One CEO’s ‘no complaining rule’

To build a positive workplace culture, you must deal with negativity and energy vampires head on. Like weeds in a garden, negativity suffocates what’s healthy, leaving behind a toxic work environment.

Dwight Cooper, the CEO of PPR, a nurse staffing company that was voted one of the best places to work by the Society for Human Resource Management, dealt with the negativity problem by creating a company policy he called “The No Complaining Rule.”

The rule states, “Employees are not allowed to mindlessly complain to their co-workers. If they have a complaint, they can take it to a manager or someone who can do something about the problem, but they must also offer one or two possible solutions.”

— Adapted from “The Positive Business Manifesto,” Jon Gordon, Change This.