In fact, just pick up any local newspaper and read the front page headlines. Each article on the front page will likely emphasize some form of wrong doing. Bad news sells. This knowledge is not a big secret. We all know the truth about this human fact. Humans love to find the junk in someone else's trunk. We love to point out how rotten and terrible some other people have come to face. We love to flash additional shocking news across a banner on the bottom of the television screen during a ballgame, a reality series or even during our regular news reports! Seeing news banners flash across the bottom of a news program is almost as funny to witness as seeing a postal mail disposal box placed outside a local post office. My goodness, why locate one at the post office? You're there! Why run the news flash banners on the evening news? You're there!
The truth runs deeper than wanting bad news to happen. We want it to happen quickly. We seem to need more of it coming at a faster pace. It fills up our bad news buckets a lot faster. This is normal stuff to a human being. We circle it like hungry wolves looking for our next kill. We hunger to arrive with the next best secret of bad stuff news so we can remain on top of the negative pile. We feel kind of out of touch when we do not know about how bad stuff is really doing. When a bad news story is brought up by our co-workers and we look as if we have no knowledge of these events, our 'deer-in-the-headlights' appearance invites a swath of descriptions about that bad news from everyone else who is informed of the event. They waste no time in bringing us up to date of the bad news. It becomes much like a badge of honor.
Our need to fulfil this pattern is a stronger need than most would admit. However, it drives the lions share of the information age tools that nearly every human being seems to carry along their trail of walking through life. PDA's and mobile devices process millions of bad news stuff every single minute. They even take the liberty to send you unsolicited Amber Alerts, on your dime, and nobody becomes offended for paying that cost. It fits nicely into our realm of understanding. We feel compelled to do our duty with this terrible bad news and help out. Bad news sells. It is one of those very best kept marketing secrets that a few business models have learned how to use to their best advantage. Bad news sells.
Page two.
Given this truth that bad news sells, how well does it work in your business organization? Does your business carry the atmosphere of promoting bad news? If it does not, I would be surprised. Most business owners do not recognize how much their business models flirt with the idea of processing bad news as a normal part of their common routine. Bad news wanders about the halls like it always belongs there. It surfaces unwanted during times when it is least likely to help out. Bad news is common practice in many large organizations. It drives how those organizations function internally.
Check with any good HR department and investigate all of the ugly human relationship issues they are dealing with on a daily basis. Some business departments thrive on managing these ugly details and events. It becomes a large part of what owners must learn to deal with in their organizations. Bad news about human relationships lurks everywhere. It is driven by the need to circle bad news. It is the thing we feel most compelled to recognize. We were raised on bad news reports flowing across our lower mental screens. We have become familiar with the idea that bad news must be present. We seem to need it.
As a result, something like praise and approbation gets left behind. These elements of human promotion become scarcely recognized. We do not flop this kind of stuff onto the front page of the local newspaper. We rarely tell our neighbors about how well they are doing with their garden work. We never compliment them about how nicely behaved their barking dog has become. Humans are not very good at the praise and approbation game. It just does not fit well into our chemistry of wanting more bad news. Praise and approbation rubs against what we think life should be. It sounds unreal, fake and not parallel with the reality of how bad things really are. Humans have reduced their ability to find the good in how others move and behave. It is common to witness how this pattern of humanity has become part of our daily lives. Our business models project this very same demeanor. They become habits we come to ignore.
This offers every business owner an opportunity. Each owner must bring themselves to ask the real question about how well their business model offers higher levels of praise and approbation? How well is your model doing on this scale? How much praise and approbation floats around your business atmosphere? Does praise and approbation represent your business culture? Do your employees and staff members dig deeper to promote increased efforts for improving more recognition and more praise? Does your business honor these elements to success? Do your key leaders fully comprehend how much good this kind of atmosphere does? Do they understand the importance of appropriate recognition? Do they know how success is linked to these unique attributes? If not, why not?
A business that is going somewhere good is a business that is recognizing the good its people are doing. This is not a big secret but it is often times forgotten. Praise and approbation comes loaded in the organizations that excel well. These are the business models that seem to have the most good going for them. They recognize the good stuff and have no problem placing it on the front pages of the newsletters they publish. They skip bringing people down and promote lifting them up. Maybe it is time for your organization to take a refreshed look at how badly your bad news sells. Get more in-tune to the positive side of how things are going to be done. Press the refresh button on approbation. See what it brings.
Until next time...
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