I have always been a cup half-full person. It’s just my nature. So when I came across an article in Bloomberg Businessweek on why it’s smart to be an optimist in business, I decided to do more than read it. I decided to write about it.
In 2009, Peter Coy writes in The Case for Optimism, Why It’s Smart To Be Optimistic, “Prudence demands that you prepare yourself for all possible outcomes, including some highly positive ones.”
I like this man.
Okay, I don’t know this man (but I’d like to).
Because, I like his optimism.
You never know what’s going to happen. So, in my line of thinking, why assume it’s going to be bad. Says Paul J.H. Schoemaker, founder and executive chairman of Decision Strategies International, a consultancy in Conshohocken, Pa., quoted in Coy’s article, “For businesses, the idea is to not get locked into the current reality, but realize that the system is quite volatile and can quickly turn. You want to have strategies that can make you win, no matter what happens.”
So, if anything can happen, be practical and allow yourself to be open to all possibilities. Writes Coy, “We’re simply arguing that practical people should open their minds to the opportunities to be seized just as much as to the dangers to be dodged.”
But be rational about it.
“The case for rational optimism has two parts: First, recessions … can set the stage for future growth… Second, ingenuity is additive,” writes Coy.
“Schoemaker … says executives must fight the tendency to assume they fully grasp future risks and opportunities. ‘Ask people not just what they know but what they don’t know, what they’re not so sure about,’ he advises. Also, cultivate the ability to pick up the faint stirrings of change, even without knowing quite where to look for them. Look everywhere at once, advises Schoemaker, by using what the FBI calls ‘splatter vision’—a deliberately undirected concentration that allows the prepared mind to detect subtle irregularities… ‘The future manifests itself at the edges. The hardest thing to do in scenario planning is to get the periphery into the picture.’”
Is Coy telling those who are natural pessimists to become optimists? Can we teach old dogs new tricks? Or is he telling optimists (ever criticized for their starry-eyed tendencies) that there are pessimists in your corner silently cheering for you. In fact, is the point that the world’s pessimists need optimists on the other side of the bell curve to push us into the future? If we listen to Edward Tenner, a historian of technology and culture and, in 2009, a visiting scholar at Princeton University and the Smithsonian Institution’s Lemelson Center, then I suspect this is where Coy is going in his piece.
“We would not be where we are if our ancestors had not been kind of crazy,” says Tenner.
I’d like to think of myself as the future generation’s “kind of crazy ancestor.”
I’ll leave you with this: “There’s a misconception that pessimism is prudent because you can never go wrong by assuming the worst,” writes Coy. “In fact, getting stuck in a rut of pessimism can be just as harmful as wild-eyed euphoria … Optimists see the recession as a forest fire that clears out dead brush, making room for new growth.”
If we were all pessimists, wouldn’t we all just be closing up the doors of our businesses every time the littlest “fire” broke out?
I’d prefer to see each “fire” that I experience in my business as an event that allows me to learn, regroup and take on a new business challenge. I’d prefer to see it as an opportunity for new growth rather. I will never dwell on destruction. It’s just not in my nature.
Here’s a link to the full article. Though written a few years back, I’m optimistic that you’ll find the points well argued and timeless.
Oh, and by the way, March is Optimism Month. And no, there is no such thing as Pessimism Month.
