invest in that player to help him transform and turn his life around. You may have to let people go for a variety of reasons, because they are hurting the team, but you can still find ways to invest in them and help them grow.

Lead from Where You Are

One of the most frequent types of emails I receive come from people who tell me they are emerging leaders in an organization but, since they don't have the power to hire and fire, they want to know what they should do with the energy vampires they work or interact with at work. I tell them the same thing I wrote in the beginning of this chapter. The first rule is to be more positive than the negativity you face. Become a positive force of positive energy that demonstrates to others what real positivity in the form of love, patience, kindness, and care looks like. Lead by example and lead from where you are. Look at every energy vampire as an opportunity to strengthen your positivity. I try to do this with my teenagers and it has made me a much better leader. We are all on a leadership journey and the first step in becoming a better leader is becoming a better you. Learning to stay positive when surrounded by negativity is a great training ground and, as you develop your own positivity and ability to deal with energy vampires, you will grow as a person and leader. You may not be driving the big bus and deciding who is on it, but you can make your bus great and let it serve as a model for other leaders and people in the organization.

Implement the No Complaining Rule

I didn't invent the rule. I discovered it while having lunch with Dwight Cooper, a tall, thin, mild-mannered former basketball player and coach who had spent the last 15 years building and growing a company he co-founded into one of the leading nurse staffing companies in the world. Cooper's company, PPR, had been named one of Inc. magazine's “Fastest-Growing Companies” several times, but on the day we met, it had been named one of the best companies to work for in the country, and Cooper was sharing a few reasons why. Cooper told me about the no complaining rule. He said he had read The Energy Bus and realized that, while energy vampires can sabotage your business and team, so can subtle negativity in the form of complaining.

Cooper compared energy vampires to a kind of topical skin cancer. They don't hide. They stand right in front of you and say, “Here I am.” As a result, you can easily and quickly remove them. Far more dangerous is the kind of cancer that is subtle and inside your body. It grows hidden beneath the surface, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, but either way, if it's not caught, it eventually spreads to the point where it can and will destroy the body. Complaining is this kind of cancer to an organization, and Cooper had seen it ruin far too many good companies. He was determined not to become another statistic, and the no complaining rule was born.

The rule is simple: You are not allowed to complain unless you also offer one or two possible solutions. Cooper said, “We introduced the rule to everyone in the company and now share it during interviews with people who want to join our team. We let them know that if you are a complainer this isn't the right place for you. If you want to focus on solving problems, then we would love to have you and will surely listen to you.”

I knew Cooper's idea was brilliant. The no complaining rule was a great way to weed out the energy vampires and turn negative energy into positive solutions. I had to share it with others, so I wrote a book called The No Complaining Rule to spread the idea. I explained that the goal of the no complaining rule is not to eliminate all complaining. It aims to stop the mindless, chronic complaining that fosters negativity and doesn't help anyone. And the bigger goal is to turn justified complaints into positive solutions. After all, every complaint represents an opportunity to turn something negative into a positive. We can utilize customer complaints to improve our service. Employee complaints can serve as catalysts for innovation and new processes. Our own complaints can serve as signals that let us know what we don't want so we can focus on what we do want. And most importantly, we can use the no complaining rule to develop a positive culture at work.

Does it work? You bet. In a commoditized market, Cooper's company is outperforming the competition by leaps and bounds. Like Cooper, with one simple rule, you can prevent the spread of toxic negative energy and empower your team to improve, innovate, and grow. I've heard from hundreds of companies, schools, and teams that have transformed their culture and team dynamic with it. But it doesn't happen without positive leadership. As a leader, it starts with you. If you are complaining, you're not leading. If you are complaining, you are not showing your team the way forward. Complaining causes you and your team to focus on everything but being your best. It causes you to be stuck where you are instead of moving forward to where you want to be. In dysfunctional negative cultures, leaders focus on the problems. In positive, high-performing cultures, leaders focus on solving problems. Positive leaders show the way forward. They help their team focus on solutions instead of complaints. When a team focuses on solutions instead of complaints, performance rises to a higher level.

Michael Phelps's Positive Leadership

Michael Phelps was recently interviewed by Bob Costas and he described his approach to building a positive team before the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

Every now and then you hear a bunch of negative comments or someone complaining, and, during training camp, at one of the meetings, I said to the guys that we are getting ready to go to the Olympics. This is what we have to do, and if there is a negative comment, keep it to yourself. The more positivity we have as a team, the better off we are going to be. As soon as I said that, we all became closer and then we really started getting going.

When I heard Phelps say these words, I was thrilled because, in just a few sentences, he defined the essence of positive leadership and shared with the world a truth that I have witnessed countless times over the years. A team with talent can be good, but they must come together to be great. Positivity is the glue that enhances team connection and performance, and it impacts office teams, school teams, church teams, and hospital teams as much as it does Olympic teams. Many people think that you have to choose between positivity and winning, but the truth is you don't have to choose. Positivity leads to winning. That's why feeding the positive and weeding out the negative is essential.

I've seen very positive teams with average talent accomplish more than anyone thought possible. I've also seen negative teams with a lot of talent accomplish far less than everyone thought was possible. Positive teams work together more effectively. They stay positive, connected, and committed through challenges. They maximize each other's talent. They believe together and achieve more together. Positive, high-performing teams don't happen by accident. They are built by positive leaders and team members who weed the negative and feed the positive. When you subtract negativity and add positivity to your talent, the sky is the limit. The great news is that you don't have to be an Olympic champion with 28 medals to begin the process. You can be just like you and me. You can say, “Enough with the negativity. Let's get positive. Let's get going.”

Don't Be Negative about Negativity

I would be remiss if I didn't share one final thought about weeding negativity from your team and organization. I must address a misunderstanding that I hear about from time to time and it's one of my motivations in writing this book. Some leaders read The Energy Bus and make the mistake of confronting their employees by saying, “You are either on my bus or you are off it.” They label anyone who disagrees with them an energy vampire. Instead of inviting people onto the bus, they run them over with it. One of the saddest kinds of emails I receive says something like, “Hey Jon, our bosses gave us The Energy Bus to read, but they are the ones who are energy vampires. I'm trying to be positive but what should I do?” It saddens me to read these emails because it was never my intention for leaders to be negative about negativity. You have to confront it, but you must do so in a positive way. Even more importantly, you must model it. As we will discuss in the next two chapters, positive leadership is also about developing relationships and being the kind of a leader people want to follow. You can't be an energy vampire and be a great leader. You can't be negative and build a positive, high-performing team. You may be dealing with a lot of negativity but you can't lift others up if you lower yourself. You can't help others be positive by being negative. You're the leader, and to be your best and bring out the best in others, you must be a positive leader.

When you feed the positive and weed the negative, you create an environment where you can do your best work as a leader. You can do what the truly great leaders do, and that's build unified and connected teams and great relationships.