We were at the end of the latest edition of the Drivers for Change webinars from Age of Light Innovations (Drivers for Change: Environmental, Social and Governance reporting, 28th April 2022) discussing the relevance/importance of employing ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) strategies as a way of ensuring good quality, sustainable, outcomes in construction projects – because that’s what the investment analysts are finding. The speakers were winding up their arguments. And that’s when Amy Brachio (Global Vice Chair for Sustainability at Ernst & Young) said: “And so if we all apply urgent optimism in the roles that we’ve got, to be able to drive some change, I think we can help be part of the solution.”
Urgent Optimism? . . . Urgent Optimism??
It was a term that I hadn’t heard before. We were wrapping-up at the end of a ninety-minute webinar, and I was wrapping-up my synapses, when Amy came out with that comment, and those two words set my hair on fire . . . well, metaphorically – obviously . . .
We’re well-used to the idea of cautious optimism. It’s up there with the precautionary principle in ensuring that we don’t get too cocky with any new ideas. And isn’t it always a good idea to make sure that there’s an exit route back to the status quo, in case we have to make a run for it?
Cautious Optimism is also defined like this: ‘Hopeful, yet at the same time wary.’
Its another way of saying ‘worried’.
Well, let me tell you, I’m really worried about the way that the climate crisis is being handled and I am not cautiously optimistic that the world’s leaders have their hands on the appropriate levers. And if I’m not the only one, then we need to find another mindset; one that energies our thoughts and actions towards a future that has some kind of future in it. One that throws caution to the winds.
So: ‘Urgent Optimism’. It turns out that it’s a Thing.
Here’s a definition again: ““Urgent optimism is the desire to act immediately to tackle an obstacle, combined with the belief that we have a reasonable hope of success.”
Jane McGonigal said that. Who she?
This is how she described herself in a TED talk back in 2010: “I’m Jane McGonigal. I’m a game designer. I’ve been making games online now for 10 years, and my goal for the next decade is to try to make it as easy to save the world in real life as it is to save the world in online games”.
She’s currently Director of Games Research at the Institute for the Future. She designs alternate reality games that are intended to demonstrate different ways of solving real world problems and improving real lives. I suppose government leaders are used to the idea of ‘war gaming’; this sounds like a far more positive version of imagining our futures.
Urgent optimism has no place for uncertainty or for caution. It’s probably because we’re all so worried about the lack of action that we see from our leaders that we need to crack-on and make those changes that possibly don’t include a rear exit. We simply don’t have the time to tiptoe around the motors of climate change . By the time we’ve decided that some new thing will probably work, having (ironically) tested it to destruction, it will be too late.
We need confidence to move and to move now. Some of those things may turn out badly, but if we approach this crisis on multiple fronts, then we can afford to miss out on one or two duds.
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While I was googling around for this article, I came across a parallel urgency.
When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC on 28th August 1963 (his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech), he described “the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilising drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real . . . “
Do we get that? It’s ‘no time to take the tranquilising drug of gradualism.’ Now is the time to make real . . .
Dr. King was talking about the injustices being served by establishment power on a specific community. Dare we think that, given our current situation, that fierce urgency has a place for everyone on planet earth today, again being let down by that same establishment.
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And here’s another thing: if we wish, we can put those two terms together and get behind
FIERCE URGENCY + URGENT OPTIMISM = FIERCE OPTIMISM.
That’s something with a resolute and robust ring to it. And, as you might expect, it’s a term that’s already out there. It comes from the tile of a book by Leeza Gibbons: ‘Fierce Optimism: Seven Secrets for Playing Nice and Winning Big. It’s a practical guide on using positive communication as an empowerment strategy that refuses to sacrifice fundamental kindness when it comes to Winning.
- Engage optimism and kindness as your competitive edge
- See success unshared as failure
- Empower the team, and you win
- Pay it forward by mentoring others
- Be transparently you
I’m not a great fan of self-help material, but I’ll take anything from anyone if the message is the one that we need to hear. So, thank you, Leeza.
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