Are You a Positive or Negative Thinker?

Learn About - and Change - How You Think

“A man is but the product of his thoughts.
What he thinks, he becomes.”
Mahatma Gandhi.

“Positive thinking will let you do everything better
than negative thinking will.”
Zig Ziglar - Personal development guru.

These are two powerful quotes. Combined, they tell us that if we think positively, we’re likely to enjoy positive results. Negative thinking, on the other hand, can lead to outcomes that we don’t want.

Positive and negative thoughts can become self-fulfilling prophecies: What we expect can often come true.

If you start off thinking that you’ll mess up a task, the chances are that you will: You may not try hard enough to succeed, you won’t attract support from other people, and you may not perceive any results as good enough.

Positive thinking, on the other hand, is often associated with positive actions and outcomes. You have hope and faith in yourself and others, and you work and invest hard to prove that your optimism is warranted. You’ll enthuse others, and they may well pitch in to help you. This makes constructive outcomes all the more likely.

When it comes down to it, positive, optimistic people are happier and healthier, and enjoy more success than those who think negatively. The key difference between them is how they think about and interpret the events in their life.

So, how do you think about your successes and failures? Do you have a predictable thinking pattern? Find out below.

Are You a Positive or Negative Thinker?

Take this short quiz to determine what kind of thinker you are.

Use our online quiz by clicking here, or print this out and take the quiz on paper.

Instructions: (To take the quiz on paper)

For each question, circle the number in the column that most applies.

Please note: This tool uses an informal approach to assessing positive and negative thinking, designed to help you quickly ‘zero in’ on approaches that may help you. While it may be intuitively useful, it has not been validated through controlled scientific tests. Please, therefore, treat results as indicative, and interpret results with common sense.

© Mind Tools Ltd, 2008.

		I tend to think like this…
Question		Not at all	Rarely	Some times	Often	Very Often
1.	When my boss asks to speak with me, I instinctively assume he/she wants to discuss a problem or give me negative feedback.	5	4	3	2	1
2.	When I experience a real difficulty at work/home, other aspects of my life tend to be painted with the same negative brush.	5	4	3	2	1
3.	When I experience a setback, I tend to believe that the obstacle will endure for the long-term, e.g. “The funding didn’t come through, so I guess that means they hate the project. All that work for nothing…”	5	4	3	2	1
4.	When a team I am on is functioning poorly, I believe the cause is short-term and has a straightforward solution, e.g. “Boy we’re not working well, if we can fix […], we’ll do much better!”	1	2	3	4	5
5.	When I’m not chosen for an assignment I really want, I tend to believe that I just don’t have the specific skills they are looking for right now, as opposed to thinking I am generally unskilled.	1	2	3	4	5
6.	When something happens that I don’t like or appreciate, I can tend to conclude that the cause is widespread in nature and will continue to plague me, e.g. “My assistant didn’t ‘cc’ me on that email she sent to my boss. Administrative assistants are all out to prove how much smarter they are than their supervisors.”	5	4	3	2	1
7.	When I perform very well on an assignment, I believe that it’s because I’m generally talented and smart, as opposed to thinking I am good in that one very specific area.	1	2	3	4	5
8.	When I receive a reward or recognition, I can tend to figure that luck or fate played more of a role than my actual work or skill, e.g. “They asked me to be the key note speaker at the conference next year. I guess the other guys were all busy.”	5	4	3	2	1
9.	When I come up with a really good idea, I am surprised by my creativity. I figure it is my lucky day, and caution myself not to get used to the feeling.	5	4	3	2	1
10.	When something bad happens at work, I see the contributions that everyone made to the mistake, as opposed to thinking that I am incompetent and to blame.	1	2	3	4	5
11.	After winning an award/recognition/ contract, I believe it’s because the competition is not as good as I am, e.g. “We won that large contract against two strong competitors. We’re simply better than they are.”	1	2	3	4	5
12.	As the leader, when my team completes a project, I tend to attribute the success to the hard work and dedication of the team members, as opposed to my skilled leadership.	5	4	3	2	1
13.	When I make a decision that proves to be successful, it’s because I have expertise on that particular subject and have analyzed that particular problem really well, as opposed to being generally a strong decision maker.	5	4	3	2	1
14.	When I achieve a long term and personally challenging goal, I congratulate myself, and think about all the skills I used to be successful.	1	2	3	4	5

Score Interpretation

Now add up the scores you’ve circled.

