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The Power of Positive Pessimism

By Jack Malcolm / 4.23.2013 / 7 Comments

Winners drink from both

Which of these teams would you rather be on?

The first is famous for taking on highly dangerous and seemingly impossible challenges. Its individual members are known for their high self-confidence, tough-mindedness, and indomitable wills. They are the ultimate can-do optimists.

The other team obsesses about planning; they envision everything that can possibly go wrong, they build in as much room for error as possible before they try anything, and they do everything they can to stack the odds in their favor before acting. Call them the ultimate pessimists.

Most people, especially readers of this blog, would choose the first. After all, optimism is practically a religion in America. The idea of a positive mental attitude has become so ingrained in American thinking that it verges on political incorrectness to question it. You can never win an argument with someone who says that you can do anything you set your mind to, because they take it on faith. A positive attitude is often based on faith and emotion, and anyone who points out practical deficiencies and obstacles is seen as lacking in the right stuff.

But when you take a closer look at what the experts say about it, the picture that emerges is a bit more complicated. In fact, the descriptions above both describe the same team: US Navy SEALs. It turns out that optimism and pessimism are not polar opposites—they can coexist in the same person or team at the same time, and the right mixture at the right time can be critical to your success.

Optimism and pessimism are not opposite ends of a spectrum. They can coexist in the same person at the same time

In The Positive Power of Negative Thinking, Julie K. Norem tells us that optimism and pessimism are not actually opposites, as two points on a straight line. Think of each characteristic as being at right angles to each other, as in each axis of a graph. In this way, it’s possible to understand that high (or low) levels of both optimism and pessimism can coexist in one person at the same time.

Combine these two attributes, and you’re at the top right of the scale. You have big-picture optimism, but fine-detailed pessimism. You have high confidence not because you ignore the dangers, but precisely because you acknowledge and respect them, and then do everything possible to avert, mitigate, or deal with them. And because you’ve thought about them, your mind is better prepared because you’ve probably mentally rehearsed the situation already. Norem calls this defensive pessimism, but I prefer the term positive pessimism.

The right mixture at the right time can be critical to your success

If you think of a competition or major undertaking as a process, there are three distinct phases. The first is the decision whether to play. The second is the preparation. The third is the actual performance.

Whether to play: You have to be optimistic to take on the challenge.

Most people will not undertake something challenging unless they think they have a chance of succeeding. Po Bronson in his book, Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing, tells us that optimists lose more often, for two reasons. First, they take greater risks, and second, they are much less realistic in assessing their own abilities. (Which is one reason you see people make complete idiots of themselves on shows like American Idol.) But optimists also win more, because they compete more often, which is why an unknown long-shot from Illinois to run for president and actually win.[1]

Yet at this stage some negative thinking can also help. Negative thinking is about realizing that it’s not true that you can do anything you set your mind to. Accepting your limitations frees you to focus on the things you can do, and developing those strengths you do have. A positive thinker will take a bad shot in hopes of making it; a negative thinker will help the team by passing to someone who is open or who has a better chance of making it. A coach, or any other leader, will work with the limitations of his individuals to form a better team.

Pessimism and negative thinking during the preparation phase can increase your chances for success.

Bobby Knight, in his book, The Power of Negative Thinking, makes a strong case to counterbalance the idea that you should always be positive. Although the common wisdom tells us that you can’t be a winner without positive thinking, Knight’s lifetime winning record in NCAA basketball history, adds weight to his views.

One of Knight’s themes is that determination and a positive attitude are no substitute for hard work, preparation, and planning. He quite correctly attacks the “don’t worry, be happy” school of success. He tells us that in his experience more most basketball games are not won, they are lost. In other words, mistakes do more to determine the loser than positive thinking and desire and will to win determine the winner.

Negative thinking is similar to Andy Grove’s philosophy that only the paranoid survive. It’s about being fully aware of all the things that could go wrong, and then preparing so that they don’t, or so that you can overcome them when they do happen.

Ironically, when pessimists do their job right, no one notices. Heidi Grant Halvorson tells the story of the Mars Climate Orbiter which missed its target by 100 kilometers, costing NASA $125 million. The fault was traced to a unit conversion error: the NASA engineers worked in metric and the Lockheed Martin worked in English units. Potential errors such as this are caught all the time by people who pay close attention, but “No one says ‘Way to convert those units from inches to centimeters, Bob. You just saved us $125 million dollars and a boatload of humiliation. You rock!’”[2]

During the “game”, it pays to think positive. Playing not to lose can actually decrease your chances of winning.

Once all the preparation is over and you’re in the arena, it’s time to trust your training and preparation and focus all out on the positive aim of winning.

