Why is negativity considered toxic?
Entering my second year as a post MBA associate and am wondering what peoples opinions generally are. I work in RX and consider myself to be a very critical person (glass half empty) but am wondering why people view this as a negative trait.
I’ve felt this line of thinking has helped me identify disconnects in peoples stated objectives and goals as well as an improved ability to take calculated risks. I just don’t understand how people are able to just blindly get behind authority figures that are setting them up to fail on a project or initiative. In the past when I’ve been in these situations I’ve come to the table with solutions and offered to take up the leg work for higher ups so they don’t have to waste energy changing course but have always been treated like a jerk for not blindly following authority.
Has anyone else encountered this in their career or in life? If so how have you responded?
Ex’s:
Worked at a legacy tech company as my first job out of college in a strategic finance job and company wanted to build its own version of Apple TV 10 years after the fact. It did the same things as the Apple TV while not offering any new tech or features and used outdated USB technology that wouldn’t be compatible with more than 75% of devices on the market. No analysis needed to be done to say this was an awful idea but management invested hundreds of millions of dollars into this idea and scolded me for being a nonbeliever. 5+ years later that product failed to gross $80M despite this company investing billions into an idea a goldfish could have figured out.
I feel as though people view teams or players through rose colored glasses and will support them no matter what. For example, I can’t watch the NFL anymore because I think the product is garbage as more than half of the QB’s in the league are unwatchable because they’re so bad. I don’t fault people for watching the NFL but think they’re incredibly naive if they think they have a chance to win unless they root for one of five teams. I’m a Saints fan for example and have a ton of people in my life who think we actually have a chance to win a championship with Carr as our QB. Yes our defense is good and schedule terribly easy but Carr is a mediocre QB.
Totally agree. Negativity is a huge part of my thought process. The way I usually tackle things is by finding all mistakes / flaws with a work product or idea. After that, I try to come up with ways to eliminate those mistakes / flaws. Basic idea is that if you take something and eliminate all mistakes / flaws, the end product / idea will be solid.
Same goes for stuff like investing in stocks. I try to come up with every possible argument for why it is a bad investment and if I can't counter those arguments then most likely it is a bad investment. I have so many friends who see it from the "glass half full" perspective and got burnt investing in stocks because they only focused on the positives and weren't thinking critically.
Of course, I also understand that it is more fun to be around people who are positive and support your ideas rather than question them. With that said, I think thinking critically is extremely important but you need to be pretty diplomatic about how you bring up those views. Personally, I've found great success with asking questions and making people realize the potential flaws themselves rather than "attacking" them with the flaws.
i think being unpleasantly negative is not 100% synonymous with being critical
you can still be critical while not upsetting anyone. i agree that being straightforward is sometimes beneficial but in an office setting where politics play a large role, it can sometimes be detrimental. not saying this is the right way to do things, but it is what it is
sounds like we're conflating skeptical with negative; to me at least, the latter implies someone who is a debbie-downer vs someone who's critical. the title of this is literally 'why is being negative perceived as negative', well that's because people have a connotation of what 'negative' is and it's not a pleasant social attribute of a person.
Being negative is toxic because it brings people’s mood down if you are constantly negative- I’m not sure what you were thinking?
Even if you bring up the best idea in a meeting, you won’t be listened to if you’re always so negative.
I’ve worked with people who are negative about everything and holy fuck does it get annoying / depressing to hear them talk. I just feel sadder after talking with them.
you have to be more positive when suggesting fixes and in conversation.
I think what you are describing has more to do with politics and interpersonal conflicts than negatively. If the right group or person brings up an idea, even if it’s half baked, and they get enough momentum, it’s hard to alter course. And unfortunately, your well-reasoned, solution oriented arguments can fall on deaf or at worst combative ears. It’s the reality of working at any company. I’ve realized you can work with extremely smart, capable people who have blind spots.
One thing that’s helped me in navigating difficult conversations is to understand how decision makers think and tailoring verbal arguments and presentations to their line of thinking at early stages of idea formation or projects. Picking your battles is important as well. If a decision is low impact, easily reversible, or low cost (opp and expense), it’s not worth my time to argue against it.
Not in RX but in strategy and these type of battles are extremely common in my world. I have to deal with two of the smartest, high IQ “dumb” execs every week. These guys have been pretty successful so everything they say in their mind is golden, and as someone much more junior to them, I have to constantly remind myself to toe the line between coddling egos and providing solution-oriented, objectivity.
As an aside, I’ve worked with about 10 exec teams throughout my career so far and all of them had at least one or two smart dumb guys/gals who were always the cause of many headaches. These people suck, and this observation almost single-handedly has led me to the conclusion that I can’t work in corporate forever.
