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I advise every leader, business and organisation to put on their next 2024 meeting agenda, "What makes you Optimistic?"
"It doesn't matter whether I'm optimistic or you're optimistic. It matters if we're optimistic", an expression Julio Friedmann, Chief Scientist at Carbon Direct, used in a speech on "How to harness abundant, clean energy for 10 billion people."
Julio's expression resonates with me.
Daily, "I ask people what makes you optimistic?"
Daily, I share tips and tricks on how to become more infectiously optimistic. In a presentation for small Pacific Island States entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs a few months ago, I started a new focus on "magnetic optimism."
In my "Optimism: The Why and How" workshops, I usually present the idea that optimism is central to 2020's leadership - a time characterised by falling productivity, increasing despair and a media-fed notion that people are "doing it hard" and "deserve" better.
What's most important in leadership is not optimism portrayed from the podium or the CEO email; it's harnessing the team's optimism.
After COVID, a Melbourne leader asked me to do an Optimism: The Why and How session with his team. As I went around the circle, one woman answered, "What makes me optimistic? My garden and my pets."
The subsequent conversation generated much laughter, AND the boss got it! After the session, he told me he had never talked to this lady about gardening or pets, only work-related matters. You can imagine the increase in energy when casual conversation steered its way to the things that lifted the spirits and productivity of that lady.
I advise every leader, business and organisation to put on their next 2024 meeting agenda, "What makes you Optimistic?"
Add the definition, "Optimism is a belief that good things will happen and that things will work out in the end."
How else will you know what makes the others optimistic? Our research shows optimism usually comes from life experience, the home and the heart and not from company purpose or grand speeches by organisational leaders.
Let me know how you go. Think about doing this every three months or so.
You are welcome to use my global optimism survey, and I can feed back to you on how your team compares with our global results, asking, "What makes you Optimistic?"
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