culture – Grow Mindfulness

Rebuilding Trust Within Your Hybrid Workplace

Mark Mortensen and Heidi K. Gardner reported in a Harvard Business Review article that dozens of companies are reporting declining trust in the Hybrid Workplace model, both amongst employers and employees. They point out that in the early days when the Pandemic hit, people were forced to work from home because of isolation requirements. In that environment, when everything was in turmoil and everyone was “in the same boat”, there was a lot of tolerance and trust within organisations, despite the existence of some forms of hybrid workplaces. However, now with the reduction in the Covid19 presence and associated risk, and the return to workplaces (for some of the time), the level of tolerance and trust has dropped.

The authors attribute the decline in trust to a number of factors including the lack of preparedness of employees for home-based work (such as the absence of established routines), inadequate home technology, and the unpreparedness of organisations to facilitate information flow. While the majority of people at some stage had to work from home (because of lockdowns), this prevented employers from choosing the most appropriate employees to work from home. The problem now is that employees have the very strong expectation that working from home for some part of the week is part of their revised, return-to-work employment contract. They have experienced the real benefits of working from home in terms of flexibility and reduction in travel time and associated costs. Some employees experienced heightened productivity and the associated sense of accomplishment.

Now employers are faced with many more employees wanting to work from home with high expectations of this highly desirable condition being granted. This then raises equity issues for employers in terms of who to allow to work from home now, the number of days that people need to be at work and what days of the week individuals will be allowed to work in their home environment. It is interesting that in Brisbane City at present, Mondays and Fridays are very quiet traffic days (and there is plenty of parking at railways stations), while the other days of the week have returned to normal traffic flows and associated peak hours and delays.

Declining trust within hybrid workplaces

There is a problem that not everyone is suited to a work-from-home environment and not every home environment facilitates effective at-home work. Desirable traits for work-at-home employees include initiative, ability to work autonomously, reliability, results oriented and resilience. If employees lack the desired qualities to be effective working from home then a manager’s trust in their capacity and quality of output is eroded.

While people are working from home, there is a reduced opportunity for workplace relationships to develop through such random activities as the “water cooler chat” which has clear benefits for communication flow, collaboration and team-building. The resulting limitation on relationship-building impacts on levels of trust and tolerance amongst co-workers.

In the absence of “line-of-sight” for managers and supervisors there is a declining level of trust in how employees are spending their working day at home. Many managers and supervisors report that they don’t trust their employees working from home because they “can’t see what they are doing”. Mark and Heidi report that this has led to increased remote surveillance via electronic monitoring (e.g., keystroke counts) and virtual visual monitoring such as webcams and drones. All of which communicates to the employees that their managers do not trust them – which, in turn, impacts the reciprocation of trust (from employee to employer).

How to rebuild trust in a hybrid workplace

There are many strategies for building trust within a team, especially in a hybrid workplace. Below are some suggestions:

