Optimism is a favourite topic for coaches, and quite rightly so. There is now so much important literature about it and its consequences.
I am on record as saying that optimism is a pre-requisite for success in leadership and management, and probably every major area of our life, including relationships. For, after all, what kind of relationship would it be in which either or both people in it expected 'things' to turn out badly? (The answer to that question, incidentally, for those interested is: we'd be in a 'Soap', a real life and popular soap). One of the core reasons for promoting optimism as a way of life and also as a fixed mindset is the simple fact of the self-fulfilling prophesy: what we believe tends to affect how things turn out. GK Chesterton put it well when he said, “At least in the mind of man, if not in the nature of things, there seems to be some connection between concentration and reality”. Or, what we think about … materializes.
Given all that, however, I think it important to strike a blow for true optimism rather than a rather pernicious form of pseudo-optimism, which regularly surfaces on chat forums, especially from coaches and others actively involved in the the personal development movement.
I encountered it only the other day. A discussion was under-way about selling and why 'sales' was a dirty word in Britain, and somebody chipped in with a heart-felt critique of British society and the expectation that selling was a rip-off because of the banks, the politicians and others that had contaminated our perception of fair play. Some immediately assumed this was 'negative' and discounted the input.
And this is the point: optimism is about positive expectations – things turn out well for those imagining things turning out well – but it is not about discounting reality, turning a blind eye to negative things, people and events – as if seeing just how bad something or someone is means one is not being optimistic. In order to be fully optimistic we need to embrace just how bad some things, events and people get.
Thus, we really ought to chip in and attack the banks, especially their senior management for appalling incompetence, insensitivity and greed. Optimism requires we do so; and then, may be, we can hope to see a better world beyond whereby in a democracy perhaps this time public opinion will lead to lasting change and a better banking system. Further, and optimistically, we can all learn more caution with our banks – be less trusting of their advice and perhaps begin to see that our money might be better off elsewhere. Optimistically, diversity of investment becomes a consequence of their incompetence. The crisis, then, becomes a spur to improve our situation.
Similarly with politicians: pretending we are in a world of trust and benefit, that any one person or party could be trusted, would not be being optimistic, it would be being foolish; it would be turning our radars off as the missiles were coming in. It would be … pollyannish. And there's the word: pollyanna – “someone whose optimism may verge on the insufferable” (Chambers Dictionary). Yes, insufferable and unreal. Things are going to turn out much better – say I optimistically – if we critique the leadership of the Labour Party, if we insist on leaving Europe, if we tell British Prime Ministers to stop going to war at the hint of a pseudo-moral position that seems to apply nowhere else in the world.
Ah – I feel so much better getting that off my chest – I feel more optimistic: I am sure things are going to turn out well for all of us.
The Mapping Motivation Series 