The destructive power of toxic optimism - Part 1.

Maybe a better title would be, “why toxic positivity is like gangrene to your organization.”

I titled it this way on purpose, not as clickbait, but to get your attention. I do not want this post lost in the weeds of all the unhelpful messaging and advice on the topic of optimism. If it was as simple as "Optimism is always good, pessimism is always bad," you could stop reading now. “The glass is half full. Got it! Message received."

But it’s not that simple. It is nuanced like any conversation about complex systems like society, work, and culture, and the words matter. Unhealthy optimism is harder to identify, but it will kill your team culture as surely as more overtly destructive methods. It may not happen as fast, but when it does, watch out! My hope in writing is that you will be able to realize that toxic positivity is a real thing, learn how to identify it, and take action to root it out of your organization.

When we hear the word optimism, most of us picture a glass of water. If you are not familiar with this metaphor I’ll summarize it quickly.

“In front of you is a glass of water. The glass holds 12 ounces of water. The glass has six ounces of water. Is the glass half full or half empty?” If you believe the glass is half full you are an optimist. If you think the glass is half empty you are a pesimist. (Pauses for the big reveal) The moral of the story is that you should be an optimist.”

Then there is always that one person in the back of the room who thinks he’s obnoxiously clever and remarks, “The glass is half full with water and half full with air. The glass is wholly full. Nailed it!”. Well, I give you points for being cheeky, but not helpful. Anyway, the point of this exercise is usually to be happy and excited with what you have instead of complaining about what you don't have. And to be fair, this is often good advice.

“I have a good job but not my dream job. I’m pretty lucky.”

“I'd love to fly to Europe.” But we couldn't afford it, so we drove to the beach instead. We still had a good family vacation.”

“I wish I made 150K, but our needs are met with my 75K salary.” (Note: Median household income in the United States was $67,521 according to 2020 census data)

And we have all experienced the Debbie Downer or Eeyore persona and it made us cringe. Few things suck the life of a group of people as much as someone that thinks everything is wrong all the time. I am not advocating for the glass-is-half-empty perspective. But there are other times where the half-empty side truly makes all the difference.

“Without a critical mass of neutrons or radioactive material nuclear fission won’t happen.”

“A typical household toaster typically pulls ten amps in the electric current. If it gets five amps, it's not going to turn on.”

“If a plane needs 24,000 gallons of jet fuel to fly from New York to London, having 12,000 gallons in the fuel tank isn't pessimistic. It's a literal disaster.”

And not even the hardcore optimist, could say, “well, we do get a surprise stop in the ocean…”

So what is the difference between optimism being a helpful life strategy and a search and rescue operation a thousand miles from shore? A scientist might describe our metaphor this way. “The 12-ounce jar contains six ounces of water.” This description is neutral, without any value judgments, and an expression of objective reality. So if both optimism and pessimism can be problematic, everyone should be a realist, right? Ha! If only it were that easy.

The real world is complex and confusing sometimes and we don’t know how to interpret it. We never know the full story, all the implications or permutations, and still have to make decisions. We have experiences, feelings, past history, ways of looking at the world that make it challenging to see most of life as objectively as the scientist measuring the water.

Earlier in my career, I considered myself a realist. I recall an interview I had for a management role. I was an internal candidate with tons of subject matter expertise (but had never been a manager before). The HR representative gave me an interview and here is a portion of our conversation I’ll never forget.

Interviewer: “Do you consider yourself an optimist or a pessimist?”

Mark: “Honestly I don’t consider myself either. I consider myself a realist.”

Interviewer: “Realist? Realists are just what pessimists call themselves.”

Mark: (internally. “Ouch”)

Interviewer: (Clear that I gave the wrong response, makes notes on her clipboard. Conversation continues.)

I didn’t get the job. To be fair, at the time I had no experience or education in management. It certainly didn’t help my case that my perspective was outside her narrow view that good leaders are always optimists.

So if being an optimist, pessimist, or realist is off the table, what should we do then? We shouldn’t “be” any of them. We should behave and think in context. Rather than view ourselves through a lens of identity, “I am an optimist”, we should learn what situations require us to think or act with optimism and what do not.

Now sometimes it's easy to put things in the right context. If your spouse won half of a 200 million Lotto jackpot. Great. It would be silly to be mad that someone else won the other 100 million. Now if your daughter had only half of the pills needed to treat a horrific case of malaria…No amount of wishful thinking is going to change until someone takes action to get the other half of the treatment.

But even these “obvious” examples are not as cut and dry as we would like to believe. I remember going to an in-person conference in Las Vegas a few years ago. After one of the evening sessions ended, I decided to try my hand at a penny slot machine. My experience was the typical up and down for a few minutes until bright lights flashed and buzzers sounded. I looked upon the screen and saw “20,000 credits” on the monitor flashing in a huge typeface. My jaw dropped and I stopped breathing.

“$20,000 I can't believe it. I'm gonna buy a new car… or pay down my student loans…or…” While I was lost in thought spending my windfall, the person next to me noticed the jackpot. He taps me on the shoulder and says, “Great job, man, 200 bucks…”

“Wait… what???” And then it hits me. “I'm playing a penny slot machine. Each credit is a penny, not $1.00”

I don't think I've ever been deflated so fast or had my mood soured so quickly. The question is, “why I am I not happy?” I just won $200, but my mind was anchored to a payday of $20,000. $20,000 is what I expect. So when the prize became $200, I just lost $19,800 before I finished dreaming. And because it's a loss, that loss has to be grieved. That grieving is natural even though this whole moment happened very quickly. When I reminisce, I feel thankful I won $200. But, I also remember the emotions and the intense transition from surprise to elation to absolute deflation.

So what does a healthy optimism look like?

1) Healthy optimism doesn’t pretend things are different or better than they really are. It doesn’t ignore the truth of difficulty, pain, or suffering because it’s uncomfortable.

2) Healthy optimism accepts the reality of a situation but believes it doesn’t have to stay this way forever.

“It may be this way now, but it doesn’t have to stay that way.”

3) Healthy optimism takes actions towards making it better. It doesn’t sit around content with the status quo because “everything will work out (magically) in the end.”

to be continued…