Create culture change: Lynn Haaland suggests that managers of hybrid work teams can actively promote a “speak up culture” so that issues are addressed in a timely manner. The willingness to share what is not working well is even more paramount within the hybrid context as dissatisfactions can fester and lead to conflict and lower productivity.
Provide guidance for working from home: Many people have written about how to be productive while working remotely. Managers can share the best suggestions and facilitate team exchanges of what works well for individuals in their home environment.
Demonstrate trustworthiness: Mark and Heidi stress the importance of understanding that trust is “reciprocal and bi-directional”. This puts the onus on the manager to demonstrate trustworthiness in their words and actions and to align them so that they are perceived as congruent.
Be empathetic: Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman argue that empathy is one of the three key elements that build trust in a workplace team. They explain that empathy can be displayed by resolving conflict, building cooperation, providing helpful feedback, and balancing concern for task with real concern for employees’ welfare. Empathy also helps to build the manager’s own resilience in the face of the increasing demands of their hybrid workplace.
Adopt regular “check-ins”: If the focus of these check-ins is staff welfare as well as progress on assigned tasks, this will demonstrate empathy and build trust. This focus involves being prepared to really listen to how an employee is feeling, whether they are coping and what they need to rectify what is not working well.
Use collaborate planning processes: Collaborative planning processes such as Force Field Analysis (FFA) and Brainstorming facilitate on-going collaboration, the exchange of ideas and the development of a sense of connection. Genuine Involvement in planning processes develops employee’s sense of agency and demonstrates that their views are valued, trusted and respected.
Establish cross-team projects: Going beyond the immediate team to develop cross-team projects with other teams that have a common interest, concern or problem, helps to build rapport and trust, to break down barriers and silos, and to generate new ideas and perspectives.
Be a good role model: The Mind Tools Team suggest that being a good role model is central to rebuilding trust in the workplace. This involves honesty, transparency, avoiding micromanagement, clearly communicating expectations and being a team player (not putting own promotion ahead of the team’s welfare). It can also extend to modelling working from home.
Undertake more conscious planning and thinking: Bill Schaninger in a podcast interview stressed the need for managers to put more planning and thought into how they manage their hybrid teams. The world and workplaces have changed dramatically with the advent of the Pandemic and the way we manage has to be re-thought and re-designed. We can no longer assume that it is “business as usual” but be willing to change and adapt and reinforce for employees that we are across their issues and the new demands on them.

Reflection

The demands on managers are increasing with the widespread adoption of hybrid workplaces. Yvonne Stedham and Theresa Skaar maintain that what defines a leader is their capacity to see a need for change, make things happen, and encourage others to engage in actions and behaviors that create a “new reality”. They argue that mindfulness is an essential trait/characteristic for leaders in these changing and challenging times. Yvonne and Theresa, on the basis of a comprehensive literature review, contend that as managers grow in mindfulness they are able to shift their perspective (re-perceiving), increase their flexibility and cognitive capacity, regulate their emotions and behaviour, and grow in self- and social awareness.

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By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Developing Our Inner Life as a Leader

As we grow in mindfulness, we develop our inner life – realising a deeper self-awareness, developing increased understanding of the nature and strength of our personal triggers and building a greater understanding of, and tolerance for, other people’s differences. This enriched inner life builds our capacity for insight, resilience, creativity and integration of our words and actions with our life purpose – all essential traits of effective leadership. Ginny Whitelaw, in her book The Zen Leader, describes this reframing and reorientation of a leader as a flip from “Out There” to “In Here”.

We create our world “out there”

Ginny explains that what we consider to be “out there” (external reality) is, in fact, a projection of our inner world. Drawing on her study of biophysics, martial arts and Zen philosophy, Ginny marshals her arguments to demonstrate that our external world as we perceive and experience it, is mostly of our own making. Her argument revolves around several key insights:

Limited perception – Ginny points out that our human capacity is to perceive external reality in two or three dimensions (the latter achieved mainly by artists and architects). She maintains that our external world exists in ten dimensions, most of which are outside our awareness.
Cultural filters – our national culture, the world we are raised in, creates filters that shape our perceptions, beliefs, words and actions. Naomi Osaka (Japanese tennis star), for example, explained in an interview for the Brisbane International that she was bemused by the enthusiasm, boisterousness and naturalness of Australian tennis spectators – which she pleasantly experienced as a sharp contrast to the “politeness” of Japanese tennis spectators.
Personal triggers – what we experience individually and differentially as negative triggers is shaped by our early life experiences which heighten our sensitivity to different interactions – a sensitivity that can be reflected in a constant need for control, an overwhelming drive to prove that we are “better than”, an obsessive need to please so that we are liked, or the continuous perception of criticism of ourselves by others. These negative triggers are often the result of distorted perception of our external world – for example, we see criticism where none is intended or where the opposite is intended.
Expectations – our expectations reflect our self-image and influence how we experience others’ interactions with us. Ginny maintains that through our expectations “we’ve pre-tuned our senses to notice only certain things and to place certain interpretations on them”. Our expectations that reside “in here” create the world we experience as “out there”.

