Can we take positivity too far?

Many years ago, there was a period of dislocation in my work life and I was suddenly scrabbling to relaunch my independent career with no work on the horizon. At the time we had very little savings and I was the main earner for our household of four. I was feeling worried and anxious.

A friend, who lived abroad, was briefly in the country and we had a chance to catch up. She asked how I was, and I started to explain my financial worries and work concerns. Abruptly she cut across me to say, ‘But when you’re working you earn good money, right?’

I can only assume this was meant make me feel better, but it had the opposite effect. I felt like I’d been slapped across the face and got the clear message that she wasn’t interested in hearing about my feelings and problems. It being clear that I wasn’t going to get the sympathetic hearing I was seeking, I moved the conversation on. But I never forgot the experience, it hurt.

When this happened, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what had gone wrong, given that her comment was, relatively speaking, correct. I didn’t know how to name what had happened, but I can now identify it as an experience of ‘toxic positivity.’

Toxic Positivity

Toxic positivity insists on ‘looking on the bright side’ but in a way that is disconnected from the current context, that dismisses the validity of someone’s current feelings in favour of a demand that they have ‘happy emotions.’

As well as doing it to others we can do it to ourselves, feeling we have to be positive about everything all the time. This can spill into a belief that we have to deny feelings that are difficult to deal with such as anger and hurt, that we should be happy all the time and at if we aren’t, something is wrong.

In his recent book Sukhvinder Pabial examines how our awareness of the many benefits of positivity, and desire to help people experience positivity, can, through a misinterpretation of the idea of positivity and abuse of the idea, spill over into toxic positivity and more.

The Positive Continuum model

This model (reprinted with the author, Sukhvinder Pabial’s permission) starts by identifying how when we are working effectively with positivity, events can be helpfully reframed in a more positive way, creating motivation and inspiration and enabling people to move on.

A lot of coaching works to reframe like this. The hurt or difficult situation is acknowledged, and empathy demonstrated, before a sensitive attempt is made to help the person start to look at the situation differently. Importantly, this helping isn’t based on ‘telling’ people there is a silver lining, but by helping them to find, see or create such for themselves. Appreciative Inquiry works at a similar way for coaching and larger systems.

Toxic positivity by contrast is defined as ‘uncalled for solutions and lack of empathy,’ which characterises the response of my friend to my situation. While it might arise because someone is short on empathy, I wonder whether this behaviour is sometimes exhibited by people, perhaps aspiring practitioners, who have grasped a general message about how ‘feeling good is good for you’, but lack the skills to apply it in a given situation.

Relentless Positivity

Sukhvinder extends the model to identify yet another positivity position, that of ‘relentless positivity’ which is ‘persistent and unregulated positivity’.

There was a fad a while back for organizations to issue statements such as ‘there is no such word as “can’t” in this organization!’ This would be an example of a culture of relentless positivity. Bad news is just unacceptable and not heard. As Sukhvinder explains, it is pushed back against with ‘we have to make this happen’, and ‘we must find solutions’ type statements.

There is a fantastic example of this: the film documentary of the fiasco of a the Fyre festival: FYRE: the greatest party that never happened. For those who haven’t yet seen it, the organiser resists all the attempts of experienced festival organisers to highlight various problems and issues that need to be addressed, insisting everything will work. He resists all attempts to call off the festival in good time to limit the PR damage and in the event nothing works and it’s a disaster, so he ends up cancelling it so late some guests have already arrived. That is relentless positivity in action.

I have occasionally come across an organisational culture that demonstrates relentless positivity in another way where its just not permissible to have, or to acknowledge in others, difficult feelings. You could call it happy, clappy. This type of culture makes it very hard to have reconciling and healing conversations as the feelings that need to be named and addressed to affect restoration of a relationship can’t be acknowledged in the first place!

The time continuum

These positions are represented across a timeframe. So ‘reframing’ is a specific activity in a specific context. Toxic positivity can be a repeated, habitual way of responding when others experience problems and difficulties, while relentless positivity is a sustained culture or way of behaving that denies the possibility of the non-positive outcome.

As our awareness of the benefits of positivity grows, along with our eagerness to help everyone benefit from experiencing positivity, I find this model very useful in alerting us to the dangers of unthinking and unregulated attempts to ‘be positive’ or to inject positivity into a situation.

My thanks to Sukhvinder for his insights into this interesting area. The model and diagram come from his excellent and highly recommended book The Resilience Handbook, available from our online store.

Other Resources

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Co-Creating Planning Teams For Dialogic OD’, published by BMI Publishing, ‘Positive Psychology in Business’, published by Pavillion, ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology and Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management', published by Kogan Page.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organisations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

If you want to know more about implementing approaches and processes that positively affect people’s happiness, engagement, motivation, morale, productivity and work relationships, see Sarah’s positive psychology books.

More blog posts categorised as ‘Thought Provoking’ 

How Appreciative Inquiry Supports Diversity, Equality and Inclusion

The words are easy: we want to create a diverse and inclusive culture, that promotes equality of access and opportunity. The business case for creating a work environment that is inclusive of difference, that honours and makes good use of diversity, and that manages itself in such a way that all employees feel they are fairly treated, has long been made. The challenge is how to achieve such an environment. I want to briefly consider how using Appreciative Inquiry can support the development of such a culture.

Appreciative Inquiry can be seen to support the development of inclusive, diverse and equitable cultures in two ways. Firstly, there is the method itself.

The Whole System in the Room

The core appreciative inquiry summit process is predicated on inclusion, on getting the whole system in the room. This means that lots of people who might not usually get invited to ‘change planning’ events are included, right from the beginning. From very early in the process they have the opportunity to contribute ideas, participate in discussions and to influence outcomes; in effect, to have a voice.

Conscious Make Up of Groups

This propensity towards inclusion can be further activated by conscious actions and decisions. For example, care can be taken when assembling the event planning group to bring together a group that reflects the diversity of the organization. Similarly, when selecting individuals for preliminary interviews can be taken to ensure the views of a wide range of people are heard.

Including Those On The Periphery

In addition, inclusion is enhanced by drawing the organization’s attention to groups that are on the periphery of the organization, and who might normally be discounted as part of the organization. This can include groups like teachers’ assistants, temporary, contract or agency workers, part-time staff or those who work offsite or remotely. Making efforts to expand the manager’s sense of the boundaries of the organization to include such groups helps with inclusion, diversity and equality. These actions often positively diversify the race and gender mix in the room.  However, while presence is a predeterminant of the possibility of inclusion, it is another thing to ensure that all those involved have a voice at the event or during the process.

Creating Psychological Safety With A Positive Atmosphere Of Engagement

From research in this area, we know good quality conversation is more likely to happen in a positive atmosphere. A positive atmosphere is one where people are focussing on finding commonality, where they appreciate each other’s strengths and are focused on learning together and sharing successes. This can be seen as creating a sense of psychological safety  which is a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes, and that there is a shared belief held by members of a group working together that it is safe for individuals take interpersonal risks.

By contrast, people are less likely to feel safe to speak out in an atmosphere focused on competitive idea pitching, destruction of the ideas of others, and the establishment of the superiority of the intellectual apparatus of one person over another. This latter atmosphere tends to create a high degree of compliance to the dominant idea expressed by the most powerful person in the room. In such an atmosphere dissent is dangerous and can unleash a highly critical dismantling of opposing positions, a huge disincentive to further engagement for many. Those of equal power to the speaker may relish this, but others are likely to be silenced, even just by witnessing another being attacked in this manner. In this way difference and variety in the group is diminished.

The Appreciative Inquiry process, however, is interested in difference, which is seen as bringing value and resource to the group. Within appreciative inquiry processes there is no pressure to all ‘sing from the same hymn sheet,’ indeed, exploration of difference is seen as key to the process of discovering attractive ways forward. This means that the tacit knowledge of the world brought by people with different backgrounds, experiences and cultural understanding from the dominant group can be brought to bear on the challenge. Rather, than is so often the case, being a level of difference that needs to be minimised to enable ‘fitting in’ at work, an experience dramatically brought to life in the recent novel ‘Assembly’ by Natasha Brown.

Culture Change Rather Than Individual Change

Saiyyidah Zaid, a consultant in the area of diversity, inclusion and equality points out that a purely person-centred approach to improving diversity, equality and inclusion practice and culture has been tried and tested in academia, organizations and community arenas and has had limited effectiveness. In other words, trying to change the behaviour of particular individual’s rarely works to promote a fully inclusive environment. Appreciative inquiry works to create change at a group or cultural level.

The second way we can use Appreciative Inquiry to enhance diversity, inclusion and equality is through a project focused on enhancing this culture. In other words, the affirmative topic might be something like: A Voice for All; Respect in Action; I, We, Us. Or some other phrase that resonates with the diverse, equal and inclusive culture the organization wants to create. The discovery phase would focus on the best experiences people have had of feeling seen, valued and heard. The dream would imagine a future where the desired culture already exists and explore how it operates, how it feels, what it creates, releases, allows and so on. The design phase would consider what the organization needs to change about its current way of being or operating to make those futures more likely. And the destiny phase would incorporate a new orientation towards a more inclusive, diverse and equitable future, and actions to move towards it.

In this way, I believe Appreciative Inquiry has a lot to offer those wishing to create a more diverse, inclusive and equitable workplace.

Other Resources

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Co-Creating Planning Teams For Dialogic OD’, published by BMI Publishing, ‘Positive Psychology in Business’, published by Pavillion, ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology and Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management', published by Kogan Page.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organisations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

If you want to know more about implementing approaches and processes that positively affect people’s happiness, engagement, motivation, morale, productivity and work relationships, see Sarah’s positive psychology books.

More blog posts categorised as ‘Positive Organisational Culture’ 

Working with the Organisation’s Shadowside: Helping organisations discuss the undiscussable?

At the recent EU AI network meeting some colleagues and I fell into a conversation about working with the organisational shadowside. I thought it was interesting enough to share.

What is the organisational shadowside?

While discussion our work, we identified a common experience, when working with faith organisations, of encountering such a strong surface ‘story’ about what it meant to be a good person of this faith that it was impossible for the organisation to talk about actions and feelings in the organisation that didn’t fit that story. In one example it was the hurt, anger, betrayal, resentment and other difficult feelings following a round of redundancies that had taken place the previous year that was unmentionable. In another it was the difficulty of working and living within the constraints of monastic vows that was pushed under the carpet. The challenge we encountered wasn’t the stories themselves, it was the sense that we were being drawn into a secret or ‘shadow’ conversation that couldn’t be fitted into the accepted organisational story.

Another colleague expanded the conversation by added her experience working with ‘vocational’ organisations like charities, noting how she had found that an excess of ‘passion’ about the work or the clients was used to excuse bullying behaviour. Of course, we noted, all organisations have topics and parts of their history that are difficult to address, but these types of organisations seemed to have an extra factor of difficulty in acknowledging and owning organisational imperfections.

