Optimism vs Pessimism
We’re brand mentoring for a London law firm at the moment. And during our research we came across a fascinating insight into the psyche of lawyers.
Professor Martin Seligman and his team; ‘tested the entire entering class of the Virginia Law School in 1990 with a variant of the optimism-pessimism test. The pessimists outperformed more optimistic students on the traditional measures of achievement, such as grade point averages and law journal success.’
In other words, pessimists make better lawyers.
Given the need to imagine the legal worst and to manage their clients’ affairs accordingly, it seems perfectly clear why pessimism is relevant, not to say a requirement, for lawyers.
(Let the imagination run wild for a moment and a whole world of risk opens up, like a disaster movie cast solely with pessimists, whose job it is to avoid the impending tsunami, earthquake or falling piano. Insurance, health and safety and all the clipboard careers in the limelight at last.)
I wonder, however, if the field is dispute and litigation, whether optimism might be more of an asset. The metaphorical milk has already been spilt and pessimism been undone; so a degree of optimism in presenting your version of the facts would seem to be appropriate. Or perhaps not, if you take note of this quote:
‘A pessimist sounds like they’re trying to help you, an optimist sounds like they’re trying to sell you something.’
And selling is infra dig for a lawyer, isn’t it?
Professor Pinker uses this quote in an argument against pessimism or, as he characterises it, ‘Progressophobia’. To him pessimism is the school of ‘we’re all going to hell in a hand cart’, with a life seen exclusively through a Vaselined lens of nostalgia - all warm beer and back to basics. Pinker argues that the facts demonstrate that you would be a fool to want to be born in any time other than now. As Han Rosling observes, the more cheerful a host of statistics and facts look, the more the catastrophising side of humankind cleaves to the conviction that things have never been worse.
So, perhaps pessimism isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Surely to create, invent, solve, or conquer anything needs an optimistic framing. To convince the naysayer, the ‘it can’t be done’ brigade, must requires the oxygen of optimism.
I can’t imagine the Wright Brothers at Kittyhawk thinking, ‘well, this’ll never fly.’ Or Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, as they approached the South Col, turning to each other and agreeing that, ‘it’s probably best to head back down.’
Indeed, N M Butler, the sadly no longer famous American philosopher and winner of the Nobel Peace prize, goes as far as to suggest:
Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress.
Perhaps the truth is that pessimists anticipate and avoid problems, whereas optimism helps to solve them. Being a well-informed optimist is obviously the sweet-spot to aim for.
But if, like me, tidiness trumps both pessimism and optimism then the question is not whether the glass is half full or half empty; the question is, is the glass on a coaster?