So, what we experience as “out there” is highly subjective and is of our own creation – we are constantly making our own world. There are inherent deficiencies and dangers for leaders in assuming that what we perceive and experience, is “real” and is the only reality. Reg Revans, the father of the action learning approach to leadership development, warns us that if we assume that we know what is real we are going to cause trouble for ourselves and others. Politicians frequently attempt to shape our perceptions of reality by stating unequivocally that “the reality is…” (invariably something of their own making that serves their purpose).

Developing our inner life (as a leader)

In her book on Zen leadership, Ginny offers some penetrating exercises that address our individual distortions of “out there” and enrich our inner life (what is “in here”) thus empowering us to “lead fearlessly” but attuned to others’ reality and own purpose. These reflective exercises fall into several categories:

What World do You Make? – this exercise built around personal skills and traits as well as values that you hold strongly, develops an insight into how you shape your world in a typical week. (p.86)
Turning a Difficult Relationship – involves reflecting on an interaction with curiosity and openness to ascertain what you personally brought to the interaction (in terms of perceptions and triggers). It entails looking into the mirror, discovering the fear at the root of your perception and behaviour and “claiming your power” by naming and facing your fear. (p.97)
Sitting Meditation as a Core Practice – Ginny offers a guided meditation based on sitting and grounding that releases tension, develops deep body-mind relaxation and provides the opportunity to gain greater awareness of what is “in here” and “out there” for you. (p.101)

Ginny’s book is rich with insights and personal exercises and reflections to deepen self-awareness, enhance self-regulation and develop ways to empower yourself to take your place fully in the world (not constrained by distorted perceptions, unfounded assumptions and projections or unexposed fears).

Reflection

Our life experience and our personal responses provide a rich store for reflection and insight. Developing our inner life is not a luxury for a leader – it is an imperative because leaders are able to influence others and to enrich their lives. The starting point is acknowledging and accepting that the world we experience is something of our own making and that we can remake our world (and help others to do likewise) by growing in mindfulness through meditation (such as the sitting meditation proposed by Ginny), by reflection (such as focusing on what we brough to a difficult interaction) and by open exploration (seeking with curiosity to identify our personal “imprint” of our world).

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Developing Resonance through Listening: Leadership in Action

In a previous post I discussed leadership as resonance, drawing on the work of biophysicist Ginny Whitelaw. Fundamental to this concept is the role of a leader as an “energy concentrator” – capturing, focusing and amplifying energy. This process is a two-way street. The leader generates energy alignment and amplification through developing a vision, shaping team culture and enabling the transformation of creative energy into innovation. On the other hand, the leader captures the energy of his or her followers through listening – being in tune with their energy vibration, removing political and organisational blockages and providing energetic support. This is very much a form of bottom-up management, in contrast to the former way of concentrating energy through vision and culture which is a top-down approach. Listening, then, is a means of achieving resonance – aligning with and amplifying energy vibrations from followers.

Listening as resonance

A common expression used to describe the act of listening is to say that people who are actively listening in a conversation are on the “same wavelength” – their energy vibrations are aligned. Ginny, drawing on neuroscience research, maintains that this statement is both metaphorically and literally true – if the leader is actively listening, they are matching the brain waves of the communicator, making a map of the other person’s energy vibrations within their own brain. This is what Ginny calls “connected communication”. As she points out, when we are on the same wavelength, we have access to a deeper level of understanding and information exchange. This is in direct contrast to parallel conversations where there are no connections and people are “talking past” each other. In Ginny’s words, listening involves a sensitivity to the point that the conversation changes us and has a healing effect.

Disconnected communication – a lack of listening and dissipation of energy

Communication is a form of energy exchange that can be either employed to make things happen or dissipated through failure to listen by either party in a conversation. In organisations, it is all too common for staff to lose heart and energy when their leader fails to listen, to be in tune with what they are saying. This can happen in communications about ideas for improvement, expression of dissatisfaction about some aspect of the workplace or work practices or identification of potential risks. Leaders can tune out through a need to maintain control, through their own busyness or habit of interrupting the speaker or diverting unpleasant or challenging conversations. Leaders often attempt to solve the problems of followers before they have heard and understood what the real problem is.