What is particular about these organizations?

Reflecting on this led us to the observation that these organisations could all be described as striving towards a greater good. In a way the organizations didn’t just want to do good, they needed to be good. This purity of spirit allowed little room for imperfections of spirit. But the organizations were full of people, and people have plenty of imperfections. It was this, we postulated, that made it hard for the organisation and the people in it to bring their stories together. The lived experience of troubling feelings and actions was pushed into the shadow.

So as Appreciative Practitioners, our challenge was, how to bring these two conversations into the same space in a fruitful and appreciative way? We needed to be able to have a conversation that acknowledged and owned people’s experience of the difficulties that come with being human that also honoured the organisation’s story of itself as essentially ‘good’. Somehow, within the container of a specific safe space, we needed it become permissible to name and share the challenging parts of life in this group while upholding the values and beliefs of the organisation about its purpose and its ‘spirit’ of being. The organisation, and the people, needed to be able to own the whole.

We felt that this idea of permission, permission to tell the untellable stories and of being heard, was key to joining the two conversations together. We discussed and shared different approaches and techniques we had used, recognising that what worked in one context wouldn’t necessarily have the same impact in another; that we needed, in all situations, to enact situational sensitivity.

Some of the approaches we identified that we had found helpful in the past were

• Validating but not amplifying. One of us had found that creating an opportunity for people to share difficult stories in individual interviews meant that they could tell their story of the ‘bad things’ going on before the group event. This meant that the story/ experience could be heard and acknowledged, without being amplified within a group setting. It was also noted that the sense of having ‘deposited ‘the story with the facilitator beforehand seemed to act to reduce the anxiety and so likelihood of someone being driven to just blurt something out. Instead, the facilitator could create opportunities for people to choose to share difficult material within a generally appreciative and positive oriented event, at an appropriate time.

• Problem and Solution Tree. One of us had also worked with a ‘problem tree’ and ‘solution tree’ process, drawing on the work of David Shaked, which worked to bring both problem and aspiration visibly into the same space in relation to each other.

• Working with hopes and fears. The allowed the fears (of getting together to have a tricky conversation for example) to be named. It was found that allowing them to be named worked, in the specific context described, to lessen their strength and their impact. Naming and recording these hopes and fears also allowed for regularly monitoring of changes in group concerns and helped appreciation that hopes were being realised and fears ameliorated.

In addition,

• We noted in these situations it can be helpful to work in small groups a lot, and of course, to always be focused on creating questions that move the discussion and conversation towards connection, creation and compassion.

• We also reminded ourselves of the value, frequently, in checking assumptions underlying conversational contributions and people’s mental maps

• And we noted the importance of exercising contextual intelligence. That is, recognising that the story is bigger than the people in the room and systems, for example, often mirror the tensions in the bigger system.

Since our conversation I have been reminded of how story is the key resource with which we are so often working. The question often is how we can help the group move from its current story or stories towards something that is inclusive of a wider experience. One that recognises forces at play beyond those in front of us, or that recognises good intentions can be behind bad actions.

I find this an interesting topic, and I hope this has been interesting for you too.

Other Resources

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Co-Creating Planning Teams For Dialogic OD’, ‘Positive Psychology in Business’ ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology and Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management'.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organisations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

If you want to know more about implementing approaches and processes that positively affect people’s happiness, engagement, motivation, morale, productivity and work relationships, see Sarah’s positive psychology books.

More blog posts categorised as ‘Positive Organisational Culture’ 

How Positive Psychology Can Promote Children’s Wellbeing and other Benefits

By Ella Jackson-Jones

Marketing Assistant for Appreciating Change and part-time Nanny, writing from her perspective as a Nanny

As a childcare provider I see the benefits of incorporating positive psychology techniques and practices in all aspects of children’s lives from a young age. It helps support their emotional development, promote wellbeing, and build resilience that they can carry with them into adulthood. Generation Alpha children will have to navigate an ever more competitive, demanding and increasingly complex education system and job market, as well as cope with being embedded in social media with access to 24/7 news. They are growing up in a world of globally connected new technologies which will become part of their everyday lives, and that will ultimately shape their attitudes and expectations of the world.

Young children need to learn the skills necessary for managing their emotions. Adults who can model this are essential in helping to shape children’s emotional development. There is a strong link between mental health concerns in children and their ability to regulate their emotions. Assisting children to cultivate positive emotions helps to mitigate mental health issues not just for them but for future generations also.

Poor emotional regulation can manifest as behavioural or mental health issues in children such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, mood disorders, sleep disorders and neurotic disorders. Children are affected by life’s adversities, in particular those from lower socio-economic backgrounds or those who have experienced high levels of trauma, are more at risk of developing a mental health condition, with 1 in 6 children aged between 5 and 16 currently likely to do so. In addition, 39.2% of 6- to 16-year-olds have experienced a deterioration in mental health since 2017. Educators and parents are seeing the consequences of both an education system, and traditional parenting styles, that ignore the importance of the mental health needs of children.

An answer to some of the issues faced by children may lie within the teachings of Positive Psychology. It is already known that wellbeing is a clear indicator of academic achievement, success, and satisfaction in later life (Wise up: prioritizing wellbeing in schools) and it is possible to support the wellbeing of children through our interactions with them both in and out of school. Research into the effects of positive psychology interventions in young people is still in its infancy, however there are systematic reviews that suggest these interventions benefit the wellbeing of children now and the children of future generations.

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is a method that aids both children and adults to recognise, understand, and manage their emotions. SEL targets 5 areas; self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision making. In time, working with SEL, children learn to establish and achieve goals, express empathy for others, engage in healthy relationships and make responsible decisions. . The benefits of this kind of intervention include better academic performance, improved attitudes and behaviours, greater motivation to learn, deeper commitment to school, increased time devoted to schoolwork, fewer negative behaviours, decreased disruptive class behaviours, reduced emotional distress, fewer reports of student depression, anxiety, stress, and social withdrawal. Organisations such as the Education Policy Institute are fighting to have SEL integrated into the national curriculum in the UK.

Another way we can attend to the social and emotional needs of children is by supporting them in the fostering of good and healthy relationships with others since the quality of our relationships affects our ability to have a happy and fulfilling life.

There are always ways you can practice positive psychology techniques with your children at home. I have listed some ideas below.

• The Good Things List – Each day you can work together to write a list of 3 good things that happened that day which children can refer back to as they grow up.

• Relationships – Make sure children spend quality time with parents, special relatives, and friends.

• Random acts of kindness – Encourage your children to do one act of kindness each day and talk about how doing nice things for other people make you feel.

• The Gratitude Jar – Assist your child to write down 5 things each day that they are grateful for and pop them in a jar, each week you can reflect on all the wonderful things they appreciate.

• Goal chart – Create some short- and long-term achievable goals. Keep reviewing them and reflect on how you feel as your achievement list grows.

• The strengths list – Discuss and write down your children’s strengths. Focus on some each day to help them improve their day or to help someone else.

• Savouring the moment – Take a part of your child’s routine that you both enjoy and slow it down so you can really enjoy the moment.

It is possible and important for you to provide the tools and scaffolding children need to look after their mental health and wellbeing throughout their lives. By teaching them to focus on the positives and create happiness from the little things will help children be more resilient in times of adversity and mitigate against mental health conditions in the future.

The following sources helped inform this paper

• Mental Health of Children and Young People in England, NHS Digital, 2020, accessed, https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/mental-health-of-children-and-young-people-in-england/2020-wave-1-follow-up

• Mental Health of Children and Young People in England, NHS Digital, 2021, accessed, https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/mental-health-of-children-and-young-people-in-england/2021-follow-up-to-the-2017-survey

• Young Minds ‘Wise Up’ prioritizing wellbeing in schools. www.youngminds.org.uk

•  Social and emotional learning: An evidence review and synthesis of key issues – Education Policy Institute, 4th November 2021, accessed, https://epi.org.uk/publications-and-research/social-and-emotional-learning

 Other Resources

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Co-Creating Planning Teams For Dialogic OD’, ‘Positive Psychology in Business’ ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology and Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management'.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organisations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

If you want to know more about implementing approaches and processes that positively affect people’s happiness, engagement, motivation, morale, productivity and work relationships, see Sarah’s positive psychology books.

More blog posts categorised as ‘Thought Provoking’ 

What Is The Most Effective Way To Achieve Organisational Change? New Research Results

Ever felt that the traditional approach to change doesn’t deliver the results you hoped? Wondered if there is a better way?  Well interestingly Bradley Hasting and Gavin Schwarz[i] recently published a lengthy paper comparing the effectiveness of two different approaches to organisational development. One is the traditional mode, known as diagnostic, and the other a more recently developed approach, championed particularly by Bushe and Marshak[ii], known as dialogic. 

Diagnostic vs Dialogic

The diagnostic mode is the traditional approach to change: gathering information, making a diagnosis, then planning and implementing an intervention. Diagnostic approaches are typically prescriptive and linear, recommending a sequential sets of activity. They are essentially a variant of Lewin’s orginal freeze, unfreeze, refreeze model of organisational development.

The dialogic mode refers to the large group, social constructionist approach to change like Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space and World Café. Dialogic processes follow newer theories of complexity science, suggesting that organizations are permanently in flux and change, and that the art of change is to help bottom level changes amplify and accumulate to become substantial changes over time.

The table below highlights the findings of the research. As you can see traditional, diagnostic methods alone didn’t do terribly well, reflecting in fact the commonly quoted figure that ‘70% of change efforts fail.’ Interestingly not only are dialogic approaches much more effective, but the most effective approach of all was to start with a diagnostic approach (that is to identify the topic and gather information) and then to oscillate with the dialogic approach. This approach delivered a 93% success rate – phenomenal!

How can we help organizations to reap the benefits of this joint approach?

 Help is at hand: The Bushe Marshak Institute has published a unique series of dialogic OD guidance books. Each book is written by an expert in the field. I am very pleased to have been asked to contribute one on working with dialogic teams, as below

 This book, distilled from my many years of helping organizations embrace dialogic approaches to change, such as appreciative inquiry, gives guidance from the point of entry through to setting up the first dialogic event. To take the planning group from their habitual diagnostic approach to something more dialogic, a lot needs to happen: this book explains what. The guidance is enlivened with a warts and all account of a less-than-prefect-but-we-got-there-in-the-end case-study. 

My experience of working in this blended way fully supports Hastings and Schwarz’s findings. Many of my assignments have come off the back of diagnostic activity such as staff surveys or customer feedback or performance assessments. While these create the awareness of a need for change, they don’t always create excitement, energy and motivation for the possibilities of the future; rather the emphasis can be on fixing the problem. Instead, taking the diagnostic as a springboard, I work dialogically using Appreciative inquiry and other approaches to creating better futures in an empowered and participative way. 

