The Optimist's Operating System · For Teams

A working framework for teams that build

Ten beliefs. One shared language. A half-day or full-day session that changes how your team sees what is possible.

Book a session

Most strategy teams have no shortage of analysis. What they lack is a shared set of working beliefs about what they are actually for: whether building is worthwhile, whether better is achievable, whether acting before certainty is professional or reckless.

The Optimist's Operating System is a set of ten working beliefs developed across fifteen years of building at the frontier. Run as a team session, it gives a leadership or strategy group a shared language, a self-assessment against each belief, and an honest conversation about where the blockers actually are.

It is not a motivational session. It is a working one.

What the session produces
01
A shared operating framework
Ten beliefs, agreed and stress-tested as a group. A common vocabulary for discussing how the team makes decisions and why.
02
An honest belief audit
Each participant scores themselves against all ten beliefs. The aggregate reveals where the team is strong and where it is blocked. The gaps are usually not where people expected.
03
A set of specific next moves
Not a list of values to post on the wall. Concrete decisions and experiments the team commits to in the room, mapped to the specific beliefs they want to strengthen.
Three workshops, three problems
Leadership teams
Optimism for Leadership Teams
From £3,000
For senior teams navigating uncertainty. Builds a shared operating framework: ten beliefs, an honest audit of where the team is running them, and specific commitments for what changes next.
  • Half day or full day on-site
  • Right for C-suite and leadership cohorts
  • Outcome: shared language, honest audit, next moves
Marketing teams · Most requested
Future Literacy for Marketing
From £3,000
For CMOs and marketing leadership who need their teams fluent in what AI makes possible, not just which tools to use. Focuses on beliefs 3, 5 and 7: future literacy, creativity and signal over noise.
  • Half day, remote or on-site
  • Right for marketing, strategy and brand teams
  • Outcome: a team that can reason about the era, not just react to it
Founding teams
Belief as Strategy for Founders
From £5,000
For founding teams at an inflection point. The full OOS: all ten beliefs, the team diagnostic, and a structured session that produces a shared belief system for the next phase of building.
  • Full day on-site (London or travel by arrangement)
  • Right for founding teams of 4-12 people
  • Outcome: a decision-making foundation, not just a values exercise
Session formats and what's included
Half-day
OOS Introduction
From £2,500
A focused introduction to the ten beliefs, the self-assessment, and the team discussion. Right for teams who want a high-quality provocation session.
  • 3.5 hours on-site or remote
  • Pre-session individual diagnostics
  • Facilitated belief audit and discussion
  • Written summary and next-steps document
Full day · Most popular
OOS Deep Dive
From £4,500
The complete session: belief introduction, honest team audit, application exercises, and a structured action-planning close. Built for teams that want to leave with specific commitments.
  • Full day on-site (London or travel by arrangement)
  • Pre-session diagnostics for all participants
  • Three working sessions: beliefs, audit, application
  • Facilitated action planning with accountability structure
  • Post-session written brief and follow-up call
Programme
Capability Building
From £3,000 / month
An ongoing monthly engagement. The OOS session as the foundation, followed by monthly working sessions applying the framework to live strategy questions.
  • Initial full-day OOS Deep Dive
  • Monthly half-day working sessions
  • Access to all new OOS materials and audio
  • Direct line to Mike for live questions
Who books this
Leadership teams
Senior teams navigating uncertainty who want a shared framework for how they make decisions, not just what decisions they make.
Strategy and planning teams
Teams preparing annual plans or long-range strategy who want to examine the beliefs underneath the numbers before they commit to the numbers.
Product and innovation teams
Teams building new products who want to examine their relationship with iteration, uncertainty and shipping before certainty.
Culture and communications teams
Teams responsible for internal culture or external narrative who want a credible, grounded framework to build on.
Facilitator
Mike Litman
Strategist & builder

Mike Litman has spent fifteen years at the intersection of culture, technology and strategy: as a creative director, a strategist, a founder, and as a builder of AI-native products. He is a BIMA 100 Tech Pioneer and published author (BCS, 2024).

He built the Optimist's Operating System as a working framework, not a theory. It has been refined through fifteen years of observing what separates the builders who last from the ones who don't. The team session is an application of that work, not a presentation of it.

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Get in touch

Book a session or ask a question

Most sessions are confirmed within a week. Send a note with your team size, preferred format and any timing constraints and I will come back to you directly.

hello@mikelitman.me

Based in London. Available UK-wide and internationally by arrangement.

New to the OOS? Read the full series or take the five-minute diagnostic.