Tal Ben-Shahar, Psychology Lecturer at Harvard University talks about how organisations can use Positive Psychology to improve motivation, creativity and loyalty, and ultimately productivity (2.37 mins).

Thanks to bigthink.com

Some of you might be wondering what the connection is between social media (aka social networking), business and positive psychology. The answer (or at least one of them) as far as I am concerned is performance. Both individiual and organisational performance depend on employee engagement and well-being, both of which can be increased through social networking.

As Will McInnes points out in this slide show (presented as part of Social Media Week), technological changes are unstoppable, so we’d be better off working out how we can use them effectively. Huge organisations like IBM have shown that it can be done – as this great blog from Casey Hibbard at the Social Media Examiner shows.

Of course there are headlines every day reporting the dark side of social networking, or about how many hours employees are wasting as they update their Facebook profiles. But technology can be used to change people’s behaviour for the better – McInnes gives the example of Toyota Prius drivers competing to better their MPG  ’score’ on the dashboard. You may remember that I touched on this subject with my posting on the so-called “Fun Theory” last year.

So if you want to engage your staff and take advantage of the social connections that people naturally make, think seriously about how social networking is being used in your organisation.

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

The idea is that you turn up at the Park, get introduced to someone you don’t know, and are given a ‘Menu of Conversation’ – like a restaurant menu, only instead of dishes, you’re presented with 25 topics of conversation to choose from. But these aren’t your usual dinner party ice-breakers; they’re designed to get you to think about yourself, your life, your relationships, your hopes and aspirations and what makes you you. In other words, the kind of topics that you’d rarely discuss with friends or work colleagues, let alone complete strangers.

Examples of questions on the Menu of Conversation include:

• What have you rebelled against in the past and what are you rebelling against now?

• What most delights each of your five senses and which sensations do you avoid?

• How have your opinions and behaviour changed on the way the two sexes treat each other?

The idea is that posing the questions to a stranger gives you the chance to step into their shoes and really understand what it’s like to be them. And at the same time, when you answer the questions, you get to find out a lot more about yourself and who you really are.

This is such a fantastic way of building connections between people – fun, engaging, light-hearted and profound at the same time. Since relationships are one of the three basic psychological needs (the others being control and competence – Ryan & Deci, 2000), it’s right at the heart of positive psychology. It’s been suggested that the so-called Muse Conversation approach, as well as the self-portrait approach, might help to prevent stress and depression, so not surprisingly, they’re the subject of ongoing clinical trials.

Zeldin has also run “Muse Conversation dinners” for organisations : you can find out more by emailing info[at]oxfordmuse[dot]com or calling 01865 791421.

Image courtesy of katiedee47

Teaching at its best

Here’s a link to my article on Positive Psychology News Daily this month, about teachers’ wellbeing, and wellbeing in schools generally.

As usual, please feel free to add your thoughts and comments here, or on the PPND website.

Image: Thanks to Chicago 2016

Not surprisingly, it works wonders.

I’m curious to know why the story is featured in the ‘entertainment’ section though…

Image: Peretzpup

From an organisational perspective, social networking is vastly underrated. You may be sceptical, but it’s the perfect means to engage staff in the workplace. That’s not necessarily to say that you should allow 24/7 access to Facebook (although some companies do), but that you should consider how to use the technology to create meaningful micro-communities, where social bonds can be built across the organisational hierarchy and information can be shared.

Technology can be humanising, and the psychological research supports that – for instance, did you know that groups engage in more social interaction when the interaction takes place through email/online than they do working in face-to-face groups?

IBM is one example of a company which has embraced the power of social networking technology, and is reaping huge rewards. By building the “Beehive”, it’s own social networking site, IBM is successfully creating a sense of community amongst its employees, despite its vast size. (To find articles on Beehive, click here and search for ‘Beehive’).

So if you’re serious about engagement and building social connections in your workplace, think seriously about social networking.

UPDATE Dec 2009: Dr Jonathan Passmore and I have just published ‘The Facebook Manager: The psychology and practice of web-based social networking’.

Image: Luc Legay

I had to include the good old Change Curve model (it explains the emotional roller coaster we experience as a result of change we didn’t expect or didn’t want) which you may already be familiar with.

There are various practical steps that we can take to increase our ability to manage negative change more effectively; I’ve suggested three activities here. I’m sure you can think of many others – please share them with us in your comments. To paraphrase Darwin, it isn’t the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most

Now the company has set up a School of Personal Growth, which aims help employees develop emotionally, mentally, physically and ‘beyond the self’.

I mentioned Google’s interest in Positive Psychology in this posting (Nov 12) about MAPP vacancies. Perhaps if it carries on growing at anything like the current rate, it might persuade other large organisations to follow suit, and maybe even abandon their traditional training courses to do something more enlightened (literally).

We live in hope!

Image: dannysullivan