Developing resonance through listening

Leaders can develop their capacity to listen effectively and develop resonance – energy alignment and amplification – through mindfulness practices. These can take many forms as discussed in this blog – such as meditations to address fear, the need for control, resentment or negative self-talk. A very useful strategy is to reflect on a situation where you failed to listen effectively. You can ask the following questions in your reflection:

What was the situation and the nature of the conversation?
What was happening for me in terms of my thoughts or feelings?
To what extent was my need for control involved?
How did the exchange impact my sense of self-worth or self-identity?
What was my mindset in the interaction?
What intention did I bring to the conversation?
What words or actions did I use to curtail, redirect or end the conversation?
What negative impact did I have on the energy of the communicator?

Honest answers to these penetrating questions can enable you to increase your self-awareness, remove blockages to your listening and open the way to develop resonance through effective listening.

Reflection

The way we listen as leaders can build resonance or dissipate energy. As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, mindfulness practices in our daily life or reflection on our words and action, we can better attune ourselves to what others are saying – both in terms of the content and significance of their communication. We will be better able to match and amplify their energy and facilitate the transformation of ideas into action. Mindfulness enables us to be present in the moment, aware of our own emotions and that of others and builds the capacity to self-regulate our words and actions. Connected communication is a challenge but it is essential to leadership effectiveness as research and our own experience continuously affirms. ___________________________________________

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By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Being Disconnected from Meaningful Values Leads to Depression

In previous posts I highlighted the relationship between depression and being disconnected from what is meaningful in terms of work and in terms of relationships with other people. In this post, I want to draw further on the work of Johann Hari’s book, Lost Connections, by focusing on the loss of connection to meaningful values.

Being disconnected from meaningful values

In Chapter 8 of his book (pp. 91-105), Johann identifies a third social factor contributing to the rise of depression and anxiety – disconnection from meaningful values. In this section, he draws heavily on the ground-breaking research of Emeritus Professor Tim Kasser who explored in depth how our cultural values contribute to the rise of depression and anxiety in today’s Western society.

Tim was motivated in his search for meaningful values through the music of Bob Dylan and John Lennon and his own independent inquiry into the nature of authenticity while studying at Vanderbilt University, a learning institution committed to curiosity. Tim was curious about the reason why there was such an increase in the incidence of depression and anxiety in today’s world. He spent more than 25 years researching and working with colleagues to find the answers.

Tim drew on the work of philosophers and research by others that established that the stronger a person focuses on materialistic values (such as wanting more money and possessions and wanting to be viewed highly by others), the more likely they are to experience depression. He conducted his own experiments as well and learned that those who gave priority to materialistic values experienced less joy and lived a poorer quality of life than those who primarily pursued meaningful values. Johann describes Tim’s research projects in detail in his book, Lost Connections.

Materialistic values pursue extrinsic rewards

Philosophers have identified two different types of human motivation – extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic motivation seeks an external reward in the form of money, status, recognition or being liked and admired. Intrinsic motivation, in contrast, is associated with internal personal rewards that flow from undertaking something for its own sake such as working to make a difference in the world, developing meaningful and supportive relationships, showing compassion towards someone in need or playing an instrument for the sheer joy it brings. Materialistic values focus on extrinsic rewards and do not add meaning to a person’s life.

Tim engaged 200 people in completing a “mood diary” over a period so that he could establish the outcomes for people who primarily pursued extrinsic goals versus those who pursued intrinsic goals. He was startled by the results – people who focused on, and achieved, extrinsic goals did not experience any appreciable increase in happiness in their daily life, despite the extraordinary amount of time and energy that they put into pursuing those extrinsic goals (e.g. gaining a promotion, purchasing a new car, buying the latest smart phone). In contrast, people who pursued, and achieved, their intrinsic goals were “significantly happier” and experienced a decline in depression and anxiety. These people set goals such as improving the way they related to others and supported those in need.

