Hispanic Business Leadership for Uncertain Times
How to make delusional optimism work for your Hispanic business this year
Congratulations to you and your business if you are in a position to grow your business and bring in a new employee as we progress into this new year. Thank you for your decision to take the risk to spend your hard-earned money to provide someone else with an opportunity to get to work. While your bottom-line goal may be to help your own Hispanic small business or team remain or become more successful, provide better service to your customers or clients, or ease the workload of your existing staff, the decision to hire during the final weeks of the year, looking towards the uncertainty of the next, does take guts and a little year-end optimism. If you have made this decision wisely and selected the right candidate, your decision will not only benefit you and your team but also the person you hire, their family and even the wider Latino community.
Combating Challenges
In Gallup Chair and CEO (1988- 2022) Jim Clifton’s book The Coming Jobs War, he discusses many things that should raise alarm bells and be of concern to leaders in business, governments, and individuals around the globe. While I do not agree with everything he writes, he does share many good points including two key ideas regarding how the U.S., historically a key leader in global stability and economic growth, can combat the challenges ahead.
Two ideas are particularly relevant for all business leaders today:
- Individual community leaders not necessarily elected or proclaimed community leaders, but generally business owners, small, medium, and large and entrepreneurs must lead the day to stability and growth. These are not necessarily the inventor-innovators, but more importantly the get the job done doers. This is not a grass roots, boot strapping, work-hard edict, it is a realistic view that change is often taken on the ground, by leaders who can also quickly implement their ideas and visions and not from the collective top down.
- The necessity for an infusion of optimism not delusional optimism but well considered and then loudly proclaimed optimism. The impact and infectious nature of optimism is not something to be dismissed. Optimism is also something you fake until you make if you understand the best type of optimism and how use it to push ahead.
Delusional Optimism
In his book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman, points out the difference between good and bad optimism in leaders. The bad optimistic leaders are those who are delusionally optimistic in their decision-making and the good optimistic leaders are those who are delusionally optimistic in their actions.
The delusional decision makers do not fair well, nor do their companies. Delusional optimism in decision-making often results in the failure to heed good advice and then make choices and decisions that are not sound, resulting in a significant waste of time, money, resources, including people, and ultimately opportunity. However, the delusional optimist implementers, those who have made sound decisions based on research and judgment, heeding the council of trusted others, and who implement their plans with unshakeable optimism, more often find a way to be successful. Delusional optimism in implementation is the key to pushing through doubt, which in tough times can be a significant barrier to success and the key to emboldening others to join the optimism train.
If you have made a sound decision to hire for the next year, then today is the time to get hiring. Start advertising right now. Look for candidates who are willing to join you in your optimism. That does not mean they all need to be over-the-top enthusiasts; it just means they should be open and willing to optimistically implement your plans.
How can you leverage your good delusional optimism?
If you have taken the right steps to get to your sound decision, completed your decision-making due diligence, received, and heeded advice, even if you do not follow all the advice, then do not let obstacles stop you or even slow you down. Get your team, customers, clients, and community excited about your optimism in your ability to build a successful business in this relatively new year. Nothing speaks more to optimism then saying we are ready to grow our business. If this is a sound decision, advertise your optimism loudly. Yes, you may be inundated with applications, but the perception of optimism can also lift others around you. Energy creates energy and positive energy creates positive energy. Create positive energy by leading your employees and the Latino community into this new year with good delusional optimism.
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