In Bright-Sided,
author Barbara Ehrenreich rails against what she considers the often harmful
side-effects that come from positive thinking messages being pushed throughout
society and corporate America.
Tracing America's penchant for positiveness to an overreaction to Calvinism, she lambastes the panoply of business books equating business success with a positive attitude, unsubstantiated medical claims linking cheerfulness to recovery, and numerous religions touting the virtue of downplaying problems. In doing so, she takes on motivational speakers, life coaches, prosperity-pushing theorists embodied by the book, The Secret, as well as none other than Oprah.
Ms. Ehrenreich's inspiration for Bright-Sided came after her bout with breast cancer. Her anger, fears and impatience clashed with the pink ribbons, top-ten motivational lists, and support groups where the word "victim" was taboo, according to a review in The New York Times. She was particularly impatient with those who link a tragedy such as cancer as a change driver in their lives, such as when Lance Armstrong stated that "cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me."
Moreover, being angry, frustrated or even depressed has its merits, she argues. This includes recognizing problems and changing one's life through a new career or other moves, and bonding together with other people to fix a situation.
Focusing on the positive leads to isolation and conservatism, she claims.
"I would like to see more smiles, more laughter, more hugs, more happiness," Ms. Ehrenreich writes. "But we cannot levitate ourselves into that blessed condition by wishing it."
In business, Ms. Ehrenreich relates the number of ways upbeat messages are used to drive performance and perk up employee morale.
"Offered as a sap to those facing layoffs, used as a spur to better performance by those workers who remain (often while enduring cuts in pay and benefits) and relied on as an excuse to ignore unpleasant inevitabilities like bubbles bursting, American positivism reaches its giddiest and most dangerous heights in the corner office" wrote Kate Tuttle in a review for The Washington Post.
But at least one reviewer, Christian Perring, writing for Metapsychology, was less convinced when Ms. Ehrenreich applied her theory to the business setting. Noting how her own company's morale was taking a hit amid budget cuts, she said some team work efforts could be appropriate.
"I have no interest in participating in a workshop to boost positive thinking, but it would make sense for those with a responsibility for the flourishing of the institution to engage in some teambuilding," Ms. Perring wrote.
Discussion Questions: What are the pros and cons of positive thinking as a core management emphasis? How objective, for example, should managers be in discussing company challenges/prospects with employees?