My score overall is:

out of 70

Score	Comment
14-31	Yikes! It must feel as if there’s a rain cloud that hangs overhead all day. You have gotten yourself into the habit of seeing things as your fault and you’ve learned to give up your control in many situations. Taking this quiz is the first step toward turning your pessimism around. Read the rest of this article carefully, and use the exercises daily. Start now!
32-50	You try to be optimistic and positive however some situations get the better of you. Identify your triggers for negative thinking and use the rational thinking exercises mentioned later in this article to become naturally more optimistic.
51-70	Great job! You have a generally positive and optimistic outlook on life. You don’t take things personally and you are able to see that setbacks won’t ruin the rest of your life. If you do have any negative thoughts, find out how to deal with them later in this article.

Turn Negatives into Positives

The first step in changing negative thinking is to become aware of it. For many of us, negative thinking is a bad habit - and we may not even know we’re doing it!

Consider this example: The guy on the subway who just made a face is surely directing his behavior at you. When the receptionist doesn’t greet you in the morning, you must have done something to anger her… again! You go straight to the coffee machine, because it’s Monday morning and you just know you’ll be solving problems until lunchtime. When you finally get to your desk, your assistant is waiting for you. “Oh no,” you think. “What has he done now? The first problem of the day… yippee!”

If you’re feeling bad after reading this, imagine how it would feel to surround yourself with that much negativity. Then ask yourself if this is the way you tend to think in your own life?

Dr Martin Seligman, who has been described as America’s most influential psychologist, has done extensive research on thought patterns. In particular, he looks at the impact of an optimistic versus pessimistic outlook on life and success.

Seligman says we explain events using three basic dimensions of Permanence, Pervasiveness and Personalization, with optimistic people on one end of the scale and pessimistic people on the other. We look at these below.

Permanence (Questions 3, 4, 9, 11)

For questions in this category, fill in your scored answers in the table below, and then calculate your total.

	Score
Question 3
Question 4
Question 9
Question 11
Total	Out of 20

Your score shows how far you believe that something you are experiencing is either permanent or temporary. A low score implies that you think bad times will carry on forever. A high score shows confidence that you’ll be able to get things back on course quickly.

Pessimist: I lost my job and I’ll never find one as good again. No point even looking!

Optimist: I lost my job. Thank goodness there are other opportunities I can explore!

Pervasiveness (Questions 2, 5, 6, 7, 13)

	Score
Question 2
Question 5
Question 6
Question 7
Question 13
Total	Out of 25

Your score shows how far you believe that situational factors cause an effect, as opposed to the view that the effect is evidence of more universal factors at work. A low score shows that you tend to think that if you’ve experienced a problem in one place, you’ll experience that problem wherever you go.

Pessimist: I lost my job. Companies are all the same; all they care about is money. I don’t know why I bother putting in any effort at all.

Optimist: I lost my job. It’s too bad our company has to reinvent itself to stay competitive. Thankfully I learned some great transferable skills!

Personalization (Questions 1, 8, 10, 12, 14)

	Score
Question 1
Question 8
Question 10
Question 12
Question 14
Total	Out of 25

Your score shows how far you believe that something about you influenced the outcome, as opposed to the view that something external to you caused it. A low score indicates that you tend to blame yourself for bad things, rather than attributing the cause to more general factors.

Pessimist: I lost my job. If I had been a decent employee they would have found a new job for me.

Optimist: I lost my job. I gave it my all, however they just can’t use my skill set right now.

Re-shape Your Thinking

Your answers to the questions in this quiz can show whether you have a positive or negative pattern of thinking. They’re also great starting points to become more aware of your thoughts - and the effect they have on your life.

