Favouring the negative over the positive?

The 96^th Academy Awards – more colloquially known as The Oscars – take place on the 10^th of March. The nominations have been out for several weeks. Oppenheimer leads the way with 13, followed by Poor Things with 11.

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It was no surprise that Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer swept the nominations after the summer phenomenon of Barbenheimer, but what about Barbie? Well, Ryan Gosling was nominated for his role as Ken, but both Margot Robbie and director Greta Gerwig have been snubbed.

This has caused some outrage, with people questioning why Robbie and Gerwig didn’t receive nominations. But what about a bit of applause for Gosling himself? He stole the show. The screenplay was well-written and funny, but it was Gosling’s performance that truly brought it to life.

At the same time, Lily Gladstone, who starred in the incredibly long Flowers of the Killer Moon, became the first-ever Native American woman to be nominated for best actress. A truly great sign of progress. And something that hasn’t garnered anywhere near enough attention in my eyes.

All of this got me thinking – why are we so quick to discuss the negative connotations of something rather than praising the positive? Do we have a negative bias?

It happens in business a lot. A deal falls through at the last minute, and everyone is quick to point the finger at who slipped up and what went wrong.

I’ve been in meetings where we’ve spent forty minutes on one ‘Amber’ Key Performance Indicator (KPI), and just five minutes glancing over the other twenty which were green. Now, I know it’s important to focus on improving the small margins, but we never gave enough credit to the parts of the business which were performing better than expected.

Maybe it’s because we’re so focused on the next thing that we never stop for one moment to appreciate everything that is going well. I know you should never sit on your laurels, but we should absolutely applaud those things which are going well!

It’s why we start all our TAB meetings with our “Best and Best.” What’s gone great personally in the last month is the same in the business.

Being too focused on the negative can be detrimental to morale. If someone constantly approaches situations with a glass-half-empty attitude, their energy and emotions are going to start to leak into those around them gradually. Watch out for the mood hoovers…

I am a firm believer in the self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s the idea that if you believe in something, you will approach it in a certain way and, therefore, increase the chance of things working out as you’d hoped. In layman’s terms, it’s the old ‘put in what you expect to get out’ strategy.

Do you want to improve your relationship with your wife? Make more of an effort. Buy her flowers. Empty the dishwasher. Compliment her. It’s common sense—naturally, she’ll see this change in your behaviour, and hers will change too, bettering both of you as a whole.

Do you want to get a promotion at work? Show your boss you’re working late. Be accurate with your figures. Support your colleagues when they need it.

It can even be as simple as starting the day with a smile on your face. That simple act – flexing thirteen muscles – can change your outlook on the day and steer you in an entirely different direction.

I realise now that parts of this week’s blog are starting to sound a little life coach-y. But the positive mindset across TAB has really been drilled into me so far this year. We focused on it a lot in our annual conference in January, and I’m really trying to channel that feeling in my day-to-day life.

I’m not suggesting I have the power to change the way the world works. There will always be people acting as mood hoovers, and the tabloids will forever love highlighting those who missed out.

However, in business, we can encourage a shift to a more optimistic workforce through the attitude we choose. That’s what we’ve always done in TAB, and that’s what we’ll always do.