The Positive Loop is a leadership tool that promotes trust and openness in communication. We speak of the “positive loop” to illustrate the feedback: If you specifically filter out the positive parts of a counterpart’s reaction and address them, there is a great chance that the other person will also get moving (himself!) and work on a solution. Sometimes it is doubted that a positive basic attitude can be a “tool”. But that’s just the kicker, as you’ll discover when you adopt this attitude toward someone who has been indifferent or dismissive to you and whom you can now suddenly get to move. In other words, being positive about someone is not an empirical decision, but a strategic one.
Often, a brief signal along the lines of “I understand your situation and know you are doing everything possible” is enough to turn the conversation around completely. Every communication and every human interaction has an emotional undercurrent that we should not underestimate. Thus, the Positive Loop addresses the possible positive intentions of my counterpart, while the Negative Loop brings the negative ones to the fore. This is not an idealistic concept, but an effective communication strategy based on the resonance principle. Whether the other person really has and feels in himself a good intention, this question is not so important at first. It’s about the conversational dynamics that emerge from your basic mindset.
The following conversation excerpts suggest how the Positive Loop can be implemented in conversation:
a) Listening and specifying
Employee: “Nobody asks me here!”
Executive: “So you want to be more involved in the preparation?”
b) Confirmation
Employee: “It’s not possible until the end of the week. I am already at the limit.”
Manager: “I realize that this is an awkward time and that you have a lot on your plate right now. Let’s look at how … ”
c) Solution-oriented language
Employee: “Now we have to rewrite the template again?!”
Executive: “It’s about tweaking the graphics so our message comes across even better.”
In addition, there are a number of other discussion techniques, all of which aim to activate the counterpart and are based on the basic attitude that the counterpart acts in a self-determined manner and does not close himself off to a fair dialogue. We will go into these in more detail in the coming weeks.
In my experience, anyone who has mastered the Positive Loop in conducting conversations already has 50% of the success of the conversation in the bag.
Contribution by Dr. Bernhard Cevey,
CEO CEVEYGROUP
#leadership #leadership #communication #leadership #strategy
