"Defensive pessimism" is when you think of the worst possible outcome and then take the necessary steps to avoid it. Since I have heard this I have been in several situations where I see people using "defensive pessimism". The problem is that when you spend your time on avoiding the worst outcome you are missing the opportunity to talk about the best possible outcome.
Some people might mistakingly equate "defensive pessimism" with risk management. In ideal risk management, a prioritization process is followed whereby the risks with the greatest loss and the greatest probability of occurring are handled first, and risks with lower probability of occurrence and lower loss are handled in descending order. In practice the process can be very difficult, and balancing between risks with a high probability of occurrence but lower loss versus a risk with high loss but lower probability of occurrence can often be mishandled (wikipedia). With risk management you are looking at how far out on the limb you can go, not just the worst possible outcome. How much loss are you willing to endure to attempt to achieve a particular objective. In other words risk management is an effort to obtain the best possible result without unnecessarily endangering the ministry or company.
The problem with "defensive pessimism" is you forfeit positive results altogether in your effort to insure missing the worst one.
If your objective is to avoid the worst possible outcome, how do you measure success? Even worse, you can spend so much time trying to avoid something bad that you forget to discover what the Lord wants you to accomplish.
I for one want to practice "offensive optimism". Wow, I may have just coined my own term. Regardless I want too invest my energy in an effort to discover what great blessing Jesus has in store for FBC, Katy!
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