Operations manager Diane Alter once worked for such a committed optimist that despite a litany of daily workplace crises, he'd say, 'It's all good.'

It only made Ms. Alter want to protect her momentary miseries. 'Let me enjoy my bad mood for a minute,' she felt like saying. 'Let me wallow in it.'

Faced with pressing problems, his involvement was limited to a phone call. All the while, she was huffing and puffing to resolve the problem herself. In the end, she says, 'Everything ends up OK because responsibility to fix it falls on everyone else.'

As management literature often notes, optimists drive employees to exceptional levels of achievement. But, man, those Pollyannas can be annoying, exhausting and sometimes maddening because they can get away with so much.

In offices, where blind optimism is more forgivable than even mild pessimism, staffers wait for the time when their head hopers won't know what hit them -- but it usually ends up being a promotion.

Optimists think they delegate; their staffers think they deny work's unpleasant realities. Optimists raise possibilities; staffers are told they're raising obstacles. Optimists think more can be done with less; their staffers are pretty sure less gets done with less. 'I can't think of anything that I would call a true failure,' says Jeanne Schmidt, a corporate finance consultant and black-belt optimist. 'I can't stand it,' she adds, when the why-bother pessimists take charge.

Art Armstrong, a chief executive of a manufacturing company, sees her point. 'If Henry V at Agincourt had spoken to his army about relative troop strengths, we might all be speaking French.'

'It may well be that they have been sent on a fool's errand,' he says of employees. 'But it may be that the errand is fine, the problem is that a fool was sent.'

Making matters worse (for the pessimists, naturally) is research favoring optimists. Optimists' biological stress systems aren't perpetually running at full steam, taxing immune systems and inviting chronic disease.

Pessimists like to think they're setting themselves up for pleasant surprises while optimists face heartbreak.

Not always true. 'Optimism has this way of forever sliding into the future that protects you from the disappointments of the past,' says Shelley E. Taylor, professor of psychology at University of California Los Angeles. In her research, cancer patients who suffered a recurrence would say, 'I'll beat this just like I did the last time.'

Michael Scheier, head of the psychology department at Carnegie Mellon University, says spouses of ill patients fare much better if their husbands or wives are optimistic about their future. 'It's absolutely amazing how uniformly adaptive this characteristic is in terms of health,' he says.

But pessimists aren't given the benefit of their doubts. Research shows that relative pessimists are more accurate at gauging success and failure rates at a simple laboratory task than optimists, who undercounted failures and overcounted successes, says Edward Chang, associate professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. Also, evidence shows that pessimism can be highly motivational, as what's called 'defensive pessimism' drives people to achieve their goals.

Arguably, adds Prof. Chang, investment banks suffering from the subprime-lending crisis were too optimistic while Goldman Sachs, which plotted out disaster scenarios, has thrived. 'Optimism associated with inaction is useless,' he says. 'But pessimism associated with movement, motivation and energy is exactly what people are talking about in terms of the best of optimism.'

To the blindest of optimists, even contingency planning looks like negativity. Robert McBurnett, a chief financial officer, once worked for a company where any business opportunity was circulated among department heads to weigh the upside against concerns. Then, an unbending optimist bought the company. Any concerns were met with, 'Why are you being negative?' says Mr. McBurnett. So, they found themselves forced to fix things in midproject and troubleshoot on the fly.

'They're so confident they can make chicken salad out of chicken ...' (well, you get the idea), says Mr. McBurnett. But 'it's extremely stressful on your midlevel managers. They don't last long.'

'It's a way of coping with situations where they have no answers and less knowledge,' adds Randy Johnson, a former hospital superintendent, who fielded many directives easier said than done. Because it's so easy to be branded a naysayer, Ms. Johnson figured out a way to cope with optimists -- by pinning concerns on others. Observe: 'Bill Jones may bring up objections and I really want to see this project work. What do you suggest that I tell him?' she would say.

She also hoped her supervisor's bubble would burst from its own structural weakness. With any luck, she says, 'the optimists will generate more great ideas' and forget about their first ones.