When you’re more aware of the way you think, you can take action to use positive situations to your advantage, and re-shape the negative ones. The goal is to think positively, regardless of the situation, and make a conscious effort to see opportunities instead of obstacles.

So, in our example, if you immediately think the receptionist is mad at you because she didn’t say hello, how rational is that? Could she have been busy or distracted when you walked by? Did you say hello to her? Maybe she wasn’t feeling well, or she was in a negative mood herself. These are all more rational reasons for her behavior than simply assuming that you did something wrong.

To help you start thinking positively, see our comprehensive article on Thought Awareness, Rational Thinking, and Positive Thinking. This is a “must read” for everyone, even very positive thinkers, because it shows why positive thinking is so important, and it discusses how to turn negative thought patterns into positive ones.

Persistent negative thinking can cause mental health problems, including depression. While these positive thinking techniques have been shown to have a positive effect, they are for guidance only, and readers should take the advice of suitably qualified health professionals if they are experiencing persistent unhappiness.

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Generating New Ideas

Generating New Ideas
Think Differently and Spark Creativity

	Switch on your creativity!

“We need to think differently!”
“This needs some fresh ideas!”
“We have got to be more creative around here!”

Are messages like these popping up more often in your workplace?

Faced with complex, open-ended, ever-changing challenges, organizations realize that constant, ongoing innovation is critical if they want to stay ahead of the competition.

This is why we need to be on the lookout for new ideas that can drive innovation. It’s why the ability to think differently, generate new ideas, and spark creativity within a team becomes an important skill. You need to work actively on building and cultivating this skill, and it can be done!

Often, though, we make the mistake of assuming that good ideas just happen. Or worse still, we get caught in the mind trap of believing that creativity is an aptitude: some people have it, others don’t. Then there is the other self-defeating belief - “I am not intelligent enough to come up with good ideas.”

These assumptions just aren’t true: Anyone can come up with fresh, radical ideas - you just need to learn to open your mind and think differently. This article shows you how to do so.

How to Generate New Ideas

Standard idea-generation techniques concentrate on combining or adapting existing ideas. This can certainly generate results. But here, our focus is on equipping you with tools that help you leap onto a totally different plane. These approaches push your mind to forge new connections, think differently, and consider new perspectives.

A word of caution - while these techniques are extremely effective, they will only succeed if they are backed by rich knowledge of the area you’re working on. This means that if you don’t have enough information about the issue, you are unlikely to come up with a great idea, even by using the techniques listed here.

Incidentally, these techniques can be applied to spark creativity in group settings and brainstorming sessions as well.

Breaking Thought Patterns

Any of us can get stuck in established thinking patterns. To get unstuck, you need to break out of these, if you’re going to have any chance of generating fresh, new ideas. There are several techniques you can use to do this:

• Challenge assumptions: For every situation, you have a set of key assumptions. Challenging these assumptions gives you a whole new spin on possibilities.You want to buy a house but can’t since you assume you don’t have the money to make a down payment on the loan. Challenge the assumption. Sure, you don’t have cash in the bank but couldn’t you sell some of your other assets to raise the money? Could you dip into your retirement fund? Could you work overtime and build up the kitty in six months? Suddenly the picture starts looking brighter.
• Reword the problem: Stating the problem differently often leads to different ideas. To reword the problem look at the issue from different angles. “Why do we need to solve the problem?”, “What’s the roadblock here?”, “What will happen if we don’t solve the problem?” These questions will give you new insights. You might come up with new ideas to solve your new problem.In the mid 1950s, shipping companies were losing money on freighters. They decided they needed to focus on building faster and more efficient ships. However, the problem persisted. Then one consultant defined the problem differently. He said the problem the industry should consider was “how can we reduce cost?” The new problem statement generated new ideas. All aspects of shipping, including storage of cargo and loading time, were considered. The outcome of this shift in focus resulted in the container ship and the roll-on/roll-off freighter.
• Think in reverse: If you feel you cannot think of anything new, try turning things upside-down. Instead of focusing on how you could solve a problem/improve operations/enhance a product, consider how could you create the problem/worsen operations/downgrade the product. The reverse ideas will come flowing in. Consider these ideas – once you’ve reversed them again - as possible solutions for the original challenge.
• Express yourself through different media: We have multiple intelligences but somehow, when faced with workplace challenges we just tend to use our verbal reasoning ability. How about expressing the challenge through different media? Clay, music, word association games, paint, there are several ways you can express the challenge. Don’t bother about solving the challenge at this point. Just express it. Different expression might spark off different thought patterns. And these new thought patterns may yield new ideas.

