The Productive Pessimist

This week (March 18th-24th 2024) is Neurodiversity Celebration Week. As a neurodiverse-led organisation (our Director, co-founder, and lead Trainer, Morgana, has ADHD and autism, both of which were diagnosed in adulthood, but which influenced her experience of childhood and adolescence), The Productive Pessimist are aware that 'celebration' can feel like a very loaded word, both to people who live with a particular condition or experience, and to those who work with them, educate them, and parent them. Social media, in particular, has often centred white-passing female/femme individuals, who are highly verbal, skilled at art, and with strong social skills as "neurodiversity rep", a backlash to society's frequent presentation of socially-inept, emotionally unavailable men, or hyperactive boys, often as the "accepted medical presentation" of neurodiversity. Many people would ask how someone who is non-verbal, someone who lacks awareness of their basic bodi...

  We've had the UK Spring Budget 2024. We've had the media commentary on Jeremy Hunt's Budget. You may be scratching your head, wondering what you're supposed to do  with all the information about the information you have. What's the best move? Where should your business be? How screwed are you? Here at The Productive Pessimist, we're all about keeping it simple, whilst respecting that you're not stupid. So: Are You Screwed? If you earn under £32,500 a year, probably. But, then, you probably already knew that. However, the freeze on tax bands means the best advice is not  "get a better paid job".   As the government has opened up the definition of 'high net worth individual', enabling more people to qualify as 'sophisticated' investors, and thus be approved to take a chance on unproven entrepreneurs, the best thing you can do if you're not making £32,500 a year is to get together a business plan, and a series of pitch decks (we...

  Have you been watching BBC One's The Apprentice over the past few weeks? (or years, for many of us?!) Here at The Productive Pessimist , our Director, Ash, has been a fan of the show from the beginning - he even got an audition for the 2011 series! (Unfortunately, he was out of work at the time, and ended up having to go to a less illustrious job interview on the same day... he didn't even get the job... the paths we didn't take, eh?) We all sort of know, the way we do with all 'reality' shows, that it's probably not as disastrous as it seems. Editing can tell a completely different story to what actually went on, and how many of us would actually tune in every week to see people being competent, capable professionals? (Our bosses tell us that's what we go to work for!) However true or constructed it may be, all we have to go on as far as the capabilities of the wannabes are concerned is what we see when we switch on. Which...isn't always that inspiri...

  Do you love your job?  Do you love your life? What would you most love to do? What's your heart's desire for your business, yourself, your family? Other coaches talk a lot about 'love'.  Every other piece of professional advice tells you to 'find a job you love.' What do they actually mean when they use 'love' like this? Clearly, no one's suggesting you get into the same mindset around going to work Monday morning, sitting through yet another PowerPoint presentation, or organising the kids and arranging the online grocery deliveries as the thought of a hot date with someone who hits all your buttons, or a weekend spent in the company of your best mate puts you in.  And we're definitely not advocating that 'married to the job' should be a literal matter of legally-validated fact. You're not going to be serenading your office block, or sending a dozen roses to your project teams.  You're not going to be inviting your new hire out ...

1. Know what you don't know Barney down the pub, Jan at slimming group, and Kayleigh, your 13yr old, may think it's "obvious" how to resolve a particular crisis, but the age and treachery which will overcome youth and inexperience knows that, the more 'obvious' the problem seems, the more aspects of it you have underestimated, ignored, or simply never been aware of. 2. Accept your limitations You cannot solve the crisis. YOU. CANNOT. SOLVE. THE. CRISIS. Loud enough for you?  You can't solve the crisis. Your team can't solve the crisis. Your organisation can't solve the crisis. What you can do - what you have  to do - is to realise that every 'crisis' is simply a series of smaller problems. You can solve problems. Your team can solve problems. Your business can solve problems. You can't solve the crisis.  You can  solve the problems that comprise it. 3. Don't micromanage crisis Crises are frightening. They upset people. People get tr...

  We're roughly a week away from "full-on" festive season for many people.  For my household (Pagan - eclectic in general, with Norse leanings on my side, and Celtic on my wife's) we're just five days from Solstice, our winter celebration. For those who are mystically inclined, five is a dynamic number, promising positive change through effective communication - so, five days before one of my major points of celebration seems a good time to talk about the power of Productive Pessimism, and encourage you to consider making a booking for 2024 - or sooner, if you're ready for change right now! How Can Pessimism Be Productive?! I know what you're thinking - "Pessimism isn't productive! I don't want a bunch of Negative Neils whinging on around my ideas and projects!" Absolutely - nobody wants a Neg coming in and being a killjoy. That's not what Productive Pessimism is about - pessimism is "the expectation that bad things will happen...

  TW: Discussion of systemic transphobia, Discussion of racism "How can a trans woman be CEO of an endometriosis charity?!"  Well, the head coach of the England Women's Rugby team is a male-identified, cisgender (assigned male at birth) man. The CEO of the RNIB isn't blind. CEOs of anti-poverty charities are certainly well-remunerated enough to not actually be in poverty. Most have never  experienced hardship, having danced from Executive post to Executive post, before eventually landing as a CEO. The upside of being a pessimist is you spend so long looking at problems that you gain an intuitive awareness that, very often, the thing being presented as "the problem" isn't, in fact, the real  issue that needs a solution. In endometriosis , the (very real, for those who suffer from the condition) issues of medical fact would be fairly straightforward to address. The problem  is medical disinterest, and, very particularly, the attitude of the medical profess...