Appreciate your perspective and insights into your experience. Overall would you say that you enjoy your job?
Considering making a switch over to corporate strategy after I wrap up my associate stint in my coverage universe (TMT). Main reasoning for making the switch would be that I don’t love working in IB and having a desire to have an impact in shaping the direction of an organization.
Coming out of grad school I strongly considered doing a search fund but decided not to due to a combination of being too risk averse and having a strong geographical preference (Southern CA). In my uneducated opinion corporate strategy seems to offer a lot of what appealed to me in operating a search fund: having the autonomy to shape the strategy of a business line or organization, using analytical frameworks to make decisions, and having P&L impact (would eventually want to be a group head in charge of my own P&L).
Is my line of thinking wrong here for what the job actually entails?
I do enjoy my job most of the time. It’s intellectually stimulating and there is clear upward mobility. I get to shape my career where I am at and have implicit executive support to do so. It provides a lot of autonomy as well - no one is dictating how I do my work. I’m trusted to figure things out and do not generally serve any biases, which keeps the work I do intellectually honest. Moreover, I get to pick or define about half of the projects I work on.
I will say my current experience is partly due to working at a startup and a function of a generally good culture. Working at a large company, corp strat can also be fulfilling but you will deal with more politics, bias, and rigidity which could impact the intellectual honesty of some your work. Meaning you could face more situations where you are explicit or implicitly told to produce work products supporting a predetermined outcome. Moreover, you will not have nearly as much leeway to pick your projects or define them, which should be expected as there is likely more hierarchy.
Your description of what you are seeking is an ideal corp strategy job. You can certainly find a lot of companies that would largely fit the bill for what you are looking for but be thorough in your diligence on companies and teams if you interview. The worst version of the big company corp strategy role is where you rubber stamp or kill most projects based on what your boss or a business partner tells you before any work is done. Another crappy role would be doing a bunch of low impact work for other groups (e.g., competitive intelligence and reporting-esque analytics).
None of the examples you provided would indicate you're a negative person, but one who is capable of putting aside personal biases and perspectives to think things through objectively. Most people fail to see things objectively, which hinders their success and or happiness. I think you and I see things very similarly, and it is one of the reasons I never watch my football team. If I want to watch football, I'll watch the Chief game, as at least it will be entertaining.
Sounds like you're born to be in credit my friend
negativity =/= skepticism
negativity is more just like this won't work/we won't do it, etc. without really carrying how plausible the arguments sounds or not interested in hearing contra arguments to your critique - it's like an unjustified abstention or trying extremely hard to not do something notwithstanding how plausible the arguments may be or finding 1 irrelevant flaw among 50 good arguments and pointing repeatedly to that flaw
skepticism is similar to the above, but you're open to pursue something (an investment for ex.) as long as all your concerns are answered and you're really confident that the risk can be properly managed; you're questioning everything, you have some critiques, but you're still open to consider it as long as those concerns are properly addressed
so skimming through your post, I think that negativity is still toxic, but skepticism is a must for risk management in any field, and I think you meant to refer to skepticism instead of negativity, and how that it is not toxic, to which I fully agree.
Go to law school. Then you can say you're negative because you're a lawyer and everyone will accept that.
Kind as alluded above, negative and toxic are two different things. Mainly buzz words.
- I'd say theres negative view points, and there's outright being negative (or toxic ?). Meaning, you can't shoot down every idea or think everything is dumb or hate everything the second you hear it, thats toxic or just being negative to be negative. But if you hear investment ideas and have though out why they are bad, its fine to have a negative view point.
- Next, I'd say, just because people do things as work doesn't mean they feel good about them ether. Look, most people are making decisions in their job for (a) the short term (b) to keep their jobs. So if Company A makes a streaming service (even if its unprofitable) Company B needs to do the same thing. Or, say your company makes movies, you don't get fired for remaking a Disney Movie, but you might get fired for taking a shot on a random script you think is "good".
- Negative can sound smart most of the time because usually people give a reason or facts for being negative. Think about whenever someone wants to buy a lottery ticket, its probably negative to tell them they wouldn't win or that the percentage chance of getting hit by lightning is higher than winning or a bunch of other stats, but saying you have a chance, though positive, is probably not the correct take.
- I think they did a study a while back where they asked people to predict the percentage change certain things would happen in life. There was a group of people who were very close in their guesses to the real world reality; that group was people who were diagnosed as "depressed".
- I think it was Charlie Munger who said that he and Buffett say "no" to most things. Or you look at something like Shark Tank, most of those ideas the sharks turn down. Thing is, more people on Shark Tank who are presenting have to be super positive about their company, and once you tell them its not a good idea they label you as "negative". For example, "Hi, I'm on Shark Tank. I've spent 15 years and $400K on my invention that has had $120 in sales called "the Garbage Shirt" its a shirt you wear but you can also store garbage in it."