Connect the Unconnected

Some of the best ideas seem to occur just by chance. You see something or you hear someone, often totally unconnected to the situation you are trying to resolve, and the penny drops in place. Newton and the apple, Archimedes in the bath tub: examples abound.

Why does this happen? The random element provides a new stimulus and gets our brain cells ticking. You can capitalize on this knowledge by consciously trying to connect the unconnected.

Actively seek stimuli from unexpected places and then see if you can use these stimuli to build a connection with your situation. Some techniques you could use are:

• Use random input: Choose a word from the dictionary and look for novel connections between the word and your problem.

• Mind map possible ideas: Put a key word or phrase in the middle of the page. Write whatever else comes in your mind on the same page. See if you can make any connections.

• Pick up a picture. Consider how you can relate it to your situation.

• Take an item. Ask yourself questions such as “How could this item help in addressing the challenge?”, or “What attributes of this item could help us solve our challenge?”

Shift Perspective

Over the years we all build a certain type of perspective and this perspective yields a certain type of idea. If you want different ideas, you have to shift your perspective. To do so:

• Get someone else’s input: Ask different people what they would do if faced with your challenge. You could approach friends engaged in different kind of work, your spouse, a nine-year old child, customers, suppliers, senior citizens, someone from a different culture; in essence, anyone who might see things differently.

• Play the “If I were” game: Ask yourself “If I were ………” how would I address this challenge? You could be anyone: a millionaire, Tiger Woods, anyone.The idea is the person you decide to be has certain identifiable traits. And you have to use these traits to address the challenge. For instance, if you decide to play the millionaire, you might want to bring traits such as flamboyance, big thinking and risk-taking when formulating an idea. If you are Tiger Woods you would focus on things such as perfection, persistence and execution detail.

Employ Enablers

Enablers are activities and actions that assist with, rather than directly provoke, idea generation. They create a positive atmosphere. Some of the enablers that can help you get your creative juices flowing are:

• Belief in yourself: Believe that you are creative, believe that ideas will come to you; positive reinforcement helps you perform better.
• Creative loafing time: Nap, go for a walk, listen to music, play with your child, take a break from formal idea-generating. Your mind needs the rest, and will often come up with connections precisely when it isn’t trying to make them.
• Change of environment: Sometimes changing the setting changes your thought process. Go to a nearby coffee shop instead of the conference room in your office, or hold your discussion while walking together round a local park.
• Shutting out distractions: Keep your thinking space both literally and mentally clutter-free. Shut off the Blackberry, close the door, divert your phone calls and then think.
• Fun and humor: These are essential ingredients, especially in team settings.

Key Points:

The ability to generate new ideas is an essential work skill today. You can acquire this skill by consciously practicing techniques that force your mind to forge new connections, break old thought patterns and consider new perspectives.

Along with practicing these techniques, you need to adopt enabling strategies too. These enabling strategies help in creating a positive atmosphere that boosts creativity.

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Pep Up Your Motivation Skills!

Doing everything you can to motivate your team

Managers everywhere want teams that are effective, focused, and committed to organizational goals. With a team like this, just think of the results you could deliver!

Teams only perform like this if their managers are motivating them effectively.

This is why you need to be able to motivate your team if you want to create a productive work environment. By combining good motivational practices with meaningful work, the setting of performance goals, and use of an effective reward system, you can establish the kind of atmosphere and culture that you need to excel.

