How ‘brutal optimism’ can help get you through any crisis
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BY Jonathon Lobbins
Today’s business leaders face incredible complexity. Consumer?confidence?in nearly every U.S. institution has declined since 2020 at the same time as their?expectations?for products and services have risen. Intense economic and geopolitical conditions offer no respite, making companies?less inclined?to pursue patents and invest in research and development.???
This complexity also means that nearly every industry is primed for not just innovation, but lasting change.
The leaders who practice brutal optimism—who meet increasingly complex challenges with the belief that we have the talent, technologies, and insights to solve them—will be the ones who seize the present opportunity.?
Here’s what that looks like.
AN UNFLINCHING CRITIQUE
Brutal optimism starts by stripping away any misconceptions about where our industries currently stand. Forget the easy truth. Brutal optimism requires bold reflection.?
When you peel back the layers of complexity that define the systems we’ve operated under for so long, what’s left is often just the illusion that things were working in the first place. Dismaying as this might be, it’s a necessary precondition for meaningful change.??
Innovation and allegiance to the status-quo are incompatible. We have to continually assess how our systems are working. When we don’t, we’re not innovating. Part of being brutal is recognizing that the process of reassessment is never over.??
The leaders that drive innovation will have to be brutal in their evaluation of the effectiveness of their products and services, in deciding what’s working and what’s not.?
Innovation involves sacrifice, and it’s essential to identify that trade-off early on. Often, that sacrifice serves as a catalyst for change—pushing leaders across industries to innovate with greater prowess, unburdened by the inefficiencies of outdated infrastructure and technologies.?
Take the James Webb Space telescope, for example. When?Gregory Robinson?became the program director of Webb, the program was struggling, burdened by exorbitant costs and process inefficiencies that continuously pushed back the launch date.?
Robinson decided to pursue product over perception. He brutally assessed the program, approved an audit of the entire spacecraft, and boosted team morale to minimize human error. As a result, Robinson led his team to incredible success: first-of-its-kind images that use gravitational lensing to display distant galaxies and empower greater discovery.
THE COURAGE TO ENVISION A BETTER FUTURE
Innovation requires dogged perseverance, fueled by optimism. We must have the tenacity to take stock of the tools and insights in our possession that can drive radical change and truly forge a better path forward.?
To disrupt outdated processes, leaders will have to harness optimism. This doesn’t mean throwing around positivity with reckless abandon—attitude alone won’t solve our most substantial problems.?
Optimism means having the vision to imagine a new path forward, and pursuing it with confidence, hope, and open-mindedness. That can be difficult after having to be so brutally honest. But it’s the difference between getting bogged down by the challenges ahead and pushing through them.?
Brutal optimism requires a rare combination: critical evaluation of the past and present, combined with optimistic problem-solving. One without the other creates an imbalance that limits the ability to innovate effectively.
BRUTAL OPTIMISM IN ACTION
I see great promise across industries, from healthcare to astrophysics, despite the array of challenges that leaders are facing today. When we embrace the unique opportunity presented by this moment and practice brutal optimism, we can make real change and alleviate burdens that have plagued our communities.
I’ll use an aspect of the healthcare industry as an example: poor sleep health. This topic is close to my heart, and has led me to spearhead a company,?Primasun, designed to solve the sleep crisis in America.
The pandemic resulted in a brutal evaluation of the healthcare system. Our already overburdened systems struggled amid the added strain of COVID-19, which laid bare how disjointed and inequitable pathways to quality care have become. Quickly, the promise of tele-health emerged, and many embraced it as the turn-key solution to accessible care.?
But upon further reflection, there’s still plenty of room for improving general awareness and access to telehealth services across the spectrum of care. Despite a record?$24 billion investment?in the digital health space last year, the common link that compounds the poor health of millions of people, sleep disorders, remained largely ignored and untreated in-person and virtually.?
We need to apply clinical minds, hands-on innovation, and real people-centered solutions to not only raise the profile of sleep’s impact on health, but do something about it.?It’s possible to improve our country’s healthcare system and the individual lives of people who live in America with more of a focus on how sleep impacts health care, health outcomes, and comorbidities.?
But we can’t lose sight of the fact that there’s more work to be done by sleep experts, scientists, innovators, and providers to confirm and communicate sleep’s impact on various health conditions and comorbidities from sleep apnea to cancer to diabetes to anxiety and depression. The central goal of any digital health effort should be expanding access to clinical expertise, telehealth solutions, and sleep resources whenever possible and wherever possible.??
Jonathon Lobbins is the chairman and CEO of?Primasun.