Johann points out that we all pursue both extrinsic and intrinsic goals and the associated rewards. However, the challenge is to achieve the right balance – ensuring that materialistic values do not dominate our lives and lead to depression and anxiety. We are constantly confronted with the choice of whether we pursue an extrinsic goal or an intrinsic one – such as whether we stay longer at work and earn more overtime money or go home to our young family and enhance our relationships with our partner and/or children.

I was recently confronted with such a choice – the choice between an extrinsic goal and an intrinsic one. I was asked to write a book on action learning and the extrinsic rewards offered were to earn money for the work, receive royalties on an ongoing basis and, in the process, make a name for myself by way of my “legacy”. The cost for me was to give up writing this blog on mindfulness, as the book would be all-consuming – I would have to give up what I consider to be making a real difference in some people’s lives (including my own) in favour of realising some extrinsic rewards. I chose to turn down the offer to write the book and to continue to research and write about ways to grow in mindfulness via this blog. The challenge for me was to put an important intrinsic goal ahead of offered extrinsic rewards.

We can become consumed by materialistic values and the associated extrinsic rewards by spending more and more time and energy in their pursuit, despite their achievement providing less and less satisfaction. People, for example, chase the next promotion and movement up the ranks and are often prepared to sacrifice their personal values and joy to “get there”.

Western society encourages and reinforces materialistic values

Our consumer society cultivates extrinsic values and advertisers persistently encourage us to have the better car, to look better, to buy eye-catching jewellery, to upgrade our home (in terms of size and/or location) and to attract admiration. Porsche, for example, in promoting its latest SUV, the E-PACE, describes the new “luxury” vehicle as having “head-turning good looks” – reinforcing the “look-at-me” values of Western society.

The selfie revolution is another example of our pursuit of “looking good” on social media. Technologists have pandered to this trend by developing the “selfie drone” which has now morphed into the “dronie” that enables you to focus on your group and yourself and also to back away to highlight your location, thus providing that extra “WOW factor”. Some selfie drones even let you upload your shots directly to social media – meeting our need for immediacy and convenience. Taking selfies, by itself, does not mean you are pursuing materialistic values – some people use selfies solely for their family album or to share with family connections. The problem comes when taking selfies consumes us and their sole purpose is to establish our (superior) “value” in the eyes of other people.

Each year at Christmas time, there is a rush to have the latest and best toys/games/technologies that are available – what was the benchmark last year is now superseded by something more costly and peer pressure reinforces the “need” for this purchase. Our children thus become indoctrinated very early into the “must have’ social norms and lose sight of what really makes them happy such as the sheer joy of playing a game with friends in the yard or park.

Our culture drives the desire for extrinsic rewards to the point where our elected officials feel it necessary to misuse their positions of trust to increase their own wealth through corruption. More than fifty wealthy American parents were recently charged with admissions fraud through a scam designed to get their children admitted to “elite” universities.

Johann points out that multiple studies show that depression and anxiety will be experienced by people who pursue materialistic goals relentlessly – irrespective of their age, social standing or economic means. He argues that just as junk food creates toxins in our bodies, “junk values” produce “psychological toxins” that invariably lead to depression and anxiety (p.97).

Becoming mindful about our lives and our values

Tim Kasser, in an interview in 2016, encouraged us to reflect on how we spend our time and energy. He suggested that we look at what we really value and how that is reflected in our life. He asks us to seriously look at how we act out what we claim to be important in our lives and how well we make time for the things that are important to us.

As we grow in mindfulness through reflection, meditation and mindfulness practices, we can identify the ways in which our words and actions do not align with the values that provide meaning and happiness in our lives. We can explore ways to make better use of our time, not to pursue materialistic values, but to pursue intrinsic values that provide lasting satisfaction such as making a difference in the world, being fully in the present moment and connecting meaningfully with others.

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Image by KarinKarin from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Action Learning, Mindfulness and Mental Health in the Workplace

Over the past few months I have been exploring the linkages amongst action learning, mindfulness and mental health. I have found that action learning and mindfulness are complementary and enable the development of an organisational culture that is conducive to mental health. The image above represents my current conceptualisation of the relationships amongst action learning, mindfulness and mental health.

