Working Together

Here’s a link to my posting to Positive Psychology News Daily this month, called      ‘Creating Strong Bonds in the Workplace’, which gives you some of the major theories and practical applications of positive psychology for developing positive relationships at work.

As usual, feel free to leave your thoughts and comment here, or on the PPND website.

Image: thanks to enfad

Here’s a link to a US radio show ‘To the point’, featuring Barbara Ehrenreich, author of  ‘Bright-sided: How the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined America‘ and Robert Biswas-Diener, a psychology instructor at Portland State University; they discuss the connections between Positive Psychology, happiness and positive thinking and health and the economy (you need to wind forward to 30 minutes to hear this part of the programme, although I recommend you listen to all of it if you have time).

I’m astonished that Ehrenreich links the current economic crisis to positive thinking; what about the role played by good old fashioned greed? Or lack of effective financial regulation? Or technology, which has enabled high-frequency trading (aka casino banking). Surely these are far more likely culprits. By blaming positive thinking we’re unlikely to take the action necessary to avoid the same thing happening again in the future.

There’s been a lot of negative press in positive psychology circles about Ehrenreich’s criticisms of positive psychology, but what I hadn’t appreciated until now was her suggestion that the provision of a welfare state in Scandinavian countries (and presumably also the UK) might be due to pessimistic thinking. And there was I thinking it was because we cared about our fellow beings.

And whilst I agree with her that the US should think long and hard about being 22nd on the list of happy countries, what she doesn’t then question is how this can be the case if America IS the land of positive thinking that she claims it is.

Thanks to Robert Biswas Diener for the link.

If you happen to be in London on Wednesday 21st October, the Employee Well-being Forum might be worth a visit. The programme boasts that “at this event you will hear a wealth of best practice case studies offering practical advice to improve wellness strategies and decrease absence and stress in the workplace through the recession”. Hmmmmmm…. That the Forum is taking place at Canary Wharf* is an irony that won’t be lost on many of the delegates, I’m sure…

I notice that Unilever is represented – you’ll remember we spoke about them in the last posting about costs and benefits of well-being. And Nic Marks from the fabulous New Economics Foundation,which gave us the (Un)Happy Planet Index (how efficiently we use resources to generate well-being) and the National Accounts of Well-being (personal and social well-being in 22 European countries). Apart from that I can’t see any connection between this forum and Positive Psychology….and you can’t talk seriously about well-being without talking about Positive Psychology, can you?

If anyone reading this is going to the forum I’d love to have your feedback.

*Venue:

CCT Venues-Canary Wharf
Isis Building – Thames Quay
193 Marsh Wall
London, E14 9SG

Thanks to garethr for the image

In case you are still sceptical about the benefits of running a well-being programme in your workplace, you’ll be interested to hear that the food giant,  Unilever, has just reported savings of over £300,000 in reduced sickness absence over the past two years as a result of an initiative called ‘Fit Business’ to improve nutrition and fitness of their employees.

The programme, which apparently cost £35k to pilot, focused on checking blood pressure and cholesterol levels, encouraging staff to check the health of their hearts with a ‘heart age’ calculator and on labelling the fat, salt and calorie content of food in the canteen.

Since one of Unilever’s most well-known brands is the sunflower oil based Flora, which claims to be good for your heart,  it’s good to see that they are putting their money where their mouth is.

You can calculate the age of your heart on the Flora Heart Age website – it’s easy to use, although it’s helpful to know your vital statistics including waist size and cholesterol  level. Some suggestions are provided for lowering the age of your heart – don’t be surprised that one of these includes using Flora Proactiv.

BTW if you want to know more about the meaning behind Unilever’s logo, click here.

Thanks to seamusiv for the image

Each year the British Academy celebrates outstanding achievements in social sciences and humanities. On Tuesday at the British Academy’s annual ceremony, the inaugural Wiley Prize in Psychology was awarded to Professor Martin Seligman. As you will know if you’re a fan of positive psychology, Seligman is  Fox Leadership Professor at the University of Pennsylvania and co-founder (with Mike Csikszentmihalyi) of positive psychology. To mark the occasion, you can download many of Seligman’s papers for free until the end of 2009.

Thanks to Paul Barrett for the link.