An old colleague recently told me that she had been called aside by her boss who expressed his concern that she hadn’t ‘looked very happy’ during a meeting. She explained that she was not in fact very happy because she was, as her boss knew, unwell and feeling rotten. Nevertheless, he admonished, ‘you have to consider the message you are sending to others.’
I think., this is the kind of thinking that allows corporations to tell their newly redundant former employees that they should be grateful for the opportunity they have been given; that allows ‘prosperity preachers’ to tell their congregations that if they only pray enough (and donate money to the church) they will get that new car; the kind of movement that tells people they can ‘beat’ cancer with their attitude, leaving the terminally ill wracked with guilt that they didn’t try hard enough to get well. My favourite woman, Barbara Ehrenreich, proposed that this is the kind of thinking that allows financial institutions to make catastrophically misguided decisions under the leadership of CEOs who rely on intuition and guidance from coaches instead of facts and guidance from accountants - people who surround themselves with yes men and ostracize anyone who tries to suggest that there might be a problem.
Ehrenreich explores the origins of the positive thinking movement, linking it to the New Thought of the 19th Century. A reaction the bleak, self-condemning doctrine of Calvinism, New Thought was a diffuse collection of ideas united by the notion of God as a positive force whose divinity dwells in humans, who perpetuate it by thinking positively. The unfortunate corollary however, was that, instead of battling their sin as they had under Calvinism, New Thinkers now had to battle a new evil – negative thought.
I have found Ehrenreich’s words to be deeply comforting and positive- and I was wondering how other’s felt about ‘Positive Thinking’ and its ramifications - as well as the (above) criticisms/concerns?
I am not a sad, gloomy person and I wholeheartedly agree that a spirit of optimism is a sound balm against depression. I also think that acting morally and kindly is a positive step towards general well-being. It seems, however, cruel to encourage people into believing shadowy approximations of the truth.
What little I’ve read and heard about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) sounds a lot like that. The theory is that all your problems come from thinking habitually exaggerated negative thoughts, which upon examining the actual “evidence” will prove to be wrong.
Any negative thoughts a “patient” may have are irrebuttably presumed to be extreme negative thoughts. In other words, for example, if a lonely-heart Nice Guy™ type person complains “I can hardly ever get a date”, then that is taken as if he said “I can NEVER get a date”. The “therapy” consists of browbeating the patient until he admits that, yes he actually got a date in July of 2009, and one in October of 2003 too. Thus disproving the claim that he can NEVER get a date (which he never said in the first place). Presto, problem solved! It also works for females with relationship difficulties because (they think) they are overweight.
I sat through some so-called “group therapy” sessions, which were largely CBT-based, and witnessed a lot of this kind of magical thinking. There’s a large component of group-think too. I concluded that it’s all woo.
I see this as all being similar to the situation described by the OP.
Properly-done CBT doesn’t resemble the group sessions you encountered. It’s more like heading off various “things will never get better/everyone thinks I’m worthless/I’m worthless/etc.” spirals of ruminating thoughts that just swamp people. I expect that on occasion, there will indeed be some prodding someone to come up with something that’s a counterexample but that doesn’t mean “tada, everything’s fixed!”
In the OP’s example, my assumption was that the boss knew of the health issue but not everyone else did, and the caution was more like “people will think you’re disagreeing with everything going on in the meeting and (perceive you to not be a team player/think you have serious issues with what was being discussed when that wasn’t the case).”
Yeah, my more cynical interpretation was “people will think you’re not a team player and we can’t have that happening” or “if you can’t slap a goddamned smile on your face for a meeting, that reflects badly on me, so suck it up.”
onetwothreego, we ask that people use descriptive thread titles. I used my best guess about your point when I added info to yours; let me know if there is a better way to summarize what you’re saying.
Positive thinking is a piece of shit, and one which sadly cannot even be converted into manure. No amount of positiveness will make my boss able to plan a trip in a timely fashion; no amount of positive thinking will make hunger go away. Ora et labora, and labora on things that you actually can do something about.
