 According to a new study, rudeness at work is contagious. Are we snapping each other's heads off? What's going on here? I have no idea. Joining us on the Coco News Live Line, I mean, we're just sunshine and roses here at Coco, is workplace culture expert Jason Troy. Hey, good morning, Jason. Good morning. Thanks for having me on the show again. Sure. No problem. All right. So why please tell us? Thank you. Are people being so rude? Well, I don't think it's a new thing. I think it's an ongoing thing that's been happening. And it's just another study, a study came out who talked about how it's costing organizations, you know, $14,000 per employee when you have uncivility in a workplace environment because negative emotions just like positive spread like the common cold. And that's the thing, you know, we see it so much online and maybe that's exacerbated because it seems to be so outrageous, you know, trolls who go on and are really horrible to other people. Are we kind of trolling each other a little bit? Yes. And I think that the challenge is when you're in a workplace environment today, I mean, we're inundated with online things. We're inundated with dealing with, you know, highlight reels on Facebook of people of what they're doing in their life. I think a lot of people go into work with disappointment on that expectation. And then they take it out on the people that are closest to them, which is the people they work with every single day. And that causes a lot of unrest on, you know, lack of productivity and a lot of negative things that can emanate from having unhappy people inside of your organization. So what are the best ways to turn things around or can you? Well, I think one of the challenges that comes from all this is you have a leader or manager who's actually, you know, being negative, right, or rude or uncivil, like that's a problem because self-awareness is the key piece of this for leaders in an organization. And then I think addressing it with individuals that are showing consistent behavior like this, I think also trying to do things in an organization that brings people closer together on a consistent basis, like team building exercises or sharing things or doing things where you're creating more bonds where people don't want to let each other down. Because if they don't want to let each other down, they're going to be much more positive or they'll communicate better with each other. Now let's, let's just, you know, say that you have one, you know, you've got that one person in the office who's just consistently negative and growling all the time. How as a boss should you deal with that person? Well, I think you need to sit them down and be a straight shooter and tell them exactly what that negative behavior is doing, that it's causing other people to be negative. It's causing lack of collaboration. It's causing people to be closed off, and that's costing business money. And we need you to be more positive in the workplace and also inquire why they're being so negative. Maybe they're having some problems that you can help them with that they don't have another outlet to deal with it, which is usually the case. People aren't negative for just no reason at all. Something is going on in their life to cause that. And I think as a manager and as a boss, you need to help people, whether it's personally or professionally, to get past that. Okay. Now let's look at it the other way, Jason. What if your boss is the negative one and is spreading all that down? You know, that's a lot more sticky situation because I think having conversations upwards, I mean, you can try to have them, but you better have them in a very collegial way. And also I think you need to start looking for a new job because you can't, very difficult to change a boss from what they're doing or a manager, owner of a company. It's just, it's probably not going to happen. And it's probably your time to better spend an environment that's going to be better suited for you than trying to do that level of an uphill battle. Now, if you are a boss and you have a manager that you know is negative, but they're a good manager outside of that, they're somebody who's skilled, whatever. How do you approach that manager with, with, you know, again, trying to sort of ease them out of that negativity? Well, I think that you need to show them that being positive, it's like bees will attract more, you know, they'll attract more with honey than vinegar. And I think you've got to, you got to tell them that if you want to go up the corporate ladder, you have to motivate people, you have to make them want to be hungry and positive because you're going to get more out of them. And if you choose not to, you're going to stall and plateau your career and you're not going to get any higher than where you are right now. You can also try to get them in some management or leadership classes or some personal development things that can also help them see some of their blind spots. Because often what happens is that people just can't see these blind spots. That's what they are. And they don't really know what they're doing because they've been doing it for so long. It's just a common thing in their life. Jason, thank you again. That's Jason Troy, workplace culture expert joining us about rudeness in the workplace on the Kogo News Live Line.