The better you are able to link these factors together, the higher the motivation levels of your team are likely to be. That’s a win-win for you, them, and the organization.

The interactive motivational skills quiz in this article helps you identify the aspects of team motivation that you can improve. From there you will be directed to specific tools that will help you improve your motivation skills.

Take the test and apply the things you learn from it. You could well see the performance of your team soar!.

How Good Are Your Motivation Skills?

Use our online quiz by clicking here, or print this out and take the quiz on paper.

Instructions: (To take the quiz on paper)

For each question, circle the answer in the column that most applies. When you have completed the 15 questions, transfer your scores to score calculation box in each of the team effectiveness sections below.

Note that some of the questions are scored from 1-5 (low to high) and other from 5-1 (high to low). Please score based on the column headings, not the numbers. We’ll use these later!

Please note: This tool uses an informal approach to assessing team effectiveness, designed to help you quickly ‘zero in’ on tools that may help you. While it may be intuitively useful, it has not been validated through controlled scientific tests. Please, therefore, treat results as indicative, and interpret results with common sense.

© Mind Tools Ltd, 2008.

Question		Not at all	Rarely	Some times	A lot	Very much
1.	When faced with a performance problem, I take care to establish whether it is caused by lack of resource, lack of motivation, or lack of skills.	1	2	3	4	5
2.	I establish clear performance standards and expectations.	1	2	3	4	5
3.	The rewards and discipline I use are clearly linked to performance and defined behavioral objectives.	1	2	3	4	5
4.	I structure work so that it is interesting and challenging, and allows for appropriate autonomy.	1	2	3	4	5
5.	When I give a reward I make sure it is one that the recipient values.	1	2	3	4	5
6.	I am consistent in the way that I discipline people for sub-standard performance.	1	2	3	4	5
7.	When I see good work, I praise it immediately.	1	2	3	4	5
8.	I make sure people have the tools, resources, and training to achieve the results I expect.	1	2	3	4	5
9.	I try to understand what motivates each individual member of my team.	1	2	3	4	5
10.	I make a major effort to ensure that I offer competitive wages and other forms of compensation.	1	2	3	4	5
11.	In order to be fair, I use the same rewards for everyone when recognizing good performance.	5	4	3	2	1
12.	I help people establish performance goals that are challenging and specific, and that are linked to organizational objectives.	1	2	3	4	5
13.	I make sure I know what is going on in the real work environment before taking any remedial or disciplinary action.	1	2	3	4	5
14.	I encourage people to set their goals high, and make their achievement measurements challenge them fairly.	1	2	3	4	5
15.	I try to combine and rotate job assignments so that people can learn and use a variety of skills.	1	2	3	4	5

Score Interpretation

Now add up the scores you’ve circled.

My score overall is:

out of 75

Score	Comment
15-34	Ouch. The good news is that you’ve got a great opportunity to improve the way you motivate others, and your and your team’s long term success! However, to do this, you’ve got to fundamentally improve your motivation skills. Start below!
35-52	You’re good at some aspects of motivating others, but there’s room for improvement elsewhere. Focus on the serious issues below, and you’ll most likely find that your team’s performance will increase.
53-75	You’re probably motivating your team very effectively! Still, check the sections below to see if there’s anything you can tweak to make this even better.

As you answered the questions, you probably had some insight into areas where the motivational practices you use could use a pick-me-up. The following is a quick summary of the main areas of motivation that were explored in the quiz, and a guide to the specific tools you can use for each.

Providing Productive and Challenging Work (Questions 1, 4, 15)

For questions in this category, fill in your scored answers in the table below, and then calculate your total.

	Score
Question 1
Question 4
Question 15
Total	Out of 15

The first step in building a highly motivated team is providing interesting work, which is well organized to meet the needs and desires of team members. No matter how self-motivated a person is, how challenging the goals he or she sets, or how wonderful the rewards, if the work is badly designed, it will be hard to motivate people and work will be less than ideal.

