There are two paths to solutions: see what’s wrong and fix it, or see what’s right and build on it. Most people default to the first because of evolutionary negativity bias — spotting the snake that kills you has historically been more valuable than appreciating the apple. The more intelligent you are, the more heightened and nuanced this self-criticism becomes.
Joe’s practice: three rounds of felt gratitude at the start of every team meeting. Not listing things to be grateful for — actually feeling the gratitude. This enables the team to see positive data as clearly as negative data.
“There’s kind of two ways to get to solutions: one way is to see what’s wrong and how do you fix it, and the other way is to see what’s right and how do you build on what’s right.”
Critically, gratitude should be applied to the problem itself. If your product isn’t selling, practice gratitude around that: “I’m grateful our customers are telling us what they don’t like.” This isn’t Pollyanna thinking — it’s seeing the full dataset instead of only the failures.
“We’re not being Pollyannaish… I want to hear everything that’s going wrong. I just also want to hear everything that’s going right.”
Related Concepts
- Find what’s already working and spread it
- Self-judgment defends against emotions
- Negativity bias especially limits intelligent people
- Ungratitude removes half your solutions
- Gratitude solves problems by seeing what’s right and growing it