Stacy Innerst, Post-Gazette

Have you ever been told that your negativity is souring the workplace? Or maybe you are sick of that constantly grumpy employee? Well, it turns out that bad moods may not be so bad after all.

The truth is, negative, pessimistic people can be good for the workplace. That's according to Jing Zhou, a Rice University associate professor who studied the effects of good and bad moods on the workplace.

She found that experiencing both positive and negative moods is best for worker quality and creativity. This may seem to go against preconceived notions about the impact of negative moods on performance, but philosophers have long stressed the importance of balancing nature's darker and lighter yin and yang forces. Both, Dr. Zhou's work suggests, are necessary for optimal productivity.

Good moods enhance expansive thinking, which can be especially useful when brainstorming strategies and future plans, she said. But bad moods demonstrate a healthy discontent with the status quo and a need to fix it -- qualities that also are useful for creative problem-solving.

"Negative moods signal a problem- atic state of affairs and propel us to systematically address the problem and fix things," she said. "Thus, they encourage a bottom-up, detail-oriented, analytic approach to understanding the situation."

In fact, good moods can be problematic because they may prevent employees from accepting a need for further effort or change.

"Positive moods inform us that all is going well and the environment is unproblematic, thereby prompting looser, less systematic and less effortful information processing," she said. So while good moods facilitate creative brainstorming, ideas generated when in a good mood may not be the most suitable for the challenge at hand.

Another recent study at the University of Toronto led by Adam Anderson also showed that employees in a bad mood may have higher focus for tasks that are more mundane or detail-oriented. In contrast, good moods can lower a worker's attention span and increase the possibility of distraction.

So does this mean that we should all be grumpy at work?

"No," Dr. Zhou cautions; good and bad moods both need to be experienced to balance each other out. Furthermore, workers can successfully combine the two states of mind only if they work in a supportive environment.

That may be all well and good, but how do we deal with a bad mood, whether it's ours or a co-worker's? The first step is to accept it, and recognize that it may be necessary. Then, take advantage of the desire to block out distractions and solve problems often brought about by a bad mood.

But while you are upset, make sure to be conscious of how your mood affects others. One simple way to do this is to be open about your state to those around you. By telling your co-workers that you are having a bad day, you can apologize in advance for any unintended consequences while also alleviating some of your stress.

The right forms of supervisory support and management also can enhance workers' productivity and innovation. Bad moods should not be viewed as problematic, Dr. Zhou points out, but workers in bad moods should be encouraged to pinpoint problem areas and develop possible solutions.

This can be done through what Dr. Zhou calls "development feedback," in which managers encourage expansive thinking among employees in a positive mood and proactive problem solving among employees in a bad mood.

So the next time you see a bad mood, embrace it. Tomorrow's cheeriness will cancel it out.