Mental illness in the workplace

The pressures of modern life have led to the increasing incidence of people in the workplace suffering from mental illness. This is compounded by the increase in the number of narcissistic managers. My own experience of consulting to organisations over many years has highlighted for me the urgency of taking action in the area of mental health in the workplace.

One particular consulting experience involved helping a manager and their group to become more effective. The senior manager exhibited high levels of narcissistic behaviours and the middle manager – while sincere and very conscientious – lacked self-awareness and interpersonal skills. This workplace environment was toxic for the mental health of all involved, including myself as a consultant.

Action learning and toxic work environments

In the course of my research and work as an organisational consultant and academic, I came across an action learning intervention in an educational context in South Africa that addressed the mental health issues resulting from a toxic workplace. This doctoral study has been published in article form and is described in my post on overcoming a toxic work environment through action learning.

Around the same time, I had the good fortune to study another doctorate that addressed the trauma experienced by midwives in a hospital in New Zealand. This research used action learning to change the culture from a punitive one to a culture that supported health professionals suffering trauma, reduced the impact of the traumatic event and enabled them to be more resilient in the face of the trauma experience. I discussed this case in my blog post on agency through action learning.

Creating a mentally healthy workplace through action learning

Reflecting on these two studies about action learning and toxic workplaces raised my awareness of the positive mental health implications of the action learning-based, manager development that I had been conducting with my colleague, Julie Cork, over more than a decade. I came to conceptualise that manager development program as creating a mentally healthy workplace through action learning. The perception of this program as developing a culture conducive to mental health in the workplace was reinforced by a report by two lawyers titled, Mental Health at Work.

When facilitating the Confident People Management (CPM) Program with Julie, we have the participating managers identify the characteristics of their worst and best managers. Then we ask them to identify their feelings when working for the best managers and then when working for the worst managers. Over more than a decade there has been almost unanimity over more than 80 programs in terms of the relevant managerial characteristics and the resultant feelings of subordinate staff. This is independent of whether the participants are from the capital city or regional areas and does not differ substantially amongst participants of different occupations and professions – whether the participants are police officers, doctors, lawyers, scientists, mental health professionals, nurses, hospital managers or public servants engaged in child safety, accounting or marketing roles. Participant managers know intuitively what managerial behaviours are conducive to mental health and what are injurious. We set about in the CPM to develop the characteristics of “good managers” in the program.

Mindfulness and mental health in the workplace

The research supporting the positive impact of mindfulness on mental health and its role in overcoming mental illness is growing exponentially. The ever-growing research base in this area led to The Mindfulness Initiative in the UK and the creation of the Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Group (MAPPG).

The benefits of mindfulness for mental health in the workplace were then documented in two very significant reports, Mindful Nation UK and Building the Business Case for Mindfulness in the Workplace. I have discussed this proactivity in the UK and the associated reports in a post, The Mindfulness Initiative: Mindfulness in the Workplace.

The Mindful Nation UK report incorporates feedback from the Trade Union Congress (TUC) which argues strongly that mindfulness alone will not solve the problems of toxic work environments. They contend that organisations need proactive interventions (not just isolated mindfulness training) to ensure that organisational culture is conducive to employee well-being. I have argued that action learning is an intervention that can develop a culture conducive to mental health.

In my discussions I take this conclusion one step further by contending that action learning and mindfulness are complementary and contribute to mental health through the development of agency and self-awareness.

Action learning and mindfulness as complementary interventions.

Reflection is integral to action learning and some mindfulness practices rely on reflection on events and personal responses to build awareness. I have discussed the similarities and differences in these reflective practices within the two approaches in a post titled, Mindfulness, Action Learning and Reflection.

Elsewhere, I have shown how action learning can contribute to the development of mindfulness through “supportive challenge”, mutual respect, equality and “non-judgmental feedback”. This discussion is available in a blog post, titled Developing Mindfulness Through Action Learning.