This book shares all the lessons I have learnt on how to help planning teams see the opportunity offered by more a dialogic approach, and grasp it, so opening up possibilities and exciting futures for their organizations.

Where can I learn more?

The Organizational Development Network is hosting a session on ‘Getting Ready for a Dialogic Intervention’ on Thursday October 7th at 1700 UK time. See details here

[i] Hastings and Schwarz (2021) Leading Change Processes for Success: A dynamic Application of Diagnostic and Dialogic Organisational Development. The Journal of Applied Behavioural Studies 1-29.

[ii] Bushe and Marshak (2015) Dialogic Organizational Development.Berrett-Koehler

Other Resources

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Co-Creating Planning Teams For Dialogic OD’, ‘Positive Psychology in Business’ ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology and Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management'.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organisations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

If you want to know more about implementing approaches and processes that positively affect people’s happiness, engagement, motivation, morale, productivity and work relationships, see Sarah’s positive psychology books.

More blog posts categorised as ‘Emergent Change’

Ten Top Tips For Online Training

Like many others, over the past months I have delivered a lot of training online that I would normally have delivered in person. Here are some of the things I learnt.

1.     Breaks

Resolve to take a break of 10 minutes every hour. It is constraining and exhausting being stuck in one position with a fixed gaze. The last course I ran, one of the spontaneous comments made was, ‘what I love about this course is the breaks.’ Well, good to know I’d got something right!

2.     Break it up

The same principles apply as in regular training, break it up. Break out rooms at a minimum, but I also incorporate video input, brainstorming and whiteboard work. I know everyone has their favourite extra tool, but mine is Deckhive with its terrific array of card decks. Powerpoint is no more engaging online than in the classroom, keep it to the necessary minimum

Hot News: 3rd Nov 13.00. Webinar on the Positive Organisational Development Cards.

3.     Sidebar conversations

In live training sessions delegates appear before and after the workshop, or during breaks to pick your brains about their own dilemma or to clarify a point they haven’t understood, or to tell you how the theory or research just presented is wrong, in their experience. These are valuable conversations that, if not accommodated, can easily bore the pants off the rest of the group. Offer to arrive early and leave late, as you would in a classroom, and be prepared to have one-to-one conversations as necessary outside the workshop sessions

4.     Insist on presence

Some workplaces clearly allow people to ‘attend’ meetings or training with their camera off. Hopeless! I know people occasionally need to go dark, if they are eating or if their Wi-Fi is sulking, but as a general rule it is vital that all present can see and be seen. I recently attended an online conference where the ‘attendance’ of fifteen people was revealed, when they were all asked to self-select into zoom rooms, to actually be six. You don’t want to be wasting your breath and you don’t want people missing great chunks of your wisdom!

5.     Make it interactive

I know it can be clumsy when two people speak at once, but I much prefer that risk to the destruction of spontaneity and connection when everyone sits with their mics off, and then fumbles to switch them on as we all bellow ‘You’re on mute!’ at them. Obvious it wouldn’t work for very large groups, but in general I prefer to deal with the chaos than to have to monitor raised hands (another button people can’t always find in a hurry). Keep the large group discussions short, but lively.

6.     Networking is still important

Incorporate networking type questions into your training as morning fire-lighters. Mix the groups up for each breakout session, allowing a few minutes for introductions each time. Do introductions. 

7.     Keep it short

It has pretty much been established that zoom interaction is exhausting. Transferring the two day programme to online delivery needs to be rethought. I have tried two methods. One is to break the material up into maximum four hour chunks, delivered over a period of days, often not sequential, and with plenty of breaks. I won’t do a session longer than four hours. I have also taken material out of the presentation and made it available offline, to be accessed between sessions. I have found LOOM invaluable here as I can record presentations for participants to watch as and when, which we can then discuss in class. I also sometimes provide written material. Keep the workshop time for the interactive, experiential, learning.

8.     Use your positive psychology

Your psychological knowledge is as relevant here as in the classroom. Attend to creating positive mood, to developing relationships, to creating points of connection and high-quality interactions. Think how you can maximise the use of your strengths in this different environment. 

9.     Manage their expectations of you

I don’t know about you but when I’m thinking and talking and engaging with the participants, I find it hard to also monitor the chat bar, or questions feed or be scanning for the raised hand. I make it clear that they are welcome to use the chat bar, but I will only be looking at it in the breaks, if then. I find I still have to talk aloud to organise or sequence my actions sometimes ‘So I’m going to put the link to the app in the chat, then I’m going to share the instructions on screen, then I’ll put you into zoom groups.’ I find it very helpful if a group member feels emboldened enough to ask ‘How long have we got’ before they all disappear into their groups!

10.  Be human

The more comfortable you are dealing with the glitches, mistakes and challenges of working online, the more comfortable your participants with be their own technical adventures, and the less distracted they’ll be by them. You are a training professional or subject matter expert, not an IT wiz. On the rare occasion someone can’t access an app I’m using, I’ve found groups are quick to find a work around, such as screen-sharing, so we can all get on with the task in hand.

 Other Resources

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Co-Creating Planning Teams For Dialogic OD’, ‘Positive Psychology in Business’ ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology and Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management'.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organisations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

If you want to know more about implementing approaches and processes that positively affect people’s happiness, engagement, motivation, morale, productivity and work relationships, see Sarah’s positive psychology books.

More blog posts categorised as ‘Training’ or ‘How To’

Some Challenges Posed by Hybrid Working and How We Can Meet Them

Hybrid working, for many a necessity induced by lockdown, is rapidly becoming a work pattern of choice for the future. Goldman Sachs are one of the few organizations so far to have declared against the trend with their boss David Solomon rejecting the idea of remote working, labelling it an “aberration”. The more common view seems to be that the working pattern has changed for good. Google, for example, expects 20% of staff to work from home permanently in future, while Microsoft is to make remote working a permanent option. This shift towards more flexible working patterns poses some tough questions for managers and leaders.

How is it being done?

1.     Who gets to work in a hybrid way?

An educational organisation I know identified this as a key question as staff began to return to working on the campus after the year of home based working. Each function’s stakeholders had different expectations of instant access, face-to-face contact. It was clear that the same offer of hybrid working couldn’t be made to all staff. How to decide? Nationwide answered this dilemma earlier this year, saying that the 13,000 of its staff who do not work in branches would be allowed to work from wherever they wanted, making for a very clear two-tier role-based system driven by a need for customer access. Is this a fair way to decide? Will staff agree? Which raises a key challenge, whatever route forward is decided, how to ensure it is fair?

2.     How to make it fair?

We know that people’s experience of working from home during lockdown has been highly variable. Some have really appreciated it while for others it’s been a seemingly endless struggle of juggling demands and battling technology. Estate agents report that many people have moved out of the city centres, thrilled at green spaces and lower rents while others, it seems, have experienced extreme pressure on their mental health from isolation or family pressures, and can’t wait to get back to the order and sociability of office life. Any system that assumes the impact of a move to permanent hybrid working is the same for everyone, is unlikely to be perceived as fair.

3.     What will the impact be for the organization?

The big advantages of everyone coming into a central working space tend to be relative ease of communication and information flow (I did say relative!). It is easy to reconfigure the network as needed: call everyone together, split them into small groups, create ad hoc spaces for people to meet and congregate. In this way information snippets get passed on while relationships are stoked and nurtured. Virtual platforms do their best, but they are not the same. The hybrid organization will have to pay special attention to the challenges of connection and communication. It is very easy for those remote from the buzzing centre to miss out on accidental conversations and to quickly feel they’re out of the loop. Once they start feeling disconnected, they can quickly start disconnecting.

4.     How to ensure equality of access to opportunity?

Many of the benefits and perks of working can involve being in the right place at the right time to seize an opportunity, whether that’s an opening to meet a client, a chance to go to a trade show, or an invitation to give a presentation at a meeting. If you hear your colleague or boss fretting about being unable to be in two places at once, you can make the offer to help out. Face to face training sessions often have incidental network boosting benefits that can be nurtured and developed in the coffee break. We can beam colleagues in for the training but enabling them to roam freely in the breaks is impossible to replicate. How to ensure that the more remote workers don’t become out of sight, out of mind when a career-enhancing opportunity arises unexpectedly?

5.     How to ensure hybrid-working doesn’t become hybrid-washing?

It’s no secret that large organizations have spotted a money saving opportunity. HSBC, the UK’s biggest bank, is moving to a hybrid model and plans to cut its property footprint by as much as 40% in the long term, while Lloyds Banking Group has said it will bring in working from home as a permanent lifestyle change, allowing it to cut 20% of its office space. Who will benefit from these savings? It is important that organizations are honest that their motivations to elevate hybrid working from an emergency fix to a modus operandi are multiple and varied and not solely driven by a desire to increase flexibility for staff, if they want the initiative to maintain credibility.

6.     How will the organization continue to develop?

There has been a move over the last thirty odd years to recognize organizations as systems and to work with them as such. Approaches such as Appreciative Inquiry and Dialogic OD are predicated on the benefits of getting the whole system together to address development challenges and opportunities as an inter-connected, inter-dependent living system. How can this be done if people aren’t able to gather in the same physical space?

What helps?

1.     Pay attention to perceptions of fairness

Equity theory and research has made it plain that perception of fairness is key to feeling fairly treated; and that are perceptions of fairness are made by comparison by those around us. We compare what we put and what we get in return against what we see others put in and receive. We also value different things, and so experience their loss or gain differently. My son, who regards work as a necessary evil and values his leisure time highly, had to continue to go into work during lockdown and thought it mightily unfair that many of his mates were on furlough. Many of them though, were bored and lonely, drifting from day to day and would rather have been busy with work. All this means that while stakeholder expectations might dictate who can work away from the central office, attention will need to be paid to the specific impact for individuals. The greater the choice individuals have in accepting changes in their working patterns, the more individual preferences can be accommodated, and the greater the attention paid to perceptions of fairness, then the greater the likelihood of maintaining good motivation and morale.

2.     Make the shift from thinking of physical place to virtual space for development activities

One of the big adjustments for organisational development practitioners was how to run team development, training sessions or organisational change processes in an online environment.  We gathered and shared information on resources and apps and learnt that it was different, but it could be done. Consultant Gwen Stirling-Wilkins moved from thinking that bringing groups together to host and facilitate transformative change was unlikely to be productive, or effective, to writing a book about her experiences of successfully doing just this, leading and delivering a transformational project entirely online with 600+ people from five organizations, none of whom she ever met physically. Her book ‘From Physical Place to Virtual Space’ pulls together all her learning as a pioneer and is highly recommended.

