THE BIZOP NEWS

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That half glass turn out to be really half empty after all?

When is it just too much?

According to Sonja Lyubomirsky over at the blogs on Psychology Today:

"The recent media firestorm surrounding Scott McClellan's tell-all about the Bush administration obscures some observations about George W. Bush that deserve scrutiny.

They are nothing new. Indeed, another book, published last Fall, made some remarkably similar points. Its title, Dead Certain, perhaps says it all.

Much like McClellan, author of Dead Certain Robert Draper paints a portrait of Mr. Bush as a staunch optimist, supremely confident in his views and judgments and heedless of bad news and disconfirming information"

Philosophers would describe this stance as: the supreme optimist has views that are not verifiable, literally neither true nor false.

It is understandable how fashion designers could have views that were neither true nor false - after all fashion is just taste.

Indeed when the great Yves Saint Laurent died in June 2008, it was said about him:

"As daring as his vision was, the most inspiring thing about Mr. Saint Laurent's tale may not be the clothes themselves, but rather the confidence he had in order to create them.

After being thrust into fame as Dior's newly named chief designer following Christian Dior's fatal heart attack in 1957, Mr. Saint Laurent stuck to his vision, rather than playing it safe, no matter how different or controversial it was.

His mantra, he once said, was that fashion was supposed to give women the confidence to "allow them to come to terms with themselves."

And now Mr. Saint Laurent's passing is a reminder of the allure of that confidence."

Uh, you gotta like that phrase: the allure of that confidence. Completely meaningless and utterly seductive.

But surely, the rational folks who run our biggest corporations do not fall prey to confirmation bias?

Politicians and fashion designers are one thing, but the captains of industry?

Nope - Ken Thompson, the CEO of Wachovia, was forced into early retirement because of endless optimism.

"On Monday, Thompson retired at the request of the board of directors.

Although Wachovia didn't say so, it is likely the ouster was largely related (or should have been related) to Thompson's endless cheerleading for the Golden West portfolio."

When is just too much?

I like Sonja's final remarks:

"And, finally, there is evidence that the most adaptive type of optimism is a "flexible optimism."

Flexible optimists are able to judge which situations call for optimism (e.g., when asking someone on a date, trying to sell something, or giving a speech), and which call for a more restrained optimism or defensive pessimism (e.g., when studying for a test or waging war)."

So how do you pick your franchise lawyer, if he/she is going to have flexible optimism?