Ted Black: “I have a dream for SA in 2017… (The Pollyanna Principle)”

Ted Black is a regular contributor on the Biznews platform. He’s a ROAM (return-on-assets-managed) model specialist, using such a technique to pinpoint opportunities and turning strategy into action. His previous work includes analysis on companies such as Steinhoff and Naspers. In constructing his dream for South Africa in 2017, he makes reference to the Pollyana Principle – “the tendency for people to remember pleasant items more accurately than unpleasant ones.” A great read. – Stuart Lowman

By Ted Black*

“Don’t be such a Pollyanna,” they said as you left the Planning meeting. Your pet project had been rained on. Your colleagues made sure of that. Your idea would not work. They all knew better.

Ted Black

It had flaws. You knew that. They pointed to the budget. Where was the funding to come from? A chorus of naysayers convinced themselves. They did not convince you.

You listened. You noted valid points. You could build on those. You still knew it was a good idea. It was worth improving. Together, you could build on it but in the end, it was scuppered. You were alone in defending it.

“Success has many fathers but failure is an orphan.”

Months later, it did receive delayed funding. Supporters came from nowhere. They nurtured it.  It had a rickety wingspan. It dipped and dived now and then. It was unsteady. Suddenly it found wings. It was a Gladwell “Tipping Point”.

It took off like a rocket, was hailed a success and admirers flocked around. Had your secret streak of Pollyanna done it? You will never know. Every day good ideas curl up and die. Is it caused by a South African and common workplace ritual?

Driven by ego, false assumptions, dogma and ideology, people poke pinholes in the balloon of an idea. Air leaks out. It sags and drops to the ground. First are the reasons why it cannot be done. Then why it will not work. Then why it is too difficult. Then what might go wrong.

We are managed by crews of bridge burners … not bridge builders.

Most meetings do not even try to build. People are too busy stoking their firebrands prepared to burn down whatever ideas come up. Many of them could be bridges leading to opportunity. Some may be new procedures. Some could be the germ of new products and opportunity.

Are you a bridge-builder Dear Reader?

We can convert from competing, disagreeing all the time and break out of emotional “defend-attack” spirals. We can all learn to be better bridge-builders. We can learn to pump air into idea-balloons. We can offer ways to contribute. We can risk add-ons. We can spark input. We can pinpoint problems and convert them into opportunity.

We do this by asking better questions. Get people to think. As Nancy Kline puts it in Time to Think, “What is the positive opposite of your (negative) assumption?” and then “If you knew that … (the positive assumption) … what would you do?

The questions free you up and open the mind to exploring possible ways that lead to opportunities for the better … ones that can be acted on and tested.

‘If’ is a Magic Word

Expert bridge-builders use many ‘ifs’.  “If we added this … if we tweaked that … if we found someone who knows about this.”

These ‘ifs’ are bridge-building blocks. They make the idea more viable.  You see how one idea might fit with another. You weave two small ideas into one bigger one. Why not try it on a small scale? Then it is not too scary.

Pollyanna people protect seedlings. They have a “green thumb” for greenhouse ideas. They protect their own ideas. They fertilize others. Their optimism, vision, and positive approach water the seed. It then grows and blooms.

Some Pollyanna’s are born that way. The word “Pollyanna” has got a bad rap. In cynical political and business circles it is confused with being naïve and unrealistic. It becomes a noun. You stick it like a label on people.

“Pollyanna” is a Verb

Pollyanna is a verb, not a noun. Use it like an active verb. If you search for the positive, you uncover it. “Impossible” is often a state of mind, not a reality.

“No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit,” said Helen Keller

Do not over-dose on Pollyanna. Murphy is always at your shoulder ready to strike. Pollyanna meetings have a safety strap. There is more to a “Breakthrough” than positive thinking. Optimism is not enough, nor is good intention.

“I am an optimist alright – I am an optimist who carries a raincoat. And brings along an umbrella,” said UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

You need daily doses of common sense. Pollyanna Productivity and Pollyanna Profitability are critical skills. Respect personal Measurement and Fast Feedback. Apply Dr. W. Edwards Deming and Peter Drucker. They urged us to “Always chart (the system) before you change” otherwise you don’t know what is really happening and apply the 80:20 Principle: Focus and Concentration is the key to economic results.

If we could all share the power of hope, vision, and positive intentions, what could happen in South Africa and our workplaces? Couldn’t we be rich in common sense, rich in creativity and rich in cash?

And you, dear reader? Not blessed from birth with Pollyanna DNA? There is a lot you can do right now today. You can catch up fast.

This is what a colleague of Neil Rackham (Designer and developer of the SPIN Sales approach) once said to me way back in the late 1970s: “A good solid “Build” in an Open-Minded Meeting can be worth a million dollars!”

What would that be worth today?

  • Ted Black’s career has taken him to Sierra Leone, Malaysia, the UK and South Africa. He has been teacher, rubber planter and held senior positions in organisation development, general management as well as being a director of companies. Today, he acts as mentor and coach to executives and managers. Using the ROAM model (Return-on-Assets Managed) to pinpoint opportunity, he helps them design high-precision, results-driven projects. These turn strategy into action, and grow managers and their teams fast and measurably – the prime goal. He has published three books. “The Red Bead Game” (based on Deming’s work),  “Who Moved My Share Price?” (Co-authored with Professor Andy Andrews). The last in 2011, co-authored with Richard Pike (CEO Adcorp) and Loane Sharp (Economist), called “The New Divide” addressed the issue of South Africa’s unemployment problem and the huge “problem/opportunity” this poses.
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