I was lucky enough to attend a talk by Tal Ben Shahar recently, put on by the folks from Action from Happiness. Having read his book Happier a few years ago, it was great to see the man himself in action. I’d highly recommend reading Happier, which looks at the science of happiness…. What really struck me from his talk though were his comments about the differentiation between positive psychology and positive thinking.
In my work I often find that talking about happiness and positive psychology within the workplace is met with a range of reactions, often negative.
For example, that people commonly believe that positive psychology means ignoring anything negative, or that assuming that people can be positive and happy all of the time. What’s interesting is the strength of reaction, often anger or frustration, to their assumption that using positive psychology to help improve employee engagement means everyone has to be happy and positive 100% of the time! These beliefs often serve to turn people off from taking a strength-based approach, which lies at the heart of positive psychology.
Tal made a great point in his talk: there are only two types of people who never experience negative emotions such as sadness, pain, low self esteem, anger etc.: Psychopaths and the dead….. What positive psychology can do is to help individuals build resilience so that when they experience tough times, as we all do, they are better equipped to cope and bounce back quicker. Positive psychology interventions help to inoculate us when this stuff hits. It made me wonder if we’re not doing a good enough job of educating and explaining this to leaders: let’s face it, happiness is still a dirty word in many organisations.
I have wondered for many years why there is such a pre-occupation within the workplace with the deficit approach, the approach that asks what is wrong and how can we fix it. Of course these questions are valid and useful to ask, but as Tal pointed out within his talk, this is not reality. Reality is looking at the whole and that means the stuff that works, the successes we have, the progress we make, as well as the problems we encounter and the things that go wrong.
So when thinking about employee engagement we need to ask different questions:
– When you loved your job what was happening?
– What were the conditions that made it possible?
– What does a great place to work look like and feel like?
– What makes you happy at work?
Of course organisations such as Gallup have been advocating a strength-based approach to engaging employees for many years, yet I find it is still met with suspicion by many companies. Why is it companies are so wedded to the deficit, problem solving approach rather than a more holistic, realistic approach that takes in strengths as well as problems? After hearing Tal speak I started wondering if it could be down to this confusion around what positive psychology is? Clearly we play a role in helping to educate people, helping them to understand the benefits of a strength based approach, and helping them to understand that positive psychology is not all “clap-happy, west-coast, Pollyanna b*ll@cks” as someone once said to me!
As always your thoughts and comments are greatly appreciated.