- Also, sports wise, some people need to be positive because sports is all they have. Or any other hobby/topic is all they have, so why not be positive on it. Also, its sports, and its your team, why not be positive about it. Not saying the Saints are going to win the Super Bowl, but might as well jump on the hype train before it breaks down.
Regarding sports and my general perspective on life the point is to play to win.
So the idea of watching a team that I know isn’t particularly good or special go 8-9, 9-8 or 10-7 before getting clobbered in the playoffs by one of three teams that actually has a shot doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t fault people for watching or wanting to participate but just don’t understand the delusional optimism fans have about their teams. It’s very much a herd mentality where people blindly support whatever their teams and their management decide to do, which I don’t understand. I’ve also found this herd mentality in corporate life as well where the majority of my coworkers would take what management said as gospel despite their being evidence of the contrary.
At the end of the day I’m someone who wants to make an impact wherever I am and have largely been disappointed with corporate life. I just don’t understand how people at places like Oracle are content putting out garbage products that are rapidly losing share to competitors as their life’s work. It’s honestly depressing that people spend their entire lives contributing to mediocrity instead of actively working to change that. I understand there is limited room at the top and that there is a lot of money in being even a mediocre enterprise SaaS solution but it’s the lack of desire to push the envelope or strive for something that personally bothers me most.
Fair points, I'd just add a couple things/ideas:
- Optimism I'd said is a two sided coin. On one hand, it's probably smarter to be negative/non-optimism because that way you are always thinking ahead, but also its probably difficult to go through life like that. For example, if you get married, should you not be optimism?
- In a way, herd mentality is how things get done. For example, every major company today started as a one person. The second person hired had to believe in the vision, or they probably won't be around long. Take Lululemon for example, if hire #2 thought that leggings was a dumb idea, they probably wouldn't be around long. Herd mentality does have drawbacks though as people do need to think about what they are doing sometimes though.
- Kind of leads to the next point, remember there are "work to live" people and "live to work people". Some people are just trying to make a paycheck then get home, so if the boss tells them to do something they do it to make it to tomorrow. A lot of companies and people are willing to stay content because (a) everyone is making money (b) its hard to change/come up with the next idea. Remember Kodak, they knew digital film was coming, but they didn't want to go digital because it would cut into their deposable camera and film business. Whoever was running Kodak at the time most likely knew this, but probably would have had to take a cut in pay or might have to step down because they don't understand the business; so they didn't go that way. Or even currently, take Kellogg, a lot of people are down on breakfast cereal right now, so they are trying things like splitting up the company or focusing on snack foods. But in reality, what do they do; if the answer was clear they would probably do it by now.
- Sports in general, its just entertainment for a lot of people. So its kind of like being optimism bleeds into not caring. At the same time, the "play to win" attitude is good because doesn't need to be adapted into every single scenario in life, especially things that are basically out of your control; i.e., major sports teams that you make no managing decisions for. Sports can be funny though, people get worked up over them but don't really have an interest outside of maybe the money they bet on them, where as owners who have a high percentage of their net worth in them probably care less.
Agree with what was said above, I'd also add a slightly different view on negativity. To me, negativity relates to work rather than investment theses - as mentioned above, that's skepticism. Negativity is not having a positive outlook around your peers and/or the work you're doing. If you get staffed on a deal when you're already on one, or have to draft slides you know won't make it into the deck, or respond to diligence questions even if they've already been asked a dozen times, being negative about it is constantly complaining/nagging, and nobody wants to be around that. Additionally, if you always question direction from vps or higher on how things should be viewed / positioned, that can come across negative as well, as they just have more reps than you and most likely see the bigger picture (there can be instances when you're right and they're wrong, but I generally haven't found this to be the case).
I believe you can be an optimistic person about work, and be a skeptic about the actual deals you're on. Negativity is contageous - if you're negative in the workspace then it may intice others to be negative as well, and that doesn't lead to a good work environment. Be optimistic / positive about the work you're doing (even if you're getting crushed) and skeptic on the actual deal
Being negative is different from being critical. Being critical comes from practicing thoughtful and perceptive analytical thinking, from experience, and from approaching problems from a rational point of view. Being negative does not mean you are practicing thoughtful analytical thinking; it just means you are approaching things with more doubt which in a way does allows you to see more issues. BUT this isn't rational and perceptive but more so an illusion of rationality that in a sense does help see more perspectives but also clouds judgement and many other perspectives. It also drains energy not just for you but also for your team. Being positive and motivated while practicing critical thinking is what makes one a key asset to any team. Being negative is a short-term shortcut to rationality - a false sense of analytical thinking and a lie to yourself.
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