Roadmap to Positive Thinking in Business

How to Proactively Deal with Challenging Situations

Jun 28, 2009

Positive thinking in business helps to resolve workplace conflicts, improves employee attitude, creativity and performance, and also enhances interpersonal relationships.

According to the noted transpersonal psychologist, Dr. James Fadiman, when people get stuck trying to reach a goal, it is usually because of one or more internal (mental) barriers, rather than the need to learn a new skill or technique. Therefore the solution to the problem lies in dealing with attitude.

This article outlines seven steps to positive thinking, a roadmap to help people get to the source of their internal barriers – negativity, pessimism, and poor attitude – that impact on business performance.

1. Defining the Situation

Most challenging situations in the workplace require an appropriate mix of knowledge, skills, and positive attitudes and behaviors. But importantly, they require that employees interact effectively with people.

Successful resolution of a business challenge begins with investing time and effort to define the situation clearly and comprehensively. Only a few minutes may provide a clear target on which to focus efforts and lessen any anxiety about the situation. The definition should be a short, concise description of the business issue and emotional gravity of the situation. For example:

“I must give a presentation to management explaining why my project is over budget and overdue. I am fearful and anxious.”

2. Checking the Self-Talk

People’s thoughts about any situation to be faced could work for or against them. Simply put:

A person’s self-talk is key to determining whether a person is thinking clearly and rationally or letting negative emotions such as anxiety, fear, anger, and frustration get the better of the person.

3. Achieving the Desired Outcome

The next step is to express the desired outcome in measurable ways, including both qualitative and quantitative measurements. A combination of three powerful concepts can be adopted:

A good way to achieve an outcome is using the SMART method: Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic, and Time-bound.

4. Accessing One’s Positive Traits

Achieving goals requires identification and elimination of negative attitude barriers. This creates an environment for cultivating ten positive behaviors inherent in all humans: positive-living person, optimism, enthusiasm, belief, integrity, confidence, determination, patience, calmness, and focus.

5. Rehearsing the Situation Mentally

Today, most successive business executives attribute their success to many activities, including mental rehearsal, which is of most interest. Rehearsing every facet and feeling of what needs to happen to obtain desired outcome will vastly improve the odds of attaining those outcomes.

6. Taking Action

A person taking the preceding steps should be well positioned to take positive action. At this point, it is a good idea to create a plan outlining specific steps to be taken. A person may discover that some challenging situations extend over periods of weeks and months, thus involve numerous sub steps. A detailed plan would be helpful for thinking through how to best approach each phase of the situation.

7. Assessing the Results of Actions Taken

This is the final step. Taking reflective time after the action, positions one for improved performance in the future. In hindsight, it can be recognized that certain aspects of performance were very effective, while others less so. The intent in this step is to:

In summary, positive thinking in business has many benefits. It is the key to bringing out the potential of all employees, which is a driver of high performance. It stimulates innovation and creativity and fosters open, honest, and trusting environments. It also greatly enhances interpersonal relationships, which are the key to getting things done.

The copyright of the article Roadmap to Positive Thinking in Business in Business Management is owned by Harry P. Schlanger. Permission to republish Roadmap to Positive Thinking in Business in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.