Effective motivators understand that work design has a strong impact on performance. When a person finds a job inherently unsatisfying, there’s not much you can do to motivate him or her. Job design and enrichment combine to match characteristics of the job with workers’ skills and interests: The more variety, challenge and autonomy there is to a job, the more intrinsically satisfying it will be.

Our article on Job Enrichment details how to set up meaningful work assignments. Other articles of interest include Pygmalion Motivation, which addresses the impact that your work assignments have on conscious and unconscious motivators, and Dealing with Poor Performance, which outlines steps that you can take to ensure you have a good fit between the person and the job.

Setting Effective Goals (Questions 2, 3, 12, 14)

	Score
Question 2
Question 3
Question 12
Question 14
Total	Out of 20

When you are confident that the work you provide is well organized, the next thing to do is to ensure that workers have clear and attainable goals that they’re working to achieve. Managing the goal setting process is essential for creating a highly motivating environment. The effectiveness of goal setting in motivation is a well-recognized fact, and by making goals specific, consistent, and appropriately challenging, you can set goals that are powerfully motivating. As such, the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound) acronym helps you define effective goals.

Specific goals are measurable, unambiguous and behavior-changing. They outline exactly what needs to be accomplished, and when it will be considered as “achieved”. Having goals that are consistent with other personal goals as well as organizational goals is also important. If goals are inconsistent, the resulting confusion and incompatibility would like cause the person to do nothing rather than work in different directions.

For more on goal setting, read our articles on Locke’s Goal Setting, which explains the principle of setting SMART goals; Management By Objectives, which details how to align personal goals with those of the organization; Performance Management and KPIs and Performance Agreements.

Finally, challenge is important, due to the observation that we get what we expect. Up to a point, the more you expect from someone, the harder they will generally work. This has been shown time and again, and is explained by the idea of Expectancy Theory: The idea here is that you need to link high effort with high performance, and high performance with a positive outcome. With those two linkages established, people are motivated to work hard to achieve a positive outcome. Read more in our article on Expectancy Theory.

Tip: Think carefully about the goals you set, and make sure you adapt them to circumstances in a reasonable way. If you’re too rigid with your goals, you may motivate members of your team to “cut corners” in order to reach them.

Understanding Individual Differences in Motivation (Questions 5, 9, 10, 11)

	Score
Question 5
Question 9
Question 10
Question 11
Total	Out of 20

Motivational techniques should bring out the best in people. That means they should build on an individual’s strengths and minimize his or her weaknesses.

There are certainly some common denominators in motivation, like fair wages, decent working conditions, a sense of camaraderie with co-workers, and a good relationship with one’s supervisor. Abraham Maslow and Frederick Herzberg are two famous motivation theorists who established that even if these sorts of things are not necessarily motivating in themselves, they have to be present in order to even think about enhancing motivation.

However, the assumption in most modern workplaces is that these lower order, “hygiene” factors are being met, and that people are seeking the things that provide real motivation. These are things like challenging work, control, growth opportunities, and recognition for a job well done.

To decide which motivating factors to provide you need to look at the individual employees. Some will be motivated by more time off, while others may prefer to gain status and recognition in the company. Understanding these individual needs is mandatory for building a motivating workplace, and is why question 11 above is a “trick question”: if you try to motivate everyone in exactly the same way, you’re likely missing plenty of opportunities for motivating individual members of your team.

Meeting peoples’ needs, providing challenge, using a variety of rewards, and matching them to the right people are issues discussed in the following articles: Using Maslow’s Hierarchy, Herzberg’s Motivators and Hygiene Factors, Alderfer’s ERG Theory, Theory X and Theory Y, Adam’s Equity Theory, and Expectancy Theory.

Providing Rewards and Recognition (Questions 6, 7, 8, 13)

	Score
Question 6
Question 7
Question 8
Question 13
Total	Out of 20

When you know what you want to provide in terms of reward and recognition, it’s important to establish an effective system. The primary focus of a reward system is fairness. Both reward and discipline have to be perceived as fairly distributed according to clear guidelines. This is why setting specific performance expectations is so important. (”Fairness” doesn’t mean that everyone has the same reward package - it means that differences between people’s reward packages need to be clear and understandable.)

