We’re willing to spot problems and fix them, but sometimes we forget to see what’s going right.
Take this example: I saw Janeen propose a new business process to the marketing leadership team. I was impressed by her clarity, her power of persuasion and the way she demonstrated her value. His proposal was accepted unanimously. Then I asked her how she thought it went. “I didn’t have enough data on the ROI of tech stack additions.”
What? Despite her fantastic performance and great result, this MOps star focused on just one review. Instead of rejoicing, she was carried away by negative prejudices.
Our brain is programmed in such a way that risks, losses, criticism and bad news influence us more strongly than equivalent gains or good news. This may have an evolutionary origin: if our ancestors heard rustling in the bushes, it was better to assume it was a tiger rather than risk being eaten. It can also push us towards negativity.
Early in my management career, I was told that I needed nine “good jobs!” » to counter an “oh, no!” I don’t know if this 9:1 ratio is literally correct, but it’s a colorful way to remember the influence of our brain’s natural negative tilt.
Reasonable caution helps. Overly optimistic people ignore precautions, fail to make contingency plans, produce inaccurate forecasts, and take unwarranted risks. However, pessimism is more common, especially in times of uncertainty. Negative biases can make us feel like our gloominess is fair and reasonable. But is this the case?
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4 tips for more balance and realism
The penalty for excessive negativity is less joy and fewer opportunities. To test whether our pessimism makes sense and balance our views, we need disciplined rationality.
1. Start with awareness
The first step to countering excess negativity is to understand its impact.
| Positive aspect of reality | Effect of negativity bias | Behavioral Examples |
| People and organizations are kinder, more talented, more helpful and more moral than we think. | Excessive risk aversion. We lose future profits because short-term problems seem very urgent. | – Additional layers of approval and risk controls. – Sticking to the status quo instead of investing in innovation, experimentation or new products and brands. – Spend a disproportionate amount of time correcting errors. – Being too quick to cut budgets in times of uncertainty. |
| There are more positive things happening around us than we imagine. | Ignoring or glossing over favorable news and indicators while hyper-focusing on unfavorable elements. | – Updating positive metrics if a poor metric is present. – Excessive worry about complaints or criticism despite receiving many compliments. – Doom scrolling. |
| People and organizations are kinder, talented, helpful and more moral than we think. | Failing to notice positive attributes while struggling to let go of flaws. | – Avoid partners or suppliers after a single failure. – Writing performance reviews that focus too much on mistakes. – Rejecting excellent candidates because of a small weakness. – Let incidents permanently dominate perception. |
2. Systematically assess reality
The next step is to apply disciplined, data-driven approaches to countering bias. The complexity of marketing now exceeds our individual cognitive abilities. We need tools and protocols to assess risks and rewards, opportunities and threats.
Even simple tools can be powerful. In “The Checklist Manifesto“, Atul Gawande shows how professionals from aviation to medicine use checklists to avoid overly optimistic or pessimistic decisions. My team and I applied this approach to evaluate complex tenders, where submitting a bid required significant resources. We scored opportunities using a list of defined criteria. After scoring, we paused – could we win? If so, we invested heavily. Otherwise, we declined.
AI enables more sophisticated assessment. Try to create a structured decision-making framework with instructions that require a balanced consideration of best, worst, and expected cases.
3. Diversify perspectives
Social situations amplify the power of prejudice. Talking about sadness and unhappiness with others, in person and on social media, reinforces negativity. Information bubbles and algorithmic manipulation distort perspective.
To counter this, ask for alternative opinions and encourage healthy debate. A significant advantage of the tender process I described came from the presence of a multidisciplinary team. Because sales were more optimistic and technical experts were more cautious, the debate wasn’t always easy, but marketing added balance, and the mix ensured that neither excess optimism nor pessimism skewed decisions.
Pessimism is omnipresent in current business data. For example, customer service logs are inherently negative, and online content promotes alarming and critical stories.
AI systems can expand sources of information. By analyzing and synthesizing large data sets of information such as customer reviews, market signals and performance metrics, AI counters the human tendency to focus on vivid anecdotes and recent negative comments. To ensure balance in this process, companies should prevent AI systems from being trained on data that overrepresents negative information (e.g. risk reports, complaints, news headlines).
4. Adjust your mindset
A calm and confident mind goes a long way in offsetting negative biases.
- Look for the positive. Practice the “three good things” method by ending each day by remembering what went well. Stop and savor good experiences to strengthen the positive neural connections in your brain.
- Spend less time mired in the news and minimize sharing things that encourage negativity. Limit negative discussions to what is truly necessary.
- Reframe negative feedback constructively, quickly and skillfully. Customers also face negative bias. Counter this by assessing and addressing the root causes of complaints.
- Embrace the complexity of the real world. Think about how difficulties can become opportunities. Remember that things can be bad now and get better later.
Yes, problems need our attention. But we can improve our ability to contribute to solutions by investing in the positive. Optimists drive progress, foster resilience, and turn obstacles into opportunities. As Henry Ford said: “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, either way, you’re right.” »
