How to Deal with Naysayers

Naysayers are negative energy. They can bring you down, frustrate you and sidetrack you. One can bring a whole meeting or whole team down. A really loud vocal naysayer can bring down a entire change effort.

Naysayers can be in your head (self talk) or voiced through other people. Either way, they need to be managed and overcome. Succeeding in this is all about attitude: you need a YES attitude

Y=A big WHY...a big reason to achieve your goal. You need a reason to succeed that is bigger and stronger than the naysayers negativity. The power of your positivity needs to go past neutralizing their negativity. It needs to overpower the negativity. It is like electric charges. If you have a strong negative charge, it will cling to a positive charge. As long as the positive is = to or greater , the net energy will be positive. The same is true here. Your positive charge - your vision/passion/rationale for change - needs to be bigger than any naysayer or sum of naysayers. This will enable you and the team to stay positive. The WHY needs to keep you motivated despite all the naysayers around. The WHY also helps everyone else around to stay positive, as long as it is a stronger, more compelling energy than the naysayers negativity.

For example, when I had a serious tumor, my big Y was my daughter. I did not want her to grow up like me, without a father. Everyime I had internal or external naysayers, my big WHY kept me positive and motivated. People told me left and right I was crazy and should just get surgery. The meant well, but they were dragging me down. And sometimes I thought I was crazy. I had to keep my energy positive to get through all the challenges I was facing. My big Y helped me stay focused on my goal and not the negativity of those around me.

E= Expect Emotional Reactions – if you expect everyone to support you, this will cause you stress. You need to expect people will throw up roadblocks. That is human nature. If you expect people to fall into line, you will never win their hearts. They may do what you say while you standing over them, but once you are going, they will revert to the old way. Even in the military, research shows that autocratic leaders are less effective than more participatory leaders.

Expecting emotional reactions means allowing people to push back, to challenge and be frustrated. It allows dialogue. And hearts and minds can be influenced when they are listened to and dialogued with. Expecting this, will make others resistance easier to deal with.

S= Surround yourself with other fun loving YES people. Change and naysayers are draining – they will bring you down and eventually make you negative. So you need to find like minded people to support you through the challenges of change. The other people are your coaches, advisors, mentors and cheerleaders. All successful people have them. Do you? If not, go find them or you will not succeed in leading change