Today I came across a fantastic idea called The Feast of Strangers, an afternoon of organised conversation at Regent’s Park, London, hosted by philosopher, historian and author, Professor Theodore Zeldin.

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

The Australian Daily Telegraph reports today that some enlightened employers are sending their staff to “happiness classes” to overcome the negativity and stress caused by the fear of losing their jobs.

Not surprisingly, it works wonders.

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

Image: Peretzpup

The month’s Positive Psychology News Daily article focuses on Positive Psychology and using social networking sites like Facebook. Of course social networking cannot replace real face-to-face human interaction (as Aren Cohen wrote in his comment, a Facebook hug is not the same as real one), however it is a hugely powerful technology for connecting people across the globe in a way that has never been possible before.

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

Recently several of my close friends have lost their jobs or are in the painful process of redundancy consultation with their employers, so my posting on Positive Psychology News Daily this month focuses on what positive psychology can tell us about human reactions to imposed (negative) change.

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