As Bronson says, “The hallmark characteristics of playing to win are an intensification of effort and continuous risk taking. The equivalent for playing not to lose is conservatism and trying to avoid costly mistakes. Under intense pressure, though, having a strategy of avoiding mistakes leads, by itself, to more mistakes. This is the paradox of playing not to lose.”

As evidence, he cites these extraordinary statistics from professional soccer matches that end in penalty kicks to determine the winner. In soccer, the true odds of making a penalty kick are 85%. Yet, when kickers are in the position where their kick will win the match, they make it 92% of the time. When they have to make the last kick to avoid a loss, they make it 62% of the time.

Positive pessimism is not an oxymoron—it’s a highly adaptive, effective and professional response to difficulty and risk. Positive pessimism does not let anxiety prevent action—it harnesses anxiety to produce positive action, when it’s applied at the right time.

[1] I’m referring to Lincoln, of course. Who did you think I meant?

[2] http://www.heidigranthalvorson.com/2013/04/are-you-unsung-hero.html

Sales

How Not to Write a Prospecting Email

By Jack Malcolm / 4.18.2013 / 1 Comment

If you want to learn how to write prospecting emails that work, one of the easiest ways is to pay attention to those that are sent to you. In some cases, one will pique your interest, and you can analyze it to see what worked.

In the huge majority of cases,however, the best way to learn from them is to figure out what not to do. An email I received this morning is a case in point.

Ironically, it’s from a company that purports to improve my marketing and help my company “GET NOTICED!”

“My company (deleted) specializes in getting attention for our clients. Clients like, Google, ESPN, Intel, Intuit, Discovery Channel, etc., but our services and solutions work for any size company.”

There are four things right off the top of my head that I can find wrong with this message:

They clearly know nothing about my company.
If they did, they would know it is microscopic compared to those cited, so why in the world would I be interested in the same thing that they use? If they were smart, they would have at least checked out my web site, combed through their customer list, and put in some names that would at least have a realistic chance of getting my attention.
If they’re doing things for those guys, whatever they’re selling would be way out of my price range.
It also sends the message that if I hire them, I’ll be competing with some very important clients for their attention and best work.

Attention marketers: anything you send to me may be used in my blog for teaching purposes—usually as a cautionary example of what not to do. I may even start leaving in your names, just so you can GET NOTICED!

Book reviews

Give and Take Book Review

By Jack Malcolm / 4.17.2013 / 1 Comment

Although 2013 is still young, I predict that Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success, by Wharton professor Adam Grant, has a great chance of being the best book I’ve read all year, for three reasons: it’s inspirational, it’s instructional, and it’s solidly research-based.

The premise of the book is quite simple: the world comprises three types of people: givers, takers and matchers. Which type tends to be most successful? Although we’ve all been raised on the homily that it’s better to give than to receive, the bad news is that the left side of most bell curves is populated by givers, those who contribute more to others than they expect in return. Quite simply, they do less for themselves, people take advantage of them, and they are prone to burnout.

But the real surprise is that the right side of bell curves is also a givers’ neighborhood. Combining extensive research with inspiring examples, Grant shows us how and why successful givers do well for themselves at the same time that they contribute so much to others. Successful givers approach four principal aspects of relationships differently. The four aspects are networking, collaborating, developing talent and communicating.

Successful givers are excellent networkers, but so are a lot of takers and matchers. The difference is that successful givers proactively do things without expectation of return, creating goodwill and possibly setting an example that may be contagious. One of the excellent tips in this chapter is the suggestion to revive dormant connections. The benefit is that when most people tap into their network for help, their strong ties are trusting and disposed to help, but their weak ties have more diverse information. People you haven’t talked to in a long time combine the assets of strong ties and weak ties.

Givers are also excellent collaborators, quick to help others in a team environment and without spending too much time worrying about who gets credit. They tend to demonstrate what the National Outdoor Leadership School calls expedition behavior, putting the needs of the mission and the team ahead of your own. In the long run, this behavior increases their prestige and the willingness of others to help them when they need it.

Givers are also excellent at spotting talent, because they’re not worried about creating rivals who may outshine them. Also, because they tend to assume competence and talent on the part of others, they may be generating self-fulfilling prophecies. I found this chapter to be rather long on anecdote and thin on evidence, but the next chapter made up for it.

