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A newly appointed general manager began his first meeting with his staff by showing them two large glasses side-by-side on the conference table. There was a third, smaller object on the table, covered by a cloth napkin. Both glasses were filled to the midpoint with a dark liquid so as to make its position in the glasses visible. He held up the first glass and asked the group, "How would an optimist describe this glass?"

"Half full," some of the group responded.

He poured the contents, which turned out to be tea, into a pitcher and held up the second glass. "What would a pessimist say about this one?"

"Half empty," the group said in unison, getting into it.

Again, he poured the tea into the pitcher and, with a flourish, swept the napkin away, revealing a smaller glass filled to the brim. "What happened to this one?" he asked. This time the question was rhetorical. "The other glasses were too big. This one has been re-engineered -- downsized," he shouted. Moving to his three main points, he pointed out that the organization had too many employees, too few orders, and too little money. He then broke out an empty small glass for each staff member and poured them some tea as they proceeded to plan a significant layoff.

Choices are available

Unlike the theatrical general manager's staff, we have a choice of which glass to accept. We have the ability to manage and shape our interpretation of today's economic climate. It's easy to follow the beacon of the half-empty pessimistic glass.

Unemployment in North Carolina is 11.2 percent; the Greensboro-High point metro area has lost about 24,000 jobs; Charlotte is laying off teachers; Guilford County is passing out small glasses, eliminating positions in the Department of Social Services and playing musical chairs with the survivors.

Our North Carolina roads and bridges are crumbling and conservative studies estimate that there is a gap of about $45 billion between our needs and our resources. Nationally, our Congress is polarized into dysfunctional gridlock, and, according to a survey by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, our 15-year-old students are in the lower third of a sample of 25 countries in reading literacy, math and science skills.

One response is to disengage, wallow in self-pity, find someone to blame, and cry "ain't it awful." This will lead us to either embrace the glass of pessimism or stock a permanent supply of small glasses and settle for being less than we are. These responses are toxic to our human spirit, our community, our nation and our planet. We need to break both the small glass of depressing sub-optimization and the spiritually lethal glass of pessimism and wish them good riddance.

The primary thing we need to do to embrace the half-full glass of optimism is to "open out." Psychiatrist Robert Lifton spent a lifetime studying the way we respond to trauma and stress. He concluded that we can either "close in" or "open out." Closing in results in blame, isolation, self- and other abuse, and ultimately, mental illness. Opening out enables us to help ourselves by helping others, build unifying, healing social structures, and create a positive future. Opening out is the way of the half-full glass.

Seek positive behaviors

Here in the Triad we do not want for means to open out. We can engage in helping relationships with those who are laid off, financially or spiritually bankrupt, or heading down the negative slippery slope of closing in. We can engage in tough love: be responsible parents and not accept low standards from our schools or mediocre performance from our children. We can become distributors of optimism in our workplaces, volunteer organizations and communities.

We also need to understand the global nature of the half-full glass. In today's networked, interdependent world, ecological, financial and social problems require solutions that are not constrained by national boundaries. Ethnocentrism is the assumption that one social or cultural group is superior to all others. Just as we need to embrace regionalism and guard against ethnocentrism in reference to Greensboro, High Point or Winston-Salem, we need to apply that lesson to our country.

The United States has indeed been blessed, but whenever I hear requests for God to bless America, I suspect that we really don't have an ethnocentric God that plays favorites. I would think that God would equally bless Mongolia, the Falkland Islands, Cambodia, Turkistan and all the other countries on our planet. The route to a truly half-full glass lies in the realization that our human spirits and economic fates are inexorably interconnected.

I think Dickens got the ultimate opening out strategy right when he had Tiny Tim speak the profound closing line in "A Christmas Carol": "God bless us, every one."

David Noer writes a monthly column for the News & Record on leadership, organizational behavior and community issues.