After discussing the complementarity between action learning and mindfulness, I wrote a reflection on the previously mentioned action learning intervention designed to change a toxic work environment in an educational setting. In this reflection, I discussed how mindfulness training could have helped the participants to exercise more fully the responsibility that came with agency. In a subsequent post, I looked at how mindfulness expands our response ability.

In a further reflection on both the doctoral studies mentioned above, I highlighted the capacity of mindfulness to break through the “conspiracy of silence” about mental health in organisations and to strengthen both self-awareness and resilience.

The complementarity betwen action learning and mindfulness in terms of developing a culture conducive to mental health comes into sharper focus when we consider the contribution of each to “agency” and “self-awareness” in the workplace.

Action learning and mindfulness develop agency in the workplace

Drawing on the work of Tali Sharot, author of The Influential Mind, I have shown how agency is a necessary prerequisite for mental health in the workplace. I have also explained how action learning can contribute to both employee agency and managerial agency. One of the things that stop managers from providing employees with agency (control over their work environment and the way their work is done) is fear of loss of control. Mindfulness enables a manager to overcome this fear, provide agency to employees and grow their own influence in the process.

I contend further that mindfulness enables agency to be sustained in the workplace for both managers and employees. Managers are better able to realise their potential by “letting go” and enabling employee agency. Employees, in turn, build their capacity to take up the agency provided through their own pursuit of mindfulness. “Sustainable agency” is an organisational condition that provides a nurturing environment for managerial and employee growth and for the mental health of all concerned.

Action learning and mindfulness develop self-awareness in the workplace

When you look at the underpinning philosophy of both action learning and mindfulness you find that both actively work towards achieving self-awareness by removing the blindness of false assumptions, unconscious bias, prejudice, and self-limiting “narratives”.

Action learning and mindfulness can thus act together to build self-awareness, a precondition for mental health. In the process, they provide the payoff from self-awareness in terms of increased responsiveness, creativity and self-management. Action learning and mindfulness also enhance self-awareness by encouraging us to admit what we do not know.

As managers grow in mindfulness through mindfulness practices they are better able to contribute to action learning and to build a culture that is conducive to mental health. Mindfulness helps both managers and employees to develop deeper self-awareness and to build their capacity to take up the agency provided, thus leading to a more sustainable organisational capacity for agency.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Mindfulness and Organisational Interventions

The Mindful Nation UK report stated that mindfulness alone will not fix dysfunctional organisations. Where narcissistic managers or leaders exist in an organisation, the result is typically a toxic environment for employees where they are devalued, overworked and subject to public, caustic criticism.

Mindfulness can build resilience but the desired intention is not to build people’s capacity to endure unreasonable workloads or a toxic environment. It is designed to build their capacity to contribute to the organisation where reasonable stressors exist.

Narcissistic managers see resilience as a way for employees to “toughen up” so that they meet their unrealistic demands. I have even heard one senior narcissistic manager say of his subordinate manager that he “needs to be more resilient” in a situation that involved ever-changing deadlines, public criticism by the senior manager in front of his own staff, constant blaming for things outside his control and demands that border on unethical behaviour.

The Mindful Nation UK report was cognisant of the very relevant views expressed by the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in its 2013 document on “Work and Wellbeing: A Trade Union Resource”. In this resource, the TUC expressed concern that wellbeing programs were being used as a substitute for addressing more fundamental issues such as workload, hours of work and inappropriate management style.

In their discussions with the working group developing the Mindful Nation UK report, the TUC were particularly concerned about the need to address toxic work environments and not assume that mindfulness training for staff will change the level of toxicity by osmosis – that is, by unconscious assimilation of the values, ideas and skills of mindfulness by narcissistic managers who create toxic environments.

The Mindful Nation UK report recognised the validity of the TUC’s concerns by stating:

Mindfulness will only realise its full potential when it is part of a well-designed organisational culture which takes employee wellbeing seriously (p. 45)

Despite this assertion and the statement that “as an isolated intervention it [mindfulness] cannot fix dysfunctional organisations”, the report recommendations relating to mindfulness in the workplace still failed to include explicit intervention in the organisational culture.

