The Stockdale Paradox: Why Too Much Optimism Can Hurt Your Sales Performance
I consider myself to be a pretty optimistic guy.
Positive thinking and taking the optimistic approach are key cornerstones to my mindset.
After reading the business and leadership classic Good to Great by Jim Collins I started to view optimism very differently.
How optimism can work against you.
Jim recounts the story of Admiral Jim Stockdale, who was the highest-ranking military official captured during the Vietnam war.
Admiral Stockdale spent 8 years as a POW and survived to tell the tale.
In the book “Good to Great” Admiral Stockdale is asked by Collins, who among the POWs did not make it out?
“Oh, it’s easy. I can tell you who didn’t make it out. It was the optimists.”
He recounted how the majority of POWs were filled with optimism.
They were convinced that by Christmas time they would be released. Christmas arrived with no release.
They were sure that by Easter time they would be released.Easter arrived with no release.
This cycle would repeat itself until the POWs eventually died having never experienced the freedom they were so certain of.
They died of a broken heart.
Stockdale goes on to tell Collins,
“This is what I learned from those years in the prison camp, where all those constraints just were oppressive. You must never ever confuse, on the one hand, the need for absolute, unwavering faith that you can prevail despite those constraints with, on the other hand, the need for the discipline to begin by confronting the brutal facts, whatever they are. We’re not getting out of here by Christmas.”