3.     Make use of new online tools to enhance the online environment

There is an explosion of apps attempting to humanise the virtual workspace. From a psychology perspective I want to mention Deckhive, an online training app that has a fantastic and growing set of cards to support all sorts of training and development activity. The card sets include strengths, positive organisational development, motivation, creativity, coaching questions and emotions. They are useful for online coaching, performance reviews, career counselling, team development, training sessions and even organisational development. Moving, flipping and sorting cards on a virtual tabletop is as near as you can get to physically manipulating cards. I find it invaluable in making training sessions as experiential as possible.

4.     Pay attention to the rewards in the environment

There are rewards associated with social environments: smiles, verbal strokes (appreciation, thanks, compliments), shared laughter, physicality, shared non-verbal communication (winks, raised eyebrows, complicit smiles), acts of generosity (‘oh I’ll get these’ at the coffee bar). All these little incidental ‘blips’ of positive emotion have an effect on our sense of mood, wellbeing and morale. It is this continuous drip-feed of mood boosting interactions that is difficult to replicate in a virtual environment. Conscious effort needs to be made to introduce jokes, quizzes, rounds of positive news sharing and other mood boosting and rewarding activities into the online environment. And take a ten-minute break every fifty minutes minimum, if you want to maintain online energy.

5.     Review and revise

For many organizations going hybrid so extensively is going to be a new experience. Treat it as an experiment. Don’t assume you are going to get, or have got, it right first time. As the pressure on everyone to work from home all the time lessens, take time to discover what you, as an organization, have learnt so far about what works and what doesn’t. Plan how to build on that, then review how the new arrangements are working for everyone after six months: is the work pattern working for clients and stakeholders? Does the new work pattern feel fair? Is everyone getting fair exposure to opportunity? How are the work patterns impacting the organization (look for the unexpected consequences, good and bad) How are they impacting individual, team and organisational growth and development?

The shift over the last twelve months to hybrid working patterns has been emergency driven and ad hoc in execution. We have the opportunity now, as the ship steadies, of transforming them into intentional, strategic, thought-through beneficial ways of working that offer a win-win for people and the organization. This won’t happen by accident or by assuming what’s worked for the last twelve months will be good enough for the next. Instead we need to take stock, learn, re-negotiate the possible and launch pro-active plans that recognize the complexity of the opportunity, and the challenges it holds.

Other Resources

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Positive Psychology in Business’ ‘Positive Psychology at Work’, ‘Positive Psychology and Change’ and most recently ‘Co-creating Planning Teams For Dialogic OD’. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management'.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organisations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

If you want to know more about implementing approaches and processes that positively affect people’s happiness, engagement, motivation, morale, productivity and work relationships, see Sarah’s positive psychology books.

More blog posts categorised as ‘Coronavirus’

It’s OK To Not Feel Great, We’re All In Mourning For Times Past.

I suppose it was that Sunday evening press conference that brought it home to me. It was as Boris articulated the ambition to get people back to work, hung about with caveats and advice to avoid public transport, that the penny really dropped: that ‘getting back to normal’ was a complete pipedream. What he was doing, never mind the rhetoric, was starting to articulate the new normal, which wasn’t going to be a whole lot like the old normal. 

I had already known this but somehow this tangible evidence of the confusion, the uncertainty, the ‘suck it and see’ nature of the concessions, helped clarify for me what was, and wasn’t, going to be possible in this new normal. Essentially the virus wasn’t going anywhere, so neither was the life-and-death threat posed by other people. We were just being invited to increase our risk-taking a notch, while staying alert against an invisible danger (a perfect recipe for anxiety I would have thought).

 As I was coming to terms with this my mood started to slip,  I realised I was having an unusually low week. I was exhausted for no good reason, very slow, everything was a bit taxing. I was realised that I was pre-occupied with what I still couldn’t do: hug my (grown up) children, go out for Sunday breakfast, walk along the closed off river path (when will that be considered safe to open?). It dawned on me that I was in a mild state of mourning,  I was mourning these losses. Realising that was this was what I was doing was very helpful, and in fact once I worked it out and gave myself permission to feel sad about these loses, I started to feel better.

I doubt I’m the only one, and this is a plea that we allow ourselves to mourn what we are losing, even those of us unaffected in a more direct way by the virus. Mourning is not a zero-sum game. We are not taking anything away from those whose losses have been greater than ours, those who have lost their loved ones, those separated from family members who need them, those currently battling the illness. We can feel compassion for them and still have our own sense of loss. We are all paying a price as we try to keep each other safe.

To feel sad that you won’t be going on that holiday this year, or visiting relatives for an extended stay, or to a huge festival, or football matches, or concerts or theatres for the foreseeable future is not being disrespectful to anyone else’s losses. It’s the little pleasures in life that make up the days: meeting your dog-walking friends, your drinking or skateboarding mates, five-minute chats with vaguely known neighbours, exchanging a few words with the postman, watching the world go by outside a café. These things are important and the loss of them is real.

And even when these things return they won’t be the same. The carefree days of jostling amongst each other, complaining about being crushed under strangers’ armpits on the tube, or fighting our way through overcrowded market streets, or sitting so close to the neighbouring table we can join in their conversation, are over. If we do venture back we will carry the knowledge that any stranger could be our unwitting assassin. This knowledge does not make for relaxation. 

I want to be able to have a big boozy meal with my family, in my garden, where we kiss and hug and sample each other’s drinks, have illicit puffs of the smokers’ cigarettes, and share the food. It’s not going to be happening anytime soon it seems. And that makes me sad, and that’s OK.

My sadness makes it clear to me what is really important to me, but that I can’t have right now. And  then I turn my mind again to all the joys I have in my life; my garden, my husband here with me, my college course, my work, books to read, Netflix’s new series Schitt’s Creek, and my slowly advancing tapestry. 

This week I went for a walk in the park at the 2-metre distance from my daughter, and we for a while sat on the grass and chatted 6’ apart. It wasn’t perfect, and it wasn’t like it was, but the sun shone, and we had a good catch up and if that’s the best it can be then let’s make the most of it.

Everyone has the right to feel a little sad about things right now, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. My advice? Allow yourself your sadness, if you do, it will be easier to turn towards what you can influence, what you can do even in these straitened circumstances to brighten up your life, to bring yourself a little joy.

10 Top tips for keeping up morale

Many of us are having to manage more anxiety than normal, as well as drastic changes in our daily lives. There are two key principles which it is useful to bear in mind: Managing anxiety takes mental strength and energy, and, that the state of our morale affects the state of our immune system. (At this point I have to say this doesn’t mean that anyone who becomes ill wasn’t positive enough. Absolutely not. Rather just that we know that keeping our spirits up is important to supporting our immune system. It’s not a guarantee of perfect health!)

Bearing these two key things in mind, here are ten tips for managing anxiety and keeping your spirits up

1.      Count your blessings

The new science of positive psychology has proved the benefits of the old adage of, when you are feeling low, counting your blessings. The exercise they have designed is known as the ‘three good things’ exercise. At the end of each day, identify three good things that have happened during the day. It’s good practice to write them down. Doing this regularly helps train your brain to look for the positives amongst the gloom, to find the silver linings if you like. For instance today in the paper there was a report on the positive effect of the lockdown for wildlife.

2.      Reasons to be cheerful

In addition, you might like to think each day of a good outcome of the current crisis- a reason to be cheerful. I’ve been doing this and putting them out on twitter. Today mine is going to be: Lockdown means chance of being hit by a bus – zero!

3.      Gallows humour

Which brings me to my next tip, the use of humour, specifically ‘gallows’ humour. I worked as a social worker in child protection for many years. Gallows humour was crucial for getting us through the sadder and tougher times. It exists for a reason. To make the unbearable bearable, to restore functionality quickly when a collapse into despair isn’t helpful. Be aware it doesn’t travel; it is very specific to the moment. And some people appreciate it more than others. Laughing in the face of death is a well-known coping mechanism, it works for me in small doses. Laughter reduces threats to size.

4.      Humour generally

There is lots of evidence that laughing is good for us and for our immune system. Whatever rocks your funny bone. Remember, this all may be no laughing matter, but, also, we don’t have to be solemn to be serious. Laughing is a good coping mechanism

5.      Managing your news feed

We are being offered 24-hour, worldwide updates. Following all this is not likely to do you any good. You can’t influence things other than by taking the sensible precautions we’ve all been told about. So take positive control and  limit your daily diet. Personally I read the paper rather than watch the news. One benefit of this is that there is less ‘emotional contagion’ from the page than from a person, so less transmission of anxiety. I listen to classic FM rather than my usual preference of Radio Four. I leave the room when dear beloved is getting his evening fix of doom and gloom from the evening TV news.

6.      Have a worry half-hour

This is a time-honoured technique of ‘allowing’ yourself a specific allotted time to worry as much as you like. So if you need to, spend 15 to 30 minutes allowing yourself to name all your worries. Write them in a ‘dear diary’ if you have no one at home. Or arrange a mutual strictly focused and time limited phone call with another ‘worrywart’. And when your time is up, stop, close that box and move on with your day knowing you have another half hour of worry time allocated tomorrow. With any luck doing this will reduce the likelihood of doing your worrying in the small wee hours, which is the worst possible time to do it.

7.      Get into flow

Find things to do that ‘take you out of yourself’. When we are completely absorbed in things we are in a state of ‘flow’ and when we are in this state we are not focused on our feelings. It’s like getting a holiday from your worried self. For me writing, gardening, and complicated cooking (or these days ‘creating from what we have got to hand’) all offer me productive escape time. This is usually more effective than mindless TV watching (where half your brain is still ticking along thinking about it all). A good, complex film though, is a different matter.

8.      Eat well and exercise

You are no longer at the mercy of the snack bars, train trolleys, airline catering etc. as you skedaddle from one place to another. Make the most of it to eat healthily. Lots of fruit and vegetables are good for immune system. Exercise is very important to both mental and physical health. You know the rules about keeping your distance. Put your face mask on and get out there and yomp for an hour somewhere green.

9.      Phone a friend

Social contact is another thing that is very important to our wellbeing. I am fortunate that I am marooned with dear beloved. Even so, I am resolved to talk on the phone to at least one person who isn’t him every day. You might want to talk about the situation, that’s fine. However, I would suggest you also ask them about their plans for the day, what they are hoping to achieve during this period of lockdown. In other words, try to help them see a silver lining. Ideally you will both come away from the phone call feeling slightly better not even worse!