In the OP’s example, my question is: would the boss have said the same to a male employee? Because IME the answer is usually “no”, sadly.
In the bosses defense there are certain circumstances when you need to put your best foot forward and try not to look disgruntled or unhappy in important group interactions. If you feel so poorly you cannot moderate the way you come off you need to excuse yourself from the meeting. A important participant who is visibly uncomfortable or ill can throw the entire meeting off track.
The boss is right insofar as how you come off to others is often quite important in business.
I am a big proponent of positive thinking and it’s a part of my life, and I think that’s why I am so content.
I hate being told to smile, however. I don’t sit here inanely smiling all by myself all day long. My smiles come easy and quickly; I don’t sit here all dour, but when I’m working away diligently and my boss tells me to “Smile!” I kind of want to reach over the desk and bitch-slap her.
The problem is, some people give it a half-hearted attempt, excpect it to solve the most unlikely problems, then declare it to be a “piece of shit” when it doesn’t cure cancer. Then they accuse positive thinkers of blaming cancer victims for their plight.
Seriously, positive thinking brings about miracles, but you have to use your brain with it.
Agreed. Any job where you meet clients/customers or potential clients/customers requires a degree of salesmanship. If you cannot provide that for any reason because of illness or otherwise, you need to be absent on the day in question, or put on a happy face.
I’m reminded of a news story I read some years ago of a woman at Safeway who was fired after repetitive stress injury left her in enough constant pain she found it difficult to smile all the time.
Smiling employees don’t make me feel good towards the company; it makes me think of the level of threat the employees are working under.
Or, their experience of “positive thinking” is being told “smile or you’re fired”.
It’s a mistake to conflate a boss (or anyone else) requiring someone to smile or feel good, with positive thinking or using CBT to deal with your own negative thoughts.
I think that a boss is probably within her authority to request a change in a person’s outward appearance or behavior, including a smile, if that will have an influence on the job. I think it’s overstepping to require that someone actually feel happy.
This is not how CBT works in any case that I’m aware of. What happens is the opposite. A client complains, "I never get a date,’ and CBT asks them to examine that thought, and determine whether it is objectively true, or whether the person does in fact get dates and the “never” is a distortion.
CBT has been a miracle for me. It has taken me from curled up on the floor sobbing to being able to function in the face of all sorts of problems and setbacks. If it’s woo, then it’s woo that works for me.
It has also helped me go from being so miserable at work that I can’t do the job and get in trouble with the boss, to still disliking certain aspects of the job, but being able to display the right attitude and take the right approach so that the boss treats me with respect. And that, in turn, makes the job more enjoyable.
While I’m in the camp of the “the boss is demanding a smile because he doesn’t want you looking glum during his meeting because then people might think you’re unhappy and that would reflect on him” camp, I also feel obliged to point out that keeping your “morale” up is surprisingly important in things like surviving cancer. Any “behavioral theory” nonsense aside, the idea that laughter is the best medicine isn’t too far off.
Of course being positive is better than being negative in one’s thinking. Sometimes there’s a little work that goes into being optimistic, but the trick is to balance optimism with reality. But that isn’t what the OP was referring to.
This is the far more harmful management attitude of “Be Happy Goddammit, or Else!!” And yes, it is far worse for women employees than men.
That’s true to a point, but optimism and happiness cannot cure cancer. And it’s normal to feel bad if you have cancer, so you shouldn’t be made to feel guilty if you have bad feelings if cancer happens to you or a loved one. That is also true of any other misfortune.
What Ehrenreich points out is that the current attitude towards positive thinking is that it can be a magical panacea, and make all your dreams come true ala The Secret. That isn’t true, and continually putting up a false front of happiness is exhausting and unnecessary.
Ehrenreich’s book is called Bright-Sided, How Positive Thinking is Undermining America and I highly recommend it to everyone. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read.