Be Constructive, Not Destructive

Throughout the day, you greet people, have conversations, attend meetings. Every communication impacts you in some way, either adding value to you or depleting you. Communication is an extremely potent personal power and you need to learn to use it wisely.

For instance, do your conversations make you feel good or bad? Are they positive or negative? And when they are negative, do you know how to stop them and turn them around so they become constructive? A client recently said: "Twenty minutes she went on and on. I didn't know how to stop her, but I could feel the life force draining from me as she spoke. I was frozen. Paralyzed. And all I could do was pray she would stop and that the conversation would end."

A nurse manager reported: "We are working at 110% capacity in the hospital. At a recent meeting, my director basically spent the time complaining about how stressful it has been for her. She allowed others to go on and on complaining. Nothing was accomplished. I can't even tell you the purpose of the meeting. All I know is that I felt as though she was wasting our time as well as company resources. And this is supposed to be my mentor? Nearly all of the 50 managers were in this gripe session. There were so many other things I would have preferred to do!"

Have you ever spent hours of your day in meetings where people spent the entire time arguing, complaining, or blaming each other and nothing got accomplished? How do you feel during and after one of these meetings?

The Full Extent of the Problem

Destructive conversations, as I call them, include blaming, complaining, gossip, and negativity. Immerse yourself in an environment of complaining, blaming, and gossip and at the end of the day, you'll feel completely exhausted and emotionally drained. Done day after day, this adds up to stress, burnout, and poor morale, high use of sick time, high staff turnover and low productivity at work. Also, as you become anxious, fearful, and/or depressed, your mental and physical health may suffer.

Change Starts with You

Sensitize yourself to recognize when you are involved in a destructive conversation. Be aware of how you feel – do you feel excited or defeated? By speaking up about what doesn't feel good for you, you teach the other person how you want to be treated. If you say nothing, your silence gives them permission to continue. Second, teach them what you do want. For instance, "I don't want to speak about Jane because she is not here. Tell me the problem itself and we'll see if we can figure out a good approach to handling the issue with Jane." In this way, you focus on the problem, which is how to get along with Jane. When you've done this enough times, people will understand that if all they want to do is tear someone down, they shouldn't go to you! A byproduct of this is that you become trusted because people learn that you will not speak badly about people or allow others to do so in your presence.

Constructive conversations are positive, meaningful, and beneficial. Each conversation you have needs a purpose. What's the point? If you don't know, then why are you participating? What are you gaining by being present?

Get in the habit of looking for the best in others and for pointing out their greatness to them. People get so used to hearing the negatives that hearing positives is new and can feel uncomfortable at first. Give it time. Let people know what you enjoy about them. It's amazing how good it feels and the impact it has when people share positive things about each other.

If you create an environment where negativity is not tolerated, where meetings and conversations take place with purpose and meaning, and where people praise and appreciate each other, then you start to bring out the best in people. You also start to create fertile ground for trust to develop. You'll feel better and the people around you will be grateful for your lead.

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