It is equally important to make sure you give your team members the tools they need to be successful. If you’re setting goals, then you need to make sure that they are attainable, and you do that by providing the necessary support, tools, resources, and training.

It’s also important that you get to understand the challenges your team faces. This way you can appreciate the small victories that lead to the major accomplishments. Motivation is all about encouragement, appreciation, and recognition of achievement.

When you are part of the team and not simply an “observer from above” you will have many opportunities to thank people and recognize good work right on the spot. This is a really important factor in successful recognition. You have to be in a position to show or tell people everyday that you appreciate their contributions. Once or twice a year in formal review process is not enough!

To help you understand these key concepts and develop a great reward system, learn to use the following tools: Management By Walking Around, DILO (Day In The Life Of), Expectancy Theory, and “A Bit of Perfume” - Giving Praise.

Key points:

If you want to build a high performance team, then you absolutely have to learn how to motivate team members. Side benefits of this include high levels of team-member job satisfaction, and good staff retention.

You can stimulate high performance through providing interesting and challenging work, helping people set and achieve meaningful goals, and recognizing and rewarding high performance in ways that are valued by each individual.

Making a point of motivating people is a challenge in and of itself. Once you decide you are up to it, however, you too will reap the rewards and benefits. This creates a momentum that will help you and your team achieve great success.

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Building Strong and Supportive Relationships at Work

Finding Your Allies
Building Strong and Supportive Relationships at Work

	Building strong relationships at work.

“A problem shared is a problem halved”, as the old saying goes, and it’s true in business as well. When it comes to working your way through the challenges that you face every day, it’s a great help to be able to draw on a network of supportive individuals that you can work with to find a solution.

Allies are the people who give you backing, assistance, advice, information, protection, and even friendship. They are your support base. With strong, mutually beneficial relationships with your allies, you can survive and thrive in the corporate arena, and you can get things done quicker, and more smoothly.

Working together with allies simply helps you and them achieve more. (Here, we’re using the word “ally” in it’s positive sense - we’re not implying that you’re trying to circumvent proper channels, engage in politics or game-play, or create any kind of “us and them” culture. It is clearly wrong to behave in this way.)

Anyone and everyone who can help you achieve your objectives is a potential ally. Some are natural: These are people who share a common interest with you. The colleague who’s been around for years and can offer an invaluable voice of experience, the team member who is always happy to be a sounding board for your ideas, or the vendor who is ready to accept seemingly-impossible deadlines; these people are your natural allies.

But you can find allies in unexpected places too. Alex in finance, who pulls together an extra report on your projects finances; Claire, the secretary, who tells you when the boss is in a good mood; or Simon, your ex-department head who is always available for advice. They too are important allies.

Allies can help you directly and indirectly. For instance, if you’re running behind schedule on a project, your subordinate can help you directly by working longer hours, while your boss can help you indirectly by delegating another part of your workload to someone else.

Building Your Personal Support Base

This is one of the reasons that it’s important to be open and supportive to others in the workplace, and why it’s worth making at least some of your time available to help others out when they need help. After all, if you’re a positive and supportive person, many other people will be equally supportive towards you.

So who could your allies be? Just your team mates? Actually, your list of potential allies goes much further than this!

The table below provides an example list of allies, with the support you might be able to receive from them, and the returns you might be expected to provide to them.