10.  Have longer-term projects on the go

‘Wise people’, someone once said ‘prepare for the worse while hoping for the best’. Once you’ve done what you can to prepare for the worse, then turn your energy to hoping for the best. Starting projects suggests an optimism about the future that becomes self-reinforcing. Uncertainty can act to paralyse us. By pro-actively starting a project we can break out of that paralysis. The hardest part is getting started, but one you do it will draw you forward. Apart from total house rearrangement, I’ve started a new tapestry kit. These take me years to complete. But every evening I can admire the couple of square inches I’ve completed and feel I’m making progress.

And finally, I try to remind myself that, while Coronavirus is a new and scary threat, we live with our mortality all the time and habitually take precautions to increase our chances of staving it off. I cross at the lights, I avoid eating bad food, I get my flu jab,  etc. None of these guarantee my continued survival but they are habits that help. Our new temporary habits of social distancing, hand washing are really just more of the same.

Oh and chocolate! A little bit of chocolate with morning coffee just gives my morale a quick boost!

Stay well,

Sarah

Did you know? Build in Wellbeing from the beginning

Lots of people feel instinctively that happiness and wellbeing at work must be important. But are they a business necessity or a ‘nice to have’. Surely it makes more sense to ensure your business is profitable and thriving before you start worrying about how people feel?

Increasingly research suggests that investing in employee wellbeing by ensuring positive work relationships, an emphasis on strengths-based development, and worker happiness has productivity pay-offs. So why delay, start promoting positive psychology practices at work today!

Our happiness and wellbeing is at least partly within our control - and it matters!

Here is a selection of evidence-based support for the promotion of positive psychology e.g. happiness and wellbeing at work. It is clear from the evidence that a large component of the happiness we feel is within our control, and that many, more than 50% of the population, are functioning at a less than optimal state. And that our emotional state affects our performance and productivity at work:

1)    40% of the variation we experience in our sense of happiness, compared to others, is within our control. 10% is due to circumstances beyond our control and 50% due to our genetic make-up and inheritance which dictates our set point of happiness. Our 40% is influenced by ‘intentional activity’. In other words we can affect the happiness of ourselves and others. The research behind this assertion is based on twin studies (the genetic component) and the long-lasting effect of changing circumstances on happiness levels (the circumstances) leaving 40% of the variation due to individual actions.

2)    54% of Americans are ‘moderately mentally healthy’ meaning they aren’t mentally ill but they lack great enthusiasm for life and are not actively and productively engaged with the world. 11% languish – just above clinical depression.

3)    Exercise can be as effective at treating clinical depression as medication, and have an effect for longer.

4)    People whose managers focus on their strengths as 2.5x more likely to be engaged at work than those whose managers focus on their weaknesses.

5)    Highly engaged employees take, on average, 3 sick days per annum, actively disengaged employees , 6+ per year.

6)    The least happy employees average 6 days absence a year, the most happy 1.5, in the UK and USA. Liking your colleagues produces the same absence correlation.

7)    Engaged employees give 57% more discretionary effort at work.

8)    Doctors in a positive mood before making a diagnosis make the correct diagnosis 19% faster than those who were in a neutral state.

9)    In a major fast food company an intervention to reduce management turnover (the retention of managers being a major problem for this sector) the approach using AI led to a retention rate 30% higher than when problem-solving techniques were used.

10) The happiest people at work are 180% more energised than the unhappiest, they contribute 25% more and achieve their goals 30% more. They are 47% more productive meaning they are contributing a day and a quarter more than their least happy colleagues per week.

11) The most happy are 50% more motivated than the least happy. 

12) People who are happier are 25% more effective and efficient than those who are least happy.

13) Feelings and behaviour are contagious: negative behaviour has a ripple effect to two degrees, but positive behaviour can reach to three degrees.

14) The more you want recognition, the less you want money in its place.

15) We lose 40% of our productivity flip-flopping between tasks – three lost hours in a typical 8-hour day.

Sources

These findings are collated from various sources, including particularly the work of Pryce-Jones and Lyubomirsky.

Other Resources

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology and Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management'.

See more Engagement, Leadership Skills, Performance Management and Positive Psychology articles articles in the Knowledge Warehouse.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organisations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

If you want to know more about implementing approaches and processes that positively affect people’s happiness, engagement, motivation, morale, productivity and work relationships, see Sarah’s positive psychology books

Take a coaching approach - 7 top tips for developing talent in your team

A key challenge for leaders and managers is developing the capacity of their staff or team. Taking a coaching approach allows you to focus on drawing out motivation rather than trying to push it in!  It allows you to create energy and motivation and it is usually experienced as an empowering process by your coachee. It helps people develop their initiative and sense of ownership of their work and tasks, and, in general, converts potential into capacity.

Here are seven tips to help make your coaching conversations highly productive.

The TIPS

1) Be clear what you are coaching for

It’s important to be clear why you taking a coaching approach rather than just giving information, orders or instruction. Generally it is worth taking a coaching approach when we want to invest in skill development.

Examples might be:

• To improve problem-solving skills
• To improve emotional intelligence when interacting with customers
• To increase confidence in own abilities and so ability to be pro-active and use initiative
• To increase team collaboration and mutual support
• To develop expert excel skills

It is also important to know when not to invest in a coaching approach.

For example while for one person developing expert excel skills might be key for their job, for another their engagement with excel may be a very rare occurrence. In which case other ways of solving the problem might be more effective and appropriate.

2) Select appropriate opportunities

Coaching is only one of a number of management interaction styles and is not right for all occasions. In emergency situations for instance, you are better off just telling people what they need to do.

Some indicators of a possibly good opportunity for coaching are when:

• Whatever the person is struggling with, or asking for help with, is going to be a recurring challenge
• There is no panic. Heightened emotional states, such as panic, can lead to unhelpful learning. For instance they ‘learn’ that you are an obstructive unhelpful so-and-so rather than that you helped them develop a new skill or think for themselves.
• There is time to assure yourself that they are good to go after the conversation and that you are happy with their next steps. This needn’t take long, but there needs to be time to conclude the conversation.
• Someone is asking for help
• Someone comes to you with a problem, and its clear they have a solution in mind
• You are trying to help someone and they are resisting all your suggestions

3) Use Turning Questions to get into a coaching conversation

If people come to you expecting you to give them the answer, then you need to turn the conversation into a coaching conversation. These questions will help:

• ‘That sounds interesting/challenging/important, what do you think might be the way forward? What ideas do you already have?'
• 'If that is what you are worried about, what do you want to see happen instead?'
• 'If I wasn’t here, what would you do about this?'
• 'I can see you are looking for help with this, what is the most helpful question I ask you to help you with your thinking in the 30 seconds we have here?'

After asking any of those, or a similar question, put an expectant expression on your face and stop speaking! Create a big space full of expectation and hope for them to answer into. Hold your nerve.

These questions work to turn the question away from your resourcefulness towards theirs. It also helps move them from passive recipient waiting for an answer, to active agents in finding a way forward.

4) Help them draw on their existing resources

Questions you can usefully ask to achieve this include such questions as:

• ‘When have you tackled something similar? Not necessarily here but in other places you’ve worked or in other situations? How did that work out? How could what you learnt from that be relevant here?’
• ‘Who else knows something about this and might be interested to work with you on finding a way forward?’
• ‘What ideas do you have?’
• ‘Where else might there be some information on this that might stimulate ideas? Websites, in-house training, forums, professional associations?’

5) Help them explore and develop possibilities. Reality check.

This is where you finally get to feed your knowledge, problem-solving skills, and expertise into the conversation, but in a different way. You use it to help shape up the idea into the best it can be, making sure they retain ownership of it. For example:

• ‘Explain to me more about how that’s a good idea? How do you see it working?’
• ‘Have you considered/ taken into account/ thought about...?’
• ‘So what will you do if....?”
• ‘Hm, I’m just wondering how that might go down with... what do you think?’
• ‘Great, what do you see the risks as being? How will you deal with them?’

This is also where you set any boundaries on action. This might range from ‘It’s a great/interesting/novel/exciting/challenging/provocative idea and I truly am sorry to have to say I can’t support it as it will be too expensive/take more time than we have/be seen as too risky.’ Then move swiftly too ‘However, I think the bit about ... could work, lets explore that more.’ Or ‘what else have you got?’

6) Road test for readiness

This is a crucially important part of the process where you are testing to see how committed, ready and energised they are to make this happen. Questions you can ask at this point include:

• ‘What’s your first step?’
• ‘Who else do you need to talk to?’
• 'How will I know you are making progress?'
• 'On a scale of 1-10 how ready are you to get going on this?'
• 'What else needs to happen to increase your readiness?'
• 'How can I support you to make this happen?'

Offer encouragement and support, express belief, and agree a ‘progress check’ process.

7) It’s not for every situation and it doesn’t work every time

Coaching is not suitable for every occasion. Sometimes people do need to be told. For example when:

• They don’t know enough to even start to engage with the challenge
• They are missing a vital piece of information, and need to be informed of it
• Its an emergency, you have the answer and speed is of the essence
• Its not worth the time or energy e.g. it is doesn’t fit the criteria of point 1

Also sometimes particular people or even groups of people get stuck in patterns of belief that makes it hard for them to engage in coaching, for instance

• They believe its your job to think, not theirs
• They’re still smarting from some previous managerial behaviour (this can go on for years)
• They have zero confidence in themselves and their ability and are highly dependent on others
• They are severely depressed, anxious or otherwise cognitively incapacitated
• They are fully preoccupied with other challenges, maybe outside of work, and have no capacity to engage with being creative.

In this case you need to address these challenges before you can hope to get very far with coaching.

In conclusion

So be aware that coaching isn’t for everyone and every situation. Beyond that though, on the whole, once people genuinely believe that you want them to contribute and you will support them in their adventures of learning, they relish it; and they will grow in ability, confidence, initiative and general switched-on-ness before your very eyes!

Other Resources

More on this, and details of how to practice Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space, World Café and SimuReal can all be found in Sarah’s latest book Positive Psychology and Change

For more on Leadership Skills visit our knowledge warehouse

For case studies on Leadership at work visit our case studies collection

Or, click through to learn about or to order our positive psychology based positive organisational development card pack and other support resources

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

Guest Blog - Talent and determination get you there, but how do you get them? by Saira Iqbal of Zircon Management Consulting

Zircon Management Consulting is an award winning Business Psychology Company specialising in Talent Management

We know it's important, where does it come form?

One of the most successful men I know grew up in the roughest streets of Bristol, and shared a cramped bedroom with his five brothers until he could  leave the family home and ‘escape’ to his second choice university.  Now a multi-millionaire cabinet minister, each of his milestones made it more and more apparent that his success was no simple stroke of luck.

There were no useful networks that his working class parents were a part of, there was no private school education to teach social poise; but there was drive that came from great ambition and pure determination.

There is a lot of research to suggest that importance of ambition and determination to success (McCann, 2015; Meier, 2011; Rath & Conchie 2008), yet little evidence on how we can develop these attributes.