For me the meatiest chapter covered the successful practices that givers follow in communicating with others, in presenting, selling, and negotiating. Successful givers ask more meaningful questions and have an effective mix of confidence and humility in their advocacy. They also tend to be good at perspective-taking, which is the cognitive equivalent of empathy: instead of feeling what the other person is feeling, they are adept at thinking what they’re thinking. In studies, people with high empathy do worse in creating value, because they are more apt to give the other person what they want. Those high in perspective taking are better at coming up with creative ideas to give both sides more of what they want.

The second section of the book is for those who are too giving, and tend to fall at the bottom of the success distribution because they get taken advantage of and exhaust their energies serving others rather than themselves. The key insight is that self-interest and other-interest are not opposite points on a single line; they are separate axes on a graph. Those who give too much have a high score for other-interest, and a low score for self-interest. Successful givers are at the top right of the graph, combining a high other-focus with high self-interest. As a result, they are in better control of their giving, seeing it as a positive choice rather than an obligation, and being more proactive in allocating their giving time and energy.

If you get inspired by Grant’s book, what you’ll really want to know is how to become a more successful giver. The Catch-22 is that giving has to be sincere if it’s to work, and if you try to make it strategic it’s not sincere. I do think, however, that if you begin changing your behavior for strategic purposes, and start doing more for others, two positive things may happen. First, regardless of the motive, you’re contributing to the sum total of benefit and happiness. Even more important is that your attitude may begin to catch up with your actions. The mind does not like cognitive dissonance, so if we’re acting in a giving manner we will begin to see ourselves more as givers, leading to a virtuous circle. The book finishes with ten suggestions for becoming more of a giver—I’ll keep you posted on how it works.

The one weakness in the book is that in some of the chapters, as mentioned above, there was less evidence than it seemed on first reading. You get pulled in to the inspiring stories, but on closer reading you don’t find enough evidence to be able to make up your mind whether those examples are the rule or the exception.

Despite this, the message in Grant’s book is so powerful that I give it five stars. But it’s not a gift—it’s truly earned. The book itself is a gift to anyone who reads it, and to countless others who may be on the receiving end of their stepped-up giving.

Presentations

Should You Ever Show Weakness During a Presentation?

By Jack Malcolm / 4.16.2013 / No Comment

One of the great things about reading books about psychology is that you learn the scientific reasons for your past screw-ups. Adam Grant’s new book, Give and Take, summarized a lesson that I learned through trial and error many years ago.

Having been a commercial banker before making the switch to sales training in the early 1990s, I was acutely aware that the participants in the classes I facilitated had far more experience in high-tech complex sales than I did. I tried to compensate by downplaying my lack of experience and stressing other credentials.

I very quickly found out, however, that most people saw right through my little charade, although there were two different reactions: some thought it made me look defensive while others perceived me to be arrogant.

But I also discovered that as long as I was competent in the topic I was teaching, they did not care how much experience I had. Going further, I saw that being completely open about my weaknesses would actually make me more credible in the audience’s view.

Grant calls it the pratfall effect, citing a study in which an audience viewed a tape in which a candidate for a spot on a Quiz Bowl team spilled coffee on his suit. Those candidates who came in with a high score on their qualifying exam were viewed more favorably after the clumsy incident, while those with a low score were viewed less favorably.

The point is that expressing vulnerability to an audience can make them like you more, if they have already seen other signals of your competence. If they don’t see you as competent to begin with, vulnerability or imperfection will give them another reason to like you less. But if they see you as competent, imperfection humanizes you and makes you seem like a regular person.

Although Grant does not say it, it appears to me that it’s another manifestation of confirmation bias at work. The vulnerability that you show, perhaps by admitting to a weakness, works in the direction to further confirm whatever impression they have already formed.

The interesting paradox is that being self-deprecating can pump up your persuasive power, but you have to earn the right to be self-deprecating. Otherwise, it can come across as false modesty, which is perceived as another form of arrogance. It reminds me of a wonderful quote by Golda Meir:

“Don’t be so humble. You’re not that great.”

In my own situation, the audience had already received signals of my competence: the first was the fact that their company had hired ours to conduct sales training, and the second was that usually their boss or another respected authority figure would introduce me.

There’s another dynamic at work. If you’re making a strategic sales presentation, you are likely presenting to high-ranking individuals who control the purse strings that will determine your fate. In the subtle dynamic of interpersonal relationships, they see themselves as high-status individuals compared to you. Trying to come across as too perfect may challenge their status, while a little humility on your side can put them at ease and makes them more favorably disposed to listen.

If you do reveal a weakness, it should be about something over which you have no control. In my own case, I could not go back and change my past, so it was OK to be candid about it. On the other hand, if you apologize up front because you did not have time to fully prepare for the presentation, your listeners will probably punish you for it. It will sound like an excuse and will prime them to look for additional flaws.