In Corporate America, all hope is not lost, but it should be. We need to kill it while there is still time.

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I just got out of a terrible leadership conference in Portland which broke one of my basic rules. Conferences must be engaging and inspiring OR they must have good coffee. Either/or is fine. This one had neither.

At this point, I am literally and figuratively left with a bad taste in my mouth.

Going from bad to worse…

One of the lectures today was feeding, inspiring, and soothing the crowd with the topic and tonic of ‘Hope’. And, they ate it up – like a plate of Chinese food where an hour later you realize the orange chicken had zero nutritional value and you are once again, starving.

“Hope is so universally regarded as a pure, altruistic, and unimpeachable concept that it simply can not be denied.”

As hope will often deliver, the lecture was laden with platitudes, generalities, and political correctness tipping the scales deep into both the useless yet warm and fuzzy end of the spectrum. This left no room for meaningful and reasonable discussion or dialogue. That is one of the problems with hope. Hope is so universally regarded as a pure, altruistic, and unimpeachable concept that it simply can not be denied. Furthermore, critiquing hope will be a Sisyphean task even for the most prepared, equipped, and trained in rhetoric. To argue against hope is equivalent to writing a newspaper critique for the Kindergarten’s winter performance of ‘Silent Night’. As in:

"Not at all worth the price of admission. These barely out of Toddlertown little persons showed up mostly unwashed and were out of sync, not in key, and what words they actually knew were munged together into a collective high-pitched squeal. Better sounds emanate from cats fighting out on the stoop. I have been near construction-site toilets with less offensive odors. It quickly became apparent a diet of bologna and chocolate milk can seriously disrupt a nervous and immature digestive system. The best of the performers were the two twins who remained completely silent throughout the performance, each with a conspicuous wet spot widening on the front of their trousers. And for being 20% older, the First graders weren't much better. A true silent night would be welcomed after listening to these little musical monsters."

Right. This is a total D-bag move synonymous with building the foundation of a business on hope.

Don’t get me wrong. In the right context, hope can be a great thing. In championing social change or in political discussions it is a necessary thing – to be hopeful.

But, in business, hope is an accelerating train wreck rolling downhill collecting and accepting passengers right up to the moment of impact. I have seen it. I have been there. I have had my first-class ticket punched on that steamer. And, after the crash, I have had to pick up the pieces with a broom and dustpan. Hope without a concrete plan is a total disaster.

In a manager’s dictionary, the word ‘hope’ needs to be removed. In fact, rip out that entire page and burn it.

So, what exactly is wrong with hope?

Hope has no structure. No mile markers. No steps to take. No start. No finish. No competition. No reason to become better. All that is required is a slight head-tilt and a well-worn blissfully-ignorant grin as your gaze rises up to meet a point in space and time where reality abandoned your imagination like a helium balloon about to become invisible after being released by a now hysterically crying toddler. Hope merely places your emotional baggage on a train bound for nowhere.

At its best, hope provides the broth of inspiration but is absent any nutritional value whose heartiness and heft are confirmed with a bent spoon. At its worst, it can remind people of deep hunger and void which empty words and untethered ideas cannot fulfill. Ironically, hope is more often depressing because while you are prepared for an actual meal, it leaves you emptier than when you began.

When a manager or business resorts to hope as a strategy, employees know the truth. The business, the team, the mission, or the project is in serious trouble. All previous plans have failed, never existed, or have been rendered useless. The manager’s remaining choices are only two, and they are simple:

1) Face the music and admit the business failed to plan, budget, hire, and manage to carve out a future. Accept defeat and the corresponding and imminent loss and ensuing depression.

-or-

2) Deliver a wet, sloppy tethered newborn of hope through the dank re-used birth canal of wishful thinking and immediately snip the cord. Stare at it adoringly and admire it for what it is: a figment of altered reality where you are being sheltered from the incoming $hitstorm with a only Barbie-sized umbrella. Sorry, there’s no room for Ken.

Most managers choose #2.

If you find yourself in this situation, I suggest choosing #1. Better yet, be a better manager and never play the hope card.

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Hope isn’t a slap in the face. It is a 2-handed double Ike Turner-style choke-out with an added purple-nurple (look it up if you need to – I’ll wait here) on the side.

Hope can feel like an encouraging and friendly pat on the back. I can assure you hope is NOT your friend and the only thing it wants to do ’round back’ is give your spirit a good unsolicited rogering. Someone has failed to prepare. Someone has failed to plan. And, there will be a price to pay. Too often the jackass *doing the hoping* is too busy sniffing the rose to see others suffering the thorns.

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One of the best hope quotes comes from the character Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption:

“Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of the things. And a good thing never dies.”

While that may be true for inmates confined to a penitentiary, in business the following quote is more apt:

“Hope is a terrible thing, maybe the WORST of the things. And for some reason, the WORST things never seem to die – long after their clock has expired”

When people resort to hope, they have simply run out of progress, ideas, energy, passion, or interest. Sometimes all 5. With live rounds in the chamber, they were aiming for a way out of the current mess but will most assuredly hit someone’s foot instead, with the bullet usually ricocheting back.

If you watch any HGTV, this is the part in the show where they ‘rip and replace’, and that is exactly what you should do too.

In business, wherever hope exists, lives, and thrives, kill it. Kill it with fire.

Rip and replace. Replace it with abundant and tangible levels of talent, opportunity, collaboration, and teamwork.

For hope’s replacement, stay tuned for part#2.

I really HOPE the next conference has better coffee.