If ambition, and determination are core principles of success, then why do some people have it in droves, whilst others pay no attention to life’s opportunities?

Why do some have an immense hunger to pursue their aspirations, whilst others are satisfied with living in the moment and focusing on the day as it comes?

Our recent white paper, Winning Attitudes, addresses this very issue. Our interviewees often described adversity, loss, pain and rejection as being the core, pivotal moments that changed the way they viewed themselves and the world around them, helping create the drive they needed to succeed.

 “The loss created the drive.” Clive Jacobs, Entrepreneur, Holiday Autos, Travel Weekly (UK) and The Caterer

“The terrain to success is not a motorway, it is a swamp with ups and downs.” Jeremy Snape, Founder, Sporting Edge

“My father used to put me down, that drove me to prove myself. It gave me determination and focus.” Clive Jacobs, Entrepreneur, Holiday Autos, Travel Weekly (UK) and The Caterer

“You need to have survival mentality.” Adam Freeman-Pask, Olympian, Rowing

Is adversity a necessary prerequisite? 

Similar to the experiences our interviewees shared, the aforementioned cabinet minister, after facing adversity and financial issues in his childhood, often stated that ‘he had to find a way out’. He knew ‘there was more out there for him’. His drive came from a psychological desire to move away from his childhood experience.

Taking this even further, one may ask, ‘does there need to be some type of adversity in order for success to happen?’

McCann (2015) suggests that using adversity as a means for success is a ‘Move From’ mind-set, where the biggest driver is a fear of failure. Success factors such as Burning Ambition, Dogged Determination, Unwavering Belief and Maximising Opportunities, are often triggered from a moment in adversity – such as a disadvantaged childhood.

Whilst specific events can result in a fear of failure, it is the winning mind-set that keeps us going: The Winners among us never give up. They persist, and are determined and unwavering in the pursuit of their goals and their dreams. It is their response to these adverse circumstances that ultimately results in a positive outcome.

“You need to keep going in one direction and strive. If there is a bump in the road, go around it.” Nicola Murphy, CEO, The River Group

“I was determined not to be dependent or reliant on anyone.” Clive Jacobs, Entrepreneur, Holiday Autos, Travel Weekly (UK) and The Caterer

I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination. –Jimmy Dean on “Good Morning America,” ABC.

Some surrender.

Others gain a thirst to win.

You may need to battle your circumstances, but it is your attitude that determines whether you will allow your situation to make you kneel over and give up, or rise up through every blow, so you can win the war.

To read more about what makes up a Winning Attitude from the point of view of 42 business savvy corporate CEOs and edgy entrepreneurs, committed Olympic and sporting stars through to charismatic media personalities, please take a look at our White Paper.

Written by Saira Iqbal of Zircon

Key factors that create living human system learning and change

Introduction

In the last twenty years a new understanding of organizations has been developed, understanding them as living human systems of enterprise and creativity. It offers as an alternative to the dominant view of organizations as large and complicated machines of production. Methodologies based on this understanding, for instance Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space, World Café and SimuReal, allow the whole of the organizational domain to be approached from the living human system perspective. They allow us to address all organizational challenges from recruitment to redundancy within the same living human system frame. Four key factors underpin this approach.

1. The importance of learning for behaviour change

Learning means that something shifts in our understanding of the world; and understanding the world differently allows us to engage with it differently. These methodologies all effectively enable the system, i.e. the people who make up the organization, to learn about itself. They facilitate increased understanding of how the organizational system behaves, what it believes, what it thinks, and its assumptions about both itself and the outside world. They facilitate greater understanding of how things connect, and of how the organization collectively understands forthcoming change. They facilitate identification and connection of the many different beliefs within the organization about what the changes mean. These shifts in the mental maps of the world held by those that make up the organizational system contribute to the organizational system’s mental model of its environment, which in turn influence ideas about how to engage with it effectively.

2. The importance of participation for system behaviour change

Participative Management was a core component of organizational development in the 1960s. These methodologies build on this awareness of the importance of active participation. The key difference with this new thinking is that such participation is extended beyond the management cadre to the whole organizational membership.

3. The importance of dialogue to behaviour change

Dialogic approaches to organizational change emerged in the 1990s, most notable Appreciative Inquiry, as coherent, yet different, approaches to organizational development. The key distinguishing feature of these approaches is the recognition that reality is social constructed. From this perspective reality can be understood as a socially negotiated phenomena, meaning that organizations are meaning-making systems.

The emergence of these dialogic approaches was accompanied by the development of complexity theories of organization. These suggested that psychologists could come to understand the complexity of organisations in the same way that natural scientists grasp complex natural systems. From this perspective organizations are seen as dynamic non-linear systems, the outcome of whose actions is unpredictable, but, like turbulence in gases and liquids, is governed by a set of simple order-generating rules. That is to say, they are complex but not chaotic.

4. The emergence of co-creative methodologies

These dialogic approaches are also known as co-creative approaches to change. They are a separate and distinctive collection of approaches, not to be confused with some other communication methodologies such as town hall meetings, or even Work-Out sessions. While these processes might look similar, in that they gather a large number of people together in a room, they are fundamentally different in process and reflect different sets of underlying beliefs about organizations and change. These co-creative or transformational collaborative approaches have some distinctive features, as discussed in a previous post.

Approaching organizations from these understandings, models and perspectives allows us to access organisational structure, and to create organisational change, through accessible phenomena such as conversation, rather than trying to grapple with intangible phenomena such as culture, yet to the same end of achieving change in ways of being and behaving.

Other Resources

More on this, and details of how to practice Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space, World Café and SimuReal can all be found in Sarah’s latest book Positive Psychology and Change

For more on creating positive organisational change visit our knowledge warehouse

For case studies on positive psychology at work visit our case studies collection

Or , click through to learn about or to order our positive psychology based positive organisational development card pack and other support resources

See more, Appreciative Inquiry, Change and Though Provoking articles in the Knowledge Warehouse.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

Book Review – Holocracy The Revolutionary Management System that Abolishes Hierarchy: Brian Robertson (Originally published in AI Practitioner)

Why this book?

This book claims to offer an alternative way of organizing that breaks away from the command and control model or as Brain calls it ‘the predict and control’ model. This seemed sufficiently in line with our aspirations to warrant further investigation.

Brief account of the book

The book has noble, honourable and inspiring intentions: it offers holocracy as a ‘new operating system’ for organizations that will create a ‘peer-to-peer distributed authority system’. This operating system creates empowered people who are clear about the boundaries of their authority, about what they can expect from others, and are able to be highly effective in their roles.

In this model the organizing process itself becomes the ultimate power, more than any individual, and every individual can have a voice in designing and altering the process. It is a flat system of roles and links that delivers high autonomy. It is predicated on a system of roles (essentially disembodied job descriptions), decision-making circles (meetings by another name) and a process of links. It bravely attempts both to relieve leaders of the pressure of the demand of omnipotence, and to make it possible for weak signals of dysfunction, lack of alignment, gaps in accountability, missed opportunities etc. to be attended to promptly and effectively by empowered individuals. It offers a clear process for distinguishing working in the business from working on the business. It presents a view of strategy as ‘dynamic steering’ by simple rules or principles towards a general purpose. In this way it attempts to simulate evolutionary development processes and indeed sees itself as an evolutionary model.

Holocracy - Too much to ask?

Reading this book was an interesting experience. The book is a ‘how to’ book and it sets out the process model in great detail, describing the purpose of key facilitator roles and the process of key tactical and governance meetings (circles in the terminology of the model). It’s not hard to tell that the author and originator of this model has a software development background. My initial impression reading it was reminiscent of getting to grips with the complex board games of Allies and Axis that my sons and husband loved to play some years ago: a complex set of rules about the properties and powers of various pieces and cards subject to the rules of the dice. In the early stages as much time was spent consulting the rule-book as playing the game. As I read on I realised there was a strong binary flavour underpinning much of the process, an ‘if this then that’ logic driven by an implicit flow chart of binary decision-making. The author’s argument is that these tight constraints work to create an empowered freedom within them. However it is noticeable that much of the instruction reads ‘no discussion allowed’ as the process is strictly followed. In essence he is trying to programme out the negative aspects of the human element in this organizing process and to create an organisational process that functions effectively despite the emotional and relational wayward behaviour of people. This takes a lot of discipline on the part of all the players; which is to say it takes organizational energy.

The author is honest enough to point out that this new process doesn’t always ‘take’ in organizations despite various people’s interest, energy and support. He identifies that the key challenge, which is also at the heart of the model’s power, is the need for those with current power in the system to give it up. The author is of the opinion that after an initial period of painful discipline, the benefits will become clearer to all and the process will become more self-maintaining. It is clear that not all organizations make it over the hump. Similarly, while initially he took a whole-system ‘all or nothing’ approach to implementation, he has since softened his views and in this book he offers a chapter on holocracy-lite possibilities that offers guidance on how to implement parts of the process.

In summary

The book is well written, offering a clear and detailed explanation of the holocracy organizing process with a worked case study and anecdotes from experience used to illuminate how the various meetings and roles work.

My take on the model presented

This model is likely to appeal to those who have great faith in rationality and like highly structured, detailed and disciplined processes. In this sense it reads as very bureaucratic. It put me in mind of LEAN, another process that, in theory, makes perfect sense, however in practice often takes a lot of energy to maintain. Both demand great human discipline. Robertson is clear that the role of facilitator ‘requires that you override your instinct to be polite or ‘nice’ and that you cut people off if they speak out of turn’, amongst other skills and abilities. In this way it is trying to programme out the emotional irrational human decision-making influences such as ego, fear and group think, to create a less contaminated system of governance.

In many ways this model seems aligned to Appreciative Inquiry and co-creative ways of thinking. For example it is more wedded to biological than mechanical metaphors, it prioritises adaptability over predictability, and it is focused on releasing collective intelligence within a leader-ful organization. However, it seems to work against human nature, or human psychology, rather than with it. It is this constant fight against core features of human systems that, in my opinion, is at the heart of the gap between the promise of these kinds of models and the frequent experience of the lived reality.

However, I do think it offers a real, well thought out, and to some extend tried and tested alternative to our current creaking-under-the-strain-in-the-modern-era command and control organisational model. It will be interesting to see to what extent it is adapted across the organizational domain and I would love to hear from anyone who has either direct experience of working in an organization based on this model, or who has attended training on it.

Other Resources

Much more about organisational change can be found in Sarah’s new book Positive Psychology and Change

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology for Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management'.

See more Book Reviews and other Emergent Change, Leadership Skills and Organisational Development Strategy articles in the Knowledge Warehouse.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

Book Review – Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies PROFIT from Passion and Purpose, by Raj Sisodia, David Wolfe, Jag Sheth (Originally published in AI Practitioner)

Why this book?

