Negativity Bias

At our end of year full group meeting, I spent some time discussing negativity bias and why it is important to maintain a positive outlook. Below are some excerpts from this discussion:

Before we look ahead, I also wanted to take a moment to reflect on 2022. Not to further recap the business achievements of the group, but more to focus on some of the awesome things that happened at a personal level to many of us in the room today. Importantly, a significant number of us went through major life events in 2022 – weddings, engagements, new babies, new homes, new puppies …. I would encourage each of you to reflect on these wonderful moments as we prepare to close the book on 2022.

Now looking ahead. As most of you know, I perennially have a glass half full approach. I do have an optimistic disposition in general, but one of the reasons I am generally upbeat is a conscious effort to counteract the impact of negativity bias. Negativity, or a focus on left side tail risks, is something that we as human beings are wired to do. This made a ton of sense in the early stages of human evolution, where daily decisions were almost certainly a matter of life and death. Risk management was all about ensuring you could find food, procreate, and cooperate with others while avoiding (say) being eaten by a lion.

Today, negativity bias manifests itself in multiple different ways. We can all recall the times in our career when we were yelled at much more readily than those times when we were lavished with praise. We’ve all gone home and lamented a bad day at work, when the reality is that 1 bad thing happened while 4 good things probably also happened. There is a significant body of research that has shown that in major relationships, such as those with your spouse or life partner, you need to have 5 positive elements to counter each negative one - just to be content as a couple.

By now, you’re probably wondering what this has to do with anything we do from a business perspective. The reason is as follows – to my mind, the most important reason to counteract negativity bias is because of the impact it has on energy. Focusing on the negative is simply draining, and can have a consequent impact not just on yourself – but on those that surround you. And many of you have heard me say this before – energy is the most important asset we all have.

One of my favorite quotes is the following: “The secret to productivity isn't about time. It gets sold that way, but it's not true. The secret isn't having the time to do what you want... it's having the energy to do it.”

Put simply, a positive view creates energy and enthusiasm, and makes life and work that much more fun and enjoyable. So with that, here are some of the things I have been heartened by in 2022 and look forward to in 2023:

·??????The political divide in the US rarely felt as wide as it did earlier this year. From my vantage point it seemed that tribalism was the dominating force within US politics – you were either all red or you were all blue. Yet split ticket voting was a huge factor in the mid-terms – just look at Georgia. I would argue that this move toward tribalism has been arrested and likely reversed.?

·??????More importantly, there was a lot of talk in the summer about how democracy itself was potentially coming to an end. Yet the midterms came and went and for the most part, concessions speeches and more traditionally acceptable conduct proliferated. The end of democracy has been greatly exaggerated.

·??????And people power is real, and potentially impacting numerous regimes around the world. Chinese protests have had a major hand in accelerating the relaxation of Covid zero policies. In Iran, we saw reports covering the dismantling of the morality police. It may be premature to assume this is a done deal, but the fact this is even in the conversation is a testament to the women and girls of Iran. Could Russia be next where it is clear that the war in Ukraine is deeply unpopular?

Thank you all for your hard work and dedication in 2022. I hope you are able to enjoy some time relaxing with friends and family over the holidays.