What kind of optimist are you?

As a business architect, I'm often involved conversations about the future of organizations. If you've facilitated these kinds of conversations, you've probably seen someone react badly to another person's statements because they feel the other person is "too pessimistic" or "too optimistic" -- or they might call an idea "unrealistic", "idealistic", "passive", or "reactive".

When people start from quite different worldviews and don't discuss those before discussing ideas, the difference in their starting positions can really affect their ability to collaborate. On this subject, I was recently referred to an interesting facilitation technique on optimism and pessimism. You can reference the original article here:

• P. Hayward and S. Candy, The Polak Game or, Where Do You Stand? (Journal of Futures Studies 2017)

The authors cite Fred Polak, who proposed that when people accuse each other of optimism or pessimism, they are often talking about two distinct things:

• How you feel about how things are going, as opposed to
• How you feel about your ability to influence things

The authors propose that a good start for a group conversation about the future is to ask people to situate themselves in the following quadrants, and then share and discuss their position:

Things are getting better, but I can't really influence things	Things are getting better, and I can act to influence things
Things are getting worse, and I can't really influence things	Things are getting worse, but I can act to influence things

Adapted from: P. Hayward and S. Candy, The Polak Game (2017)

I have yet to apply this as a facilitation step, but I can see the influence it has on conversations and I think it's helpful to hold in mind when working with others on business architecture topics such as strategy and goals.

Here's an example:

Personally, I fall in the bottom right quadrant -- I'm never satisfied with how the organization is working, but I'm always confident something can be done about it. I think of this as consistent with my role as a business architect; I should be able to forecast problems and propose solutions.

I work with at least one senior manager who likely falls in the top left quadrant -- in his view the organization is doing fine and continuously getting better at its mission, but we have little or no opportunity to make big changes or investments.

When we work on strategy together, these worldviews sometimes collide. We can agree on a major driver and a desired outcome, yet not on what to do about it, or whether to. I might propose a significant initiative that he'd characterize as "unrealistic", and he might say we'll get there anyway -- in a way I'd reflexively think of as "complacent". Other people in the room with other worldviews would think of each idea yet another way. All of them are committed to the discussion, but their stance toward the future is different.

As a facilitator, it's difficult to be neutral toward this. A facilitator's worldview colors how they set up the conversation from the outset, and can frustrate people with other worldviews. I've certainly found myself pushing groups to ideate on solutions where many participants don't seem to see a problem, or don't think anything can be done. Sometimes that's just a gap in information -- sometimes it's a difference in worldview. Then it's time to step back and think about what conversation to have.

Can we stretch this model from individuals to organizations and leadership? Outwardly, most organizations I can think of present themselves in the top right quadrant: we should feel good about what's happening, and we can make things even better. (Perhaps nonprofits working on advocacy or aid fall more in the bottom right: bad things are happening, but we can make a difference.)

Different parts of the same organization may feel differently. Comparing the strategy and vision of  service teams in the same portfolio, I've seen a wide range. For example, a long-standing operational team might frame its work in terms of just staying afloat in the face of increasing demand (bottom left) -- while a new product teams might be riding a wave of new demand and exuberantly adding to its offerings (top right).

That variation might be fine for the individual teams much of the time, but it might be an obstacle in a major change effort. In constructing a vision for change, leaders build on a worldview. For example, in the framework Kotter offers in Leading Change, a vision in the bottom right quadrant is useful because it conveys urgency as well as sense of purpose. But when that vision is widely shared, leaders might find that it isn't really being heard in teams with different worldviews.

So, what kind of optimist or pessimist are you? And have you seen these worldviews affect conversations you're in? What did you do about it?