I went to the World Appreciative Inquiry Congress in Orlando USA last year where this book was positively recommended by various luminaries such as David Cooperrider. After I heard about it for the third time, I thought I would investigate.

Brief Account of the book

The book is based on two rounds of research undertaken by the authors in collaboration with their MBA students. They identified the organizations initially by asking the question ‘Tell us about some companies you love. Not just like but love.’ They evaluated the suggested organisations against some criteria and produced an initial batch of 18 companies that qualified, expanded to 62 in the current edition. The headline criteria are that, to qualify as a firm of endearment, the company or organisation must be passionate about doing good while doing well, and must be equally committed to doing well by all its shareholders e.g. partners, investors, customers, society and employees. In addition there must be evidence that they live these values.

The headline news is that when they then compared the performance of these Firms of Endearment against the Good to Great companies and the Standard and Poor top 500, they outperformed them against the market by 4 to 6 times as much. In other words while Good to Great and top 500 companies outperformed the market, the Firms of Endearment, particularly the American ones, outperformed the market even more, by a 6 – to – 1 ratio (p. 20). So of course the question is chicken or egg? Interestingly, much later in the book, a model is presented that suggests that initially a company has to ‘establish a strong market position and a predictable stream of profits’ before it can then it can advance up a hierarchy equivalent to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. At stage two of this ‘Kyosei’ hierarchy ‘managers and workers cooperate’, at stage three the organization ‘extends cooperation to customers, suppliers, communities and even competitors’ and finally at stages 4 and 5, gets to address global imbalances and help governments solve global problems (p.157).

The big point - 'Age Of Transcendance'

In attempting to explain the rise of the Firm of Endearment as a successful business model, they suggest it is part of a wider C21st zeitgeist, prompted in part by an ageing population experiencing the psychological process of ‘generativity’ which is ‘the disposition of older people to help incoming generations prepare for their time of stewardship of the common good’ (p xiii-xiv). Many of these ageing baby boomers are also of course in senior and influential positions in business life. They also believe that the world is experiencing a strong search for meaning which is driving people to look beyond the relationship of an organization to their purse to a relationship that speaks to their hearts, their passions, and their values. This is described as ‘A transition from material want to meaning want.’ (p. xxvii). The authors describe this as the emergence of the ‘Age of Transcendence’, suggesting that in this new age, organizations will need to connect with six specific senses: design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning, to engage and influence their stakeholders. All of which are asserted to have deep roots in the brain’s right hemisphere and all of which of course resonate with Appreciative Inquiry. There is a suggestion that we are moving from a ‘having’ society to a ‘being’ society. One can’t help noticing this resonates rather with our straitened and benighted times where there is less ‘having’ to be had.

The book draws on its 60+  exemplar organizations to illuminate the various features of a Firm of Endearment and how they are expressed differently with the various stakeholders. For example it recounts how Costco implements practices that reduce staff turnover, increase per person productivity and create good efficiencies that create a virtuous circle that allows the organization to both pay better wages and generate more income per person than rivals in the same industry (p.35). Wegman is quoted to illustrate that high quality, highly motivated staff can result in a doubling of margin per square foot against the industry average, a gain which more than offsets their proportionally greater wage bill (p. 61).

In Summary

There is no doubt the authors have identified an interesting group of organizations. A key question is whether, as argued, they are harbingers of a new age, or whether they are outlier organizations of a type that have always existed. The book itself starts well but for this reader became progressively less interesting.

My take on this book

I can see why David and others got excited about this book. It is centred on answering a great AI question ‘How are we going to make this company an instrument of service to society even as we fulfil our obligation to build shareholder wealth?’ (p.3) and gives good, quantified answers to that question. The evidence that organizations can be good and do well is very convincing and valuable. The authors have clearly contributed immensely to the business case for Appreciative Inquiry.

The text is clearly located in idea that ‘Business is by far the greatest value creator in the world’ (p. xv) and argues that we need to ‘Understand the power of capitalism to transform our world for the better’ (xvi). This belief underpins the ‘Business as an Agent of World Benefit’ Appreciative Inquiry project.

However the book proceeds as if a concern for the common welfare is a new phenomena, with no reference to, for example, the Quaker run businesses or model factory towns of the 19th and 20th Century. I could also take issue with the unintended sexism of calling older women ‘postmenopausal’ while older men are referred to, somewhat more graciously, as ‘grandfathers’ (p. xxviii). Similarly the first time the female personal pronoun pops up is in relation to a hypothetical customer (p.7); none of the experts or CEO’s quoted to this point (or at all according to memory but not rigorously checked) are female.

This book offers support to the Appreciative Inquiry project. It will also give you case study stories for your presentations. In addition there are some great statistics in here but you have to dig through a lot to find them. I confess I didn’t finish the book.

Other Resources

Much more about the links between creating positive workplaces and enhanced productivity and profitability can be found in Sarah’s new book Positive Psychology and Change

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology for Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management', by Kogan Page, the second edition is out in September.

See more Book Reviews and other Leadership Skills and Positive Psychology articles in the Knowledge Warehouse.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

Starter For Ten - How To Begin Applying Positive Psychology At Work

For those who would like to dip their toe into the positive psychology world I've plucked a few of the recommendations from my book, Positive Psychology At Work, for you to have a look at. Hopefully they illustrate just how intuitive a lot of this is - which doesn't make it easy to do in a hierarchical, busy organisation of course!

Elicit Success Stories

Start meetings with a round of success stories. Before you get into the meat of the meeting, usually a litany of problems and challenges, start by giving people the opportunity to share the best of their week.

Develop A Success And Achievement Strategy

It is very easy during difficult times to lose sight of achievements and successes. All too quickly it begins to feel as if there is no good news only more bad news. One way to counteract this is to develop a strategy for recognising, capturing and broadcasting the great things people and teams are still managing to achieve, despite a difficult context.

Positive Inductions

Build the sharing of great stories about the achievements and success of the organization into your induction programme. Get the owners of the stories to share their best moments of working for your company. Even better, equip your new recruits with appreciative questions about when people have been most proud to be part of the organization, or their greatest achievement at work, and send them off to interview people. This will leaven the dough of getting to grips with the staff handbook and inspire your new recruits.

Educate Leaders and Mangers about Key Research

Too many managers are quick to offer critical feedback and slow to offer praise, hoarding it as a scarce resource. Share Losada and Heaphy research -explain that they need to keep the ratio of positive to negative comments and experiences above 3:1 and preferably 6:1 if they want to get the best from people.

Help People Identify Their Strengths

There are a number of strengths identifying tools around, particular the Strengthscope psychometric, which also has a great set of support cards. However in a low tech way we can just ask people ‘When are you at your most energised at work?’’ What feels really easy and enjoyable for you that others sometimes struggle with?’ and most interesting of all ‘what can you almost not, not do?’

Move Towards Being An Economy Of Strengths

Find ways to use people’s strengths more at work and, equally important, ways to do less of the work that drains them of energy. Encourage strengths based delegation. Reconfigure how you achieve objectives so the plan plays to strengths. Pair people up with complementary strengths. Allocate tasks in your team by strengths rather than by role and delegate by volunteer rather than imposition when possible.

Advertise Your Strengths

Make sure other people know your strengths, so that they can call on you for opportunities that play to your strengths.

Encourage Good Relationships At Work

To encourage positive relationships at work, help people to be actively positive in their response to other people’s good news. This means not just saying ‘that’s great’, but actively inquiring into how they did it, how they feel and how they hope to build on it.

Find Your Positive Energy Network Nodes

You may have noticed how some people are just people that other people like to have around. They give people around them a general good feeling. People are attracted to them. The research confirms the existence of such people at the centre of networks of positive energy. They have the knack of giving people little boosts of good feeling in their conversations or interactions with them, and they leave feeling better than when they arrived. These people are gold dust in terms of organisational motivation and performance. Notice who they are, place them strategically in projects and initiatives to which you want to attract other people, for example.

Other Resources

The book itself - Positive Psychology At Work, published by Wiley.

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology for Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management'.

See more Positive Psychology articles in the Knowledge Warehouse.

For case studies on positive psychology at work visit our case studies collection

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

Five Top Tips for Having Great Meetings

Many people find meetings challenging. These five tips will help your meetings be more successful, enjoyable and productive.

You can purchase our E-booklet that will take you through preparing for and running a great meeting in a step-by-step way here

1. Start with something positive

How? Ask everyone a question like ‘What’s been your greatest success, big or small, since we last met?’ or, ‘Which of your achievements over the last month are you most proud of?’ or ‘Which of your staff do you feel most grateful too, and why?’

Why? Because sharing good news boosts mood (and shares resources) which enhances creativity and problem-solving abilities

2. Ask more questions than statements

How? Consider the question to which your statement is an answer, and ask the question rather than make your statement. So, if you are thinking ‘that won’t work’ ask ‘What might be the downsides and how could we guard against them’. If you are thinking ‘We need to raise sales.’ Ask ‘How can we turn this around?’ or ‘How can we improve revenue?’

Why? Statements tend of offer people a binary position of either agreeing or disagreeing. Questions encourage people to engage in a different way which can produce a richer conversation, with more room for nuance, opinion shift and resourcefulness

3. Think beyond the boundaries of the group

How? Ask questions that bring other stakeholders to the topic under discussion into view, for example ‘How might finance react to that suggestion?’ ‘How would we accommodate customers who...?’ ‘What will marketing need to know to create a great pitch for us?

Why? Because considering the needs and perspectives of the whole system even when it is not in the room leads to better, more sustainable, decision-making

4. Focus on the people who are there not those who aren’t

How? Start the meeting on time (unless known exceptional circumstances that are affecting a large proportion of the group, in which case rearrange if only by 15 minutes). Make the most of the people present. Assess if the meeting will be able to fulfil its purpose, or do something else that is still valuable. If not, then explain and let people go do something useful with their time.

Why? Because it is very easy to get caught up on people who are late or absence and to end up taking frustration out on those present, or to have an hour’s meeting because that is what was planned in the hope that others will appear or because it was scheduled for an hour. So those who came on time have their time wasted waiting for others or in an ineffectual meeting, and, get berated for the sins of others for their trouble.

5. Find positive things to say about ideas presented and people present

How? Thank people for attending. Look for the positive in what people say ‘Well that is an unusual idea, tell us more about what you are thinking?’ as well as lots of ‘good thinking?’ ‘good idea’ etc.

Why? Because lots of reason shows that people generally thrive in a positive atmosphere and creativity improves. A positive atmosphere requires a ratio of positive to negative expressions and emotional responses of about 3:1 or higher. Left to our own devices with our well attuned critical faculties meetings can fail to achieve this tipping point of positivity.

