Optimism

There was an older gentlemen taking his daily walk through the park when he happened by the little league field when he decided to stop and see some of the action. He took a position standing behind the dugout of one of the teams - the Red Sox. He noticed that the game was already in full swing and scanned the dugout of the Red Sox team. He noticed that they were a little quiet and down, except for one little boy near him who was cheering and spurring his team on. He looked to the scoreboard and saw the score. He was surprised to see that the Red Sox were down 20 to nothing. Well, that explained the dugout of Red Sox players, but what was the story with this happy one? He asked the boy how it was going. “Well, the boy said, this team is pretty tough, but I think we got a chance!” The old man was surprised by the boy’s response considering the lopsided score. Got a chance, thought the man to himself, how could this little boy say that? Wasn’t he looking at the score board? He decided to probe further into the enthusiasm of the little ball player. “I must say, you seem to be in pretty good spirits,” the man said. “You bet!” said the boy. “But how can you be so excited with the score so bad?” asked the confused and doubting gentlemen. “Heck, said the little boy, we haven’t even been up to bat yet!”

Don't you wish your corporate culture had this type of optimism? When we are working with companies on Emotional Intelligence (EQ) we often times talk about the difference between attitude and optimism. As we all know, you cannot hire or fire someone based on their attitude. But you can predict their behavior based on their EQ. Got you thinking? Check out our penumbra.com site for more.