Possible Allies - And What They May Want…

Potential Ally	What He/She Could Do for You	What He/She Might Be Expecting in Return
Team Members	Assist you with regular tasks Be loyal Be a sounding board	Assistance with regular tasks Loyalty Recognition Credit – given both publicly and privately
Boss	Protect you Champion you Help you in career advancement	Loyalty Support Assistance with his/her tasks Commitment Willingness to go the extra mile Image building
Senior Management Members	Protect you Champion you Help you in career advancement	Loyalty Support Commitment Willingness to go the extra mile Image building
Support Staff	Willing performance of day-to-day functions Cooperation	Appreciation Attention Recognition
Gateway People (Secretaries, Executive Assistants)	Provide you with access to crucial information and people	Appreciation Attention Recognition
Family	Provide moral support, appreciation, understanding	Moral support Appreciation Understanding
More Experienced Colleagues	Provide expertise, perspective, contacts, knowledge	Respect Recognition Attention
Networking Allies	Keep you abreast of the general buzz Provide you advance information and background knowledge Provide you contacts Alert you to emerging trends and patterns	Advance information Background knowledge Contacts Alerts about emerging trends and patterns
Interest Groups	Build influence Mobilize support Provide you with data	Assistance for their cause
Community Members	Build influence Mobilize support Provide you with data	Assistance for their cause
Press	Build influence Mobilize support	Information
Government	Build influence Mobilize support	Assistance for their cause
Clients	Provide inputs for new product development initiatives Provide referrals Provide preferential status	Preferential status Willingness to go extra mile Business leads Referrals
Vendors	Provide extra assistance Provide preferential status	Preferential status Business leads Referrals

Tip 1: Don’t be naïve in the way that you approach people - be aware of people’s interests and duties, and understand that these may conflict with yours. Also, recognize that they may not be able to help you, for a variety of possible reasons including a very heavy workload. And with all this talk of mutual help and information sharing, make absolutely sure that you keep confidential information confidential! Tip 2: Allies can’t help you if you’re not doing your job properly. Make sure you make time to look after your allies, but make sure too that you do your job to the best of your abilities.

Nurture your allies, and you’ll find that you can be so much more effective at getting things done. What’s more, things will get so much easier and more pleasant at work!

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Get the Recognition You Deserve

Get the Recognition You Deserve
Learning how to get praise Imagine this: You stay late at work, consistently win accounts that your co-workers only dream of, never miss deadlines, and never show up late – and to top it all off, you finish even your worst projects successfully and ahead of schedule.

You’d think that by doing all of this, you would, at least once in a while, get thanks and recognition from management? Well… you wish. Unfortunately, your boss is busy dealing with a “problem” member of staff and, as a result, she forgets to show any gratitude to her stars. That includes you.

Have you ever been in a situation like this? Working hard and being ignored by your boss can be rough. That’s why you sometimes have to take matters into your own hands.

Boasting of your own accomplishments can feel awkward. But look at it this way: If your boss doesn’t notice your hard work, and you don’t point it out to him or her, then what happens when you ask for a raise? How will he or she know you’re ready for that promotion, or that you’re ideal for that huge-but-fascinating project?

Things don’t have to be like that. We’ll show you how to get the recognition you deserve without looking like you’re seeking attention. Believe it or not, there is a way to do this.

Step One: Decide What You Want

There are many types of recognition, so decide what type you want.

Companies often thank staff with awards, certificates, or bonuses. However, people often just want simple praise. We want to know that our work is meaningful and that we’ve made a difference. An “Employee of the Month” certificate, or a cold, hard check/cheque doesn’t always communicate this.

So, what exactly are you looking for? It’s important to really define this, because everyone wants something different. Do you want a simple “thank you”? An award ceremony in your honor? A raise?

Step Two: Define Why You Deserve Praise

Don’t walk into your boss’s office with no advance preparation to say what a great job you’ve been doing. Why? Firstly, it would seem odd. Then, if you’re a bit nervous, you might forget something important that you’ve done. You might forget the help a co-worker gave you, and leaving that person out could speak poorly of your character. Be sure to make yourself look good, but also share credit where credit is due.

Make a list of the accomplishments you’d like to discuss. Beside each one, list the value that accomplishment has brought to the company.

Step Three: Praise Yourself

This is where you’ve got to get creative. You know your boss and your business environment, so think of ways to let your boss know how hard you’ve been working.

If you tell your boss directly, then do it carefully and tactfully – in a private area. You know that list of accomplishments you just created? Read that over a few times before your meeting. As you talk, emphasize how you had help and how your co-workers should be rewarded for their hard work as well.

If th