Research

State of the Optimist 2026

The first annual report on how Britain's senior strategists, founders and marketing leaders score against the ten OOS beliefs. Where are we aligned? Where are we split? And which beliefs are the most contested right now?

Contents

What this report will show

01 How 200+ senior leaders score across each of the ten beliefs
02 Which beliefs show the widest divergence -- by sector, by role, by seniority
03 The composite Optimism Index score for British business in 2026
04 Which beliefs have strengthened and which have weakened versus the initial baseline
05 Three detailed case studies: teams that named their beliefs and what happened next

Methodology

How the data is collected

Every person who takes the OOS Diagnostic at mikelitman.me/oos-diagnostic contributes anonymously to the dataset. The report draws on aggregated, anonymised responses only. No individual scores are ever shared or identifiable.

Current status

The diagnostic has been live since early 2026. The first report requires 200 responses to be statistically meaningful. We are currently collecting.

The fastest way to contribute is to take the five-minute diagnostic. Your result is immediate and private. Your anonymised score joins the dataset.

Publication

When and where

Target publication: October 2026.

Format

Free PDF published at mikelitman.me/oos-report-2026

Distribution

Sent to all OOS Annual members and Belief of the Week subscribers on publication day

Media

Offered as an exclusive early release to one media partner. Shortlist includes Sifted, City A.M., and Times Tech

Take the diagnostic. Be in the data.

Five minutes. Your result is immediate and private. Your anonymised score contributes to the first annual State of the Optimist report.

Take the OOS Diagnostic Notify me when the report publishes