现任运营经理的戴安娜•奥特(Diane Alter)曾经在一个超级乐观主义者手下供职。即使每天工作中危机四起，她的上司也总会说“平安无事”。

而这让奥特只想留住自己片刻的痛苦情绪。她真想说，“让我好好享受我的坏心情，就一分钟也好，让我沉浸其中吧。”

即使问题紧迫，奥特的上司也只是打通电话了事。而奥特却从始至终都在绞尽脑汁地孤军奋战。她说，最后一切结果还算不错，因为处理问题的责任都落在别人身上了。

正如管理宝典中经常指出的那样，乐观主义者能推动员工实现非凡成就。但是，伙计，那些盲目乐观的人会令人生厌，使人精疲力尽，而且有时还会把人逼疯，因为他们可以逃避太多的责任。

在办公室这样的环境下，即使是盲目的乐观也会比轻微的悲观更容易被接受，乐观主义者的同事等着看他们大祸临头的样子──但结果却常常是获得晋升。

乐观主义者认为自己是在把权力下放；而他们的同事则认为这是在否认令人不快的现实。乐观主义者提供机会；而他们的同事却被指责是在制造麻烦。乐观主义者认为用很少的资源也可以成就大事；而他们的同事则肯定资源越少，成就越小。担任公司财务顾问的珍尼•施密特(Jeanne Schmidt)是个骨灰级的乐观主义者。她说，“我想不出有什么事情称得上是真正失败的。我无法忍受让那些不愿花心思费力气的悲观主义者执掌大权。”

阿特•阿姆斯特丹(Art Armstrong)是一家制造公司的首席执行长，他同意施密特的看法。他说，“如果亨利五世在阿金库尔战役中向他的军队比较双方实力的话，我们现在可能都要说法语了。”

他谈到员工的时候说道，员工们很可能会被派去做些徒劳无益的工作，但这可能并不是工作的问题，而是派去的人有问题。

更糟的是（自然是对悲观主义者而言）研究结果都支持乐观主义者。乐观主义者的生物应激系统不会一刻不歇地保持高度警惕状态，所以不会破坏免疫系统，让慢性病乘虚而入。

悲观主义者喜欢这样想：悲观的基本立场可能会让他们更容易遇到惊喜，而乐观主义者则容易遭遇令人心碎的打击。

事实并不总是如此。加州大学洛杉矶分校(University of California Los Angeles)心理学教授谢莉•泰勒(Shelley E. Taylor)说，乐观使你永远不会因过去的扫兴事而感到困扰。在她的研究中，癌症复发患者会说，“我会打败它，就象上次一样。”

卡内基梅隆大学(Carnegie Mellon University)心理学系主任麦克尔•史西尔(Michael Scheier)说，如果患者对他们的未来比较乐观的话，他们的配偶更容易安然处之。这种乐观特性在健康问题上屡试不爽，绝对令人吃惊。

但人们并没有充分认识到悲观主义者的怀疑能带来怎样的好处。密歇根大学(University of Michigan)心理学副教授Edward Chang说，研究表明，在统计一项简单实验的成功率时，与乐观主义者相比，相对悲观的人能获得更准确的数据，而乐观主义者会少计失败次数而多计成功次数。不仅如此，还有证据显示悲观可以给人以极大的动力，就象人们所说的“防卫性悲观”能推动人们实现目标。

Edward Chang补充说，那些太过乐观的投行在次级抵押贷款危机中遭受了重创，而高盛集团(Goldman Sachs Group)当初却预见到了灾难性的前景，最终得以全身而退。不过这种说法还值得推敲。他说，不付诸行动的盲目乐观毫无价值；而悲观加上行动、动力和能量却恰恰是人们所说的乐观主义的最高境界。

对于极度盲目乐观的人来说，即使是偶尔进行规划看上去也象是消极的举动。罗伯特•麦克伯耐特 (Robert McBurnett)现任首席财务长，在他曾经供职的一家公司中，所有业务机会都要在各个部门领导之间转来转去，被他们反复地衡量利弊。后来一位坚决的乐观主义者收购了这家公司。麦克伯耐特说，所有的顾虑到了老板那里都会遇上这个问题而被驳回：“你为什么这么消极？”以致于他们不得不在项目实施中解决出现的各种问题。

麦克伯耐特说，乐观主义者自信满满地认为有了鸡肉当然就能做出鸡肉沙拉。但这对中层管理者来说压力非常大，他们通常做不长。

兰登•约翰逊(Randy Johnson)曾任医院主管，她巧妙地应付过很多说起来容易、做起来难的指示。她说，当他们找不到答案而又缺乏相应的知识时，这是一种处理方法。因为很容易会被乐观主义者贴上“爱唱反调”标签，所以约翰逊找到一种可以和他们和平共处的方法──将关注的焦点转移到别人身上。比如可以这样说：我确实希望看到这个项目能做好，不过比尔•琼斯(Bill Jones)可能会提出反对意见，你建议我该怎样对他讲？

她还希望自己老板的那些不合实际的想法能像肥皂泡一样自己破掉。她说，如果你运气好的话，乐观主义者会不断生出更多的好主意，然后自己忘记最初的那些想法。