Negativity is contagious. It’s all too easy to complain about everything that goes wrong and this can quickly spread to others. Fortunately there is a simple trick that can be used to eliminate negativity; simply don’t say negative words. Aiming for positive remarks helps people to get energised. Rather than looking for blame, seek opportunities to improve and progress forward.

Here are some examples of negative statements that people commonly use:

• Don’t do that
• We can’t do it
• It can’t be done
• We don’t do such thing
• It is against our policy
• We have never done this before
• It has never been done
• No one knows how to do this
• You don’t know how this works
• The management is clueless
• The staff are clueless
• They sit there all day and do nothing
• No one cares

These statements do not help and are sometime stated as a reflex reaction rather than with an appropriate thought. Sometimes they become a habit and it is important to eliminate them as bad habits.

This simple two stage exercise helps to increase the awareness of delegates about this issue and helps them to address it. It is ideal for delegates who work closely together or are part of the same team.

This exercise is ideal for sales staff in a particular organisation. Rather than telling staff what to do, the aim is to get them to come up with the general goal of their department and its role. The idea is that if they formulate a goal for their department, they are more committed to follow it than if a manager tells them. They can also understand the goal better since they make it themselves.

This is a simple yet powerful exercise in getting people to share their perception about others. Sometimes seeing the world from another person’s point of view can have a significant benefit for us. This exercise facilitates this process and is most ideal for delegates who know each other so you can use this as part of a team building course.

This exercise is ideal for team building and negotiation where delegates learn to share their resources and also negotiate with each other in a competitive environment. They will learn that cooperation can be much more effective than direct competition or being difficult.

In this exercise, delegates practice working together towards a common goal; making the tallest free standing tower given simple materials. The exercise is competitive and requires creativity as well as good leadership, division of task, resource management and decision making.

This exercise helps delegates to understand the importance of focusing and concentration when they are in a fast changing environment.

This exercise helps participants to practice acting in front of a small audience. The ideal acting is one that conveys information as quickly and efficiently as possible. It is designed to be competitive, so participants are pushed to act better.

This activity allows people to help each other anonymously. Sometimes we may feel stuck or wonder what we could do to improve our behaviour or skills. We may however not feel comfortable to directly ask others about them. This exercise sets the scene for people to open up and help each without fear of being wrong or obvious.

Research carried out on many teams in large corporations show that they use suboptimal solutions when dealing with conflicts in teams. Every time there is a conflict in the team, they respond in a way that comes to undermine the team rather than empower it. This article provides guidance on how to avoid bad responses to conflicts and instead use better a better approach known as Constructive Collaboration.

This exercise helps delegates to understand the importance of several key principles, such as “Parkinson’s Law” as well as managing their performance in the face of change or increasingly challenging environments. It is also useful for teamwork, decision making, leadership and creativity. You can use this exercise to teach “Parkinson’s Law” in a time management course.