As organisations help managers and leaders to grow in mindfulness through mindfulness training, they also need to design interventions to directly address the culture of the organisation in a planned, constructive way that creates values and behaviour consistent with those espoused in mindfulness programs.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of geralt on Pixabay

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Creating a Mentally Healthy Workplace

If you revisit the previous post and listen to Goldie Hawn’s statement about the tools and skills that children are given in MindUP™ , you come to realise that she is creating the foundations for mentally healthy workplaces . As Goldie pointed out, she set about creating a new culture, conducive to world peace, by developing children as future leaders with dignity and humanity.

In their guide, Mental Health at Work, produced by Portner Press, the authors discuss the need to create a workplace culture that is conducive to developing and maintaining mental health in the workplace. What they identify as the elements that go into making a mentally healthy workplace culture align very well with Goldie’s focus and goals.

They also align very closely with the manager development work I have been doing over more than a decade with my colleague, Julie Cork. The Confident People Management Program that we have been facilitating for over 2,000 managers is a longitudinal, action learning program of four to six months focused on people management skills.

To create a culture that is conducive to mental health in the workplace, requires, fundamentally, an awareness of, and willingness to address, the basic needs of staff. Staff have three basic needs, (1) tell me what is expected of me, (2) give me honest feedback about how I am doing, and (3) provide me with the resources to meet the expectations of the job.

Job expectations

Clarity around job expectations is particularly critical for creating a workplace environment that is conducive to mental health. Much stress, conflict and mental illness is caused by unclear job expectations which are manifested in role confusion, role ambiguity and/or role overlap.

Communication of expectations should cover both performance expectations and behavioural expectations. Performance expectations, in terms of the quantity and quality of work to be done, have to be reasonable and not excessive. It is okay to establish high expectations as long as you enable negotiation of those expectations and provide the requisite level of support to achieve the desired outcomes.

The other aspect of job expectations is behavioural standards. It is one thing to communicate workplace values, e.g. professionalism, it is another thing to explain these values in behavioural terms so that staff understand what is required of them behaviourally. So for a value like professionalism, a manager would need to ask, “What does professionalism look like behaviourally in our workplace context?” (or, alternatively, “what would be considered unprofessional behaviour in our context?”).

Clarity around job expectations, both performance and behavioural, is a critical first step for a mentally healthy workplace.

Feedback

An essential component for a workplace culture that is conducive to mental health is regular feedback about performance and behaviour. This involves both positive and corrective feedback.

Positive feedback builds a person’s self-esteem and sense of self-efficacy. It respects and values their contribution and encourages positivity in the workplace.

Corrective feedback is designed to correct performance/ behaviour so that the staff member can meet the job expectations. If it is provided in a professional manner it can be generate respect – the focus being on the performance/ behaviour, not the person or their personality.

In both forms of feedback, it is important that the feedback is timely, specific, accurate and sincere.

Resources

It is unreasonable and damaging to mental health to provide staff with resources that are inadequate to enable them to meet job expectations – this includes the provision of training in both performance and behavioural requirements. In terms of assisting people who have mental health issues, it is important to provide access to independent, external health professionals to give adequate support for the individual involved. What is often overlooked is the need to train managers in how to deal with mental health issues in the workplace – resulting in managers experiencing undue stress and, potentially, burnout.

Listening for understanding

If a manager is to genuinely meet the needs of staff, they have to have skills in active listening. One component of this is empathetic listening skills – the ability to understand the emotions involved for the other person, to empathise with them and to work with them to help alleviate the associated pain where possible.

Being present

Underpinning the above elements of a healthy workplace culture is the capacity of a manager to be really present to their staff. Listening for understanding, communicating expectations and providing feedback (both positive and corrective), require the manager to be in-the-moment and really present to their staff.

As managers grow in mindfulness, they are better able to create workplace environments conducive to mental health. Kindness and gratitude form part of the emergent skill-set and these, in turn, contribute mental health and happiness, not only for staff but also for the manager.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: Courtesy of johnhain on Pixabay