Other Resources

Much more about organisational change can be found in Sarah’s new book Positive Psychology and Change

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology for Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management'.

See more Leadership Skills and How To articles in the Knowledge Warehouse.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

8 Principles Of Practice For Achieving Change

In the twenty-first century we need to be doing change differently. Positive, appreciative and strengths-based change methodologies such as Appreciative Inquiry and Positive Psychology offer alternative ways of creating organisational change and are explained in my new book Positive Psychology and Change

Meanwhile, here are some tips for approaching change from a positive and appreciative perspective.

1. Grow the strengths and resourcefulness of people

It’s all too easy to focus on how people aren’t equipped for the change: they don’t have the skills, the knowledge, the experience. How their existing strengths and resources (including their extended network) can help them answer the questions and engage with the challenge that the change poses, can be less obvious. By deliberately helping people recognize and access their existing strengths and resourcefulness we can increase their resilience, tenacity and confidence in the face of change, making the steep learning curve less daunting.

2. Create accounts of possibility that motivate

Hope and desire are highly motivating factors. Help people work out how the futures created by the change can include factors or situations that they find desirable. More than ‘what’s in it for me?’ it’s a question of ‘What possibilities do these changes unleash that I am really excited by?’ Once people start to believe that a future that is attractive to them is possible, they start to feel hopeful about their own future, and motivated to help create that future.

3. Ask don’t tell

Sometimes, in emergencies, we’re best off telling people what to do, but most of the time we’re better off co-creating possibilities for the future with those involved and affected. When we tell people about a proposed change we often provoke resistance, objection or denial, by asking questions we engage people. Different questions trigger different kinds of responses. Positive and appreciative questions tend to trigger accounts of highlight moments that are inspiring and energizing.

4. Motivate through stories

The human brain, is seems, is designed to love a good story, and I mean a good story, with plot, challenge and character development. I despair of the numerous dumbed-down management books that attempt to leaven the dough through ‘story-telling’ while disregarding the key ‘hooks’ of a great story. Create a compelling story about what, why, who and how, with which people can identify.

5. Call on the holy trio to aid transformation

Hope, inspiration and creativity are the magic seeds of both personal and collective transformation. A belief that things can be better, in a way that inspires and excites us, pulls motivation out of us. While hope gives us the energy to make things happen. For people stuck in a rut, or in despair, or feeling powerless, this is the holy trinity that can release them from the sticky mud of despondency.

6. Engagement is great, but flourishing is better

Both organisations and individuals can flourish.  Flourishing is a growth state, well suited to change. The most flourishing part of a plant is usually its growing tip. Change resides in the growing tip of organisations. Create greater flourishing by following the principles of Cameron: creating positive deviance, affirmation and virtuous practices, to create greater change and growth.

7. Take the leader with you

So, you really like the idea of co-creative change, of emergent change, of Appreciative Inquiry and whole system involvement. These ideas don’t always seem quite as attractive to leaders, indeed they can seem downright threatening. Be sure to take leaders on the journey with you so they are ready for the energy your approach releases.

8. Prepare for afterwards

Think beyond the short-term challenge. From the UK I give you the Iraqi war and the Brexit referendum. The dream process of Appreciative Inquiry specifically helps people think beyond the challenge of achieving the change, to imagining what the change will be like.

Other Resources

Much more about strengths and managerial techniques such as the ones mentioned here can be found in Sarah’s new book Positive Psychology and Change

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology for Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management', by Kogan Page, the second edition is out in September.

See more Change, Leadership Skills and How To articles in the Knowledge Warehouse.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

How To Keep Your Employees Engaged At Work

Engaged employees are a business imperative: they perform 20% better and give 57% more discretionary effort [1] Organizations with a high level of engagement have better quality, sales, income and turnover, profit, customer satisfaction, shareholder return, and business growth, and success. [2] It is estimated that currently only 19% of employees are highly engaged in their work, while active disengagement cost the UK economy between £37.2bn and £38.9bn a year [3].

Organizations often struggle to understand what creates engagement. Positive psychology research is revealing that employee engagement is primarily a psychological and social process. There are a number of steps organizations can take to increase engagement.

1. Create a positive culture

Actively introduce processes that increase positivity. For example by starting meetings with praise for last week’s achievements; celebrating successes; and creating a work climate of hope and good humour. Introduce ways of measuring people’s experience of positivity at work.

2. Learn to affirm the best

Recognize and develop best practice. Encourage virtuous organizational behaviour such as helpfulness. Recognize team and individual strengths, initiative and innovation, both formally through appraisal processes, and informally by leadership interest and focus.

3.  Turn strengths into talents

When people are able to use their strengths they are more engaged and perform better. Introduce processes that help people get to know and own their strengths, using psychometrics or best-self feedback. And help them develop their strengths into high performance talents.

4. Help teams play to individual strengths

The most productive teams are able to share the team tasks according to strengths, so encourage team members to swap tasks that fall in their weakest areas for those that play to their strengths.

5. Help people re-craft jobs around their strengths

Make the job fit the person, rather than trying to make the person fit the job, most outcomes can be achieved in more than one way. Help people find a way of maximizing their ability to use their strengths and talents, and minimizing the time they spend struggling with tasks for which they have no aptitude.

6. Create opportunities to experience flow

Flow is a psychological state so rewarding that people risk life and health to achieve it (think of mountaineers or starving artists). Find out where people experience flow in their work. Help them recognize it. Help them work out how to increase their opportunities to experience it.

7. Create reward rich environments

People are motivated and engaged by the opportunity to obtain rewards. Many things can be rewarding for people in their work environment: praise, appreciation and thanks, smiles, and opportunities. Create work environments full of small and easily won rewards that are salient to them.

8. Understand goal seeking

Before you set goals for someone you need to understand what they find rewarding. For example some people find public recognition rewarding, while others just like to know that what they have done has been helpful.

9. Help people find meaning in their work

People are very good at finding meaning in what they do. Everyone wants to believe we are spending our time valuably. Help them by making it clear why their work is important, what it means for them, you, the department, the organization, a better world.

Other Resources

Much more about strengths and managerial techniques such as the ones mentioned here can be found in Sarah’s new book Positive Psychology and Change

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology for Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management', by Kogan Page, the second edition is out in September.

See more Engagement, Leadership Skills and How To articles in the Knowledge Warehouse.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.

[1] Corporate Leadership Council 2004 Driving performance and retention through employee engagement: a quantitative analysis of effective engagement strategies. Corporate Executive Board

[2] Stairs, M. and Gilpin, M., 2010. Positive Engagement: From Employee Engagement To Work Place Happiness. In Linley, P. A., Harrington, S. and Garcea, N. (eds), Oxford Handbook Of Positive Psychology And Work. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[3] Flade, P., 2003. Great Britain's Workforce Lacks Inspiration. Gallup Management Journal, 11.

Why We Need To Do Change Differently

In the twenty-first century we need to be doing change differently. Whole-system change methodologies such as Appreciative Inquiry and World Café offer alternative ways of creating organisational change and are explained in my new book Positive Psychology and Change

So Why Do We Need To Do Change Differently

1. Because the old ways are too slow and hard

Traditionally change has been a top-down, linear, compliance process; first designed and then implemented. In today’s fast paced world this takes too long and is too hard. People resist the pressure. Instead we need change that is whole-system owned and generated, focused on maximising tomorrow not fixing yesterday.

2. Because the future is created by our actions and our imagination

Forecasting is tricky in an unpredictable world of disjointed and disruptive change. When it’s hard to plan a future we need to use our imagination to create attractive possibilities that inspire us, co-ordinate our efforts and pull us forward. Our analytic powers help us analyse data, our imaginative powers create hope, optimism and forward motion i.e. change.

3. Because organisational growth is a systemic phenomena

The evidence is mounting that good work places and profitability can grow together; that beyond a certain point of profitability-establishment greater returns come from investing in social capital features like workforce morale, camaraderie, worker benefits, and community action. And from ensuring that employees feel hopeful, encouraged and appreciated.

Timberland, Merek Corporation, Cascade, Synovus Financial Corporation, FedEx Freight, Southwest Airlines, The Green Mountain Coffee Corporation, Fairmount Minerals and the Marine Corp are all testament to the possibility of doing the right thing and doing well. The current edition of Firms of Endearment lists 28 US publicly funded companies, 29 US private companies and 15 Non-US companies that are good organizations and exceptionally profitable.

4. Because relational reserves are key to change resilience

Organisational resilience, an attribute called on during change, is as important to organisational change success as financial reserves. Relational reserves are an expression of the accumulated goodwill and mutual trust that helps organizations bounce-back quicker from disruption or trauma.

5. Because we need to conceive of successful change differently

Pushing change into, down or through an organization takes too long. We need ways of achieving organization change that allow action to happen simultaneously in an interconnected way across the organization, not as a dependent series of actions. To relish this we need to recast our understanding of both change and success to allow the celebration of adaptation, direction shift and even project abandonment, rather than viewing these as signs of failure.

6. Because mistakes can be costly

Separating the change shapers from the change implementers and recipients can be costly as errors in understanding, judgement and knowledge only come to light when time and money (not to mention hope and commitment) have already been invested. People pointing out such challenges late in the day risk being labelled as obstructive or resistant. Better to involve those who will be effecting any changes from the very beginning.

7. Because change needs more buyers and less sellers

Have you ever walked into a shop, money in hand, keen to buy only to leave empty-handed frustrated by the salesperson’s emphasis on selling rather than listening to you? Maybe they dazzled with jargon, or listed irrelevant features, or tried to push their favourite version on to you despite its unsuitability to your situation? At its worse organisational change can feel like a bad sales job. Good salespeople ask questions and listen before they talk, so should organizations.

8. Because we need to use our intelligence

The world is a demanding place to do business. Organizations need to be able to access the intelligence of all involved. We need leaderful organizations not leader-dependent ones.

Much more about the need to do change differently and guidance on how to do it, can be found in my new book Positive Psychology and Change

Other Resources

Much more about strengths and managerial techniques such as the ones mentioned here can be found in Sarah’s new book Positive Psychology and Change

Sarah Lewis is the owner and principal psychologist of Appreciating Change. She is author of ‘Positive Psychology at Work’ and ‘Positive Psychology for Change’ both published by Wiley. She is also the lead author of 'Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management', by Kogan Page, the second edition is out in September.

See more Change, Leadership, Resistance To Change and Thought Provoking articles in the Knowledge Warehouse.

APPRECIATING CHANGE CAN HELP

Appreciating Change is skilled and experienced at supporting leaders in working in this challenging, exciting and productive way with their organizations. Find out more by looking at how we help with Leadership, Culture change and with employee Engagement.

For further information on these alternative approaches to change, please contact us or phone 07973 782 715. A selection of strength card packs are available from our online store.