Things are not as bad as you think in marketing

We’re primed to spot problems and fix them, but we sometimes forget to see what’s going right.

Take this example: I watched Janeen propose a new operational process to the marketing leadership team. I was impressed by her clarity, persuasiveness, and how she demonstrated value. Her proposal was unanimously accepted. Afterward, I asked her how she thought it went. “I didn’t have enough ROI data on the tech stack additions.”

What? Despite her fantastic performance and the great outcome, this MOps star focused on the single critique. Instead of rejoicing, she was swept away by negativity bias.

Our brains are wired so risks, losses, criticisms, and bad news influence us more strongly than equivalent gains or good news. This may have an evolutionary origin: If our ancestors heard rustling in the bushes, it was better to assume it was a tiger than to risk getting eaten. It can also bias us toward negativity.

Early in my management career, I was told it took nine “nice jobs!” to counter one “oh, no!” I don’t know if that 9:1 ratio is literally correct, but it’s a colorful way to remember the influence of our brains’ natural negative slant.

Sensible caution is useful. People who are too optimistic skip precautions, fail to develop contingency plans, produce flawed forecasts, and take unwarranted risks. However, pessimism is more common, especially during times of uncertainty. Negativity bias can make us feel like our glumness is righteous and reasonable. But is it?

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4 tips for greater balance and realism

The penalty for excessive negativity is less joy and fewer opportunities. To test whether our pessimism makes sense and bring our views into balance, we need disciplined rationality. 

1. Start with awareness

The first step in countering negativity overkill is to understand its impact. 

2. Systematically evaluate reality

The next step is applying disciplined, data-driven approaches to counter bias. The complexity of marketing now exceeds our individual cognitive ability. We need tools and protocols to evaluate risks and rewards, opportunities and threats. 

Even simple tools can be powerful. In “The Checklist Manifesto,” Atul Gawande shows how professionals from aviation to medicine use checklists to avoid overly optimistic or pessimistic decisions. My team and I applied this approach to evaluating complex RFPs, where submitting a bid required substantial resources. We scored opportunities using a list of defined criteria. After scoring, we paused — could we win? If yes, we invested heavily. If not, we declined.

AI enables more sophisticated evaluation. Try creating a structured decision framework with instructions that require a balanced review of best-, worst-, and expected-case outcomes. 

3. Diversify perspectives

Social situations amplify the bias’s power. Talking with others about gloom and doom in person and on social media reinforces negativity. Information bubbles and algorithmic manipulation skew perspective.

To counter this, ask for alternative opinions and encourage healthy debate. A significant advantage in the RFP process I described came from having a multidisciplinary team. Because sales leaned optimistic and technical experts were more cautious, the debate wasn’t always easy, but marketing added balance, and the mix ensured that neither overoptimism nor pessimism distorted decisions.

Pessimism is rampant in common company data. For example, customer service logs skew negative by nature, and online content favors alarming and critical narratives. 

AI systems can broaden information sources. By scanning and synthesizing large datasets of information such as customer feedback, market signals, and performance metrics, AI counteracts the human tendency to fixate on vivid anecdotes and recent negative input. To ensure balance in this process, companies should prevent AI systems from being trained on data that overrepresents negative information (e.g., risk reports, complaints, news headlines). 

4. Adjust your mindset

A calm and confident mind goes a long way towards offsetting negative bias. 

• Seek the positive. Practice the “three good things” method by ending each day by recollecting what went well. Stop and savor good experiences to strengthen your brain’s positive neural connections.
• Spend less time mired in the news and minimize sharing items that encourage negativity. Limit discussions of the negative to what is truly necessary. 
• Reframe negative comments in a constructive, speedy, and skillful way. Customers experience negativity bias, too. Counter this by assessing and addressing the root causes of complaints. 
• Embrace the real world’s complexity. Reflect on how difficulties can become opportunities. Remember that things can be bad now and still improve later. 

Yes, problems require our attention. But we can improve our ability to contribute to solutions by investing in seeing the positive. Optimists drive progress, foster resilience, and turn obstacles into opportunities. As Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, either way you are right.”