Fostering Happiness, Collaboration, and Purpose in the Workplace

We are not machines, nor are we robots. As humans, we are complex and multi-dimensional in our neurology, psychology, spirituality, and physicality, to name a few. As organisational leaders, leading a group of people is (I believe), one of the most complex parts of your role. 

The thing is however, we can sometimes lose focus on the people over the product or outcomes. When deadlines are looming, work is piling up and the pressure is on, it can be more about the grind, than any purpose or meaning. 

The question to ask yourself is “How often are your people in this mode? Is the ‘grind’ your normal?”

Research on workplace well-being clearly links happiness with raised levels of performance, collegiality, collaboration, and innovation.  

In a massive study published in the Psychology Bulletin, a leading psychologist in the field of positive emotion, Sonja Lyubomirsky, at the University of California, along with colleagues, reviewed the results of over 200 separate studies involving 275,000 people from around the world. The research found that positive emotions lead to success, not only in our personal lives but also in business. Happy people spend twice as much time thinking about what they’ve accomplished, how achievable the task ahead is, and how capable they are of achieving it. The persistent frustration of not loving what you do makes you a difficult character to be around and has been clinically proven to damage your health. Positive emotions impact employee engagement, job satisfaction and performance, customer satisfaction, innovation, absenteeism, and turnover.¹

There are also different types of happiness.  In psychology, there are two popular conceptions of happiness: hedonic and eudaimonic. Hedonic happiness is achieved through experiences of pleasure and enjoyment, such as a shared morning tea, appreciation, positive feedback, or even clearing your desk! Eudaimonic happiness is achieved through experiences of meaning and purpose (our why) e.g. when you understand how what you are doing contributes to the big picture, or you are connected with, and living out your values. Both kinds of happiness contribute to overall well-being in different ways. They also contribute to organisational culture, well-being, and ultimately outcomes.

As leaders, it is important to be purposeful in the development of wellbeing in your organisations. Your deliberate acts of leadership will set the tone and pathway for this development.

This requires leadership that moves from controlling employees to encouraging collaboration, and from top-down leadership to inspired conversations and shared goals. Moving customer focus, team development, employee engagement and Emotional Intelligence to centre-stage, and as a result, building thriving, happy organisations.

So, what are some small steps you can take towards creating happiness capital within your organisation?

Grow your own emotional capital. Check your own leadership motivations and emotional intelligence capabilities and determine whether there is alignment between your espoused and practised leadership.

Seek first to understand. Value asking a question over telling. Find out what makes people tick, their values and aspirations and support them to achieve these through a series of mini goals.

Move from a mode of seeking ‘buy-in’ to a mindset of engagement and collaboration. Utilising methodologies such as human-centred design ensures a structured approach to the complexities of gaining multiple perspectives.

Use a blended approach: hedonist and eudaimonic to create opportunities for people to experience happiness and a sense of achievement at work.

Join the dots… connect people with the “Why”, not just at a head level, but at a heart and gut level where they not only believe in it but are being it.

¹ Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., and Diener, E. (2005), ‘The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does Happiness lead to success?’ Psychological Bulletin, 131, 803-855.

Navigating the Phases of Team Development - from storming to performing

Working with some remarkable teams reminds me how privileged I am to be collaborating with individuals possessing exceptional skills, boundless energy, and extensive experience. Much like in our personal lives, our collective effort involves a journey of learning and adapting within our fields, as we prepare for the work ahead.

It's important to acknowledge that at times, it is not necessarily a harmonious process. There are times of rub, times when mental models will differ. Emotions may become heightened. Times when we are in what Tuckman calls the “Storming” phase of group formation.

This is normal and like any relationship, there is a settling-in period.

It is, however, our level of awareness and Emotional Intelligence that will support us to come through this phase quickly and gracefully. It will be our ability to talk through tricky situations, rather than pack a tantrum. To show empathy over blame, and employ active listening, over a my-way-or-the-highway approach.

For those who dislike moments of ‘rub’, it’s an inevitable part of peopling together. No amount of running or pretending it will automatically go away will address the issues as they arise. It requires us to face them, to keep communicating, and to find a place of common understanding. 

From there we are able to reach a state of “Normaling”. This is when we have normalised our way of being and working together. Common understandings are reached, and agreements are made.

So, as we move from forming, through storming and into norming, it follows that you move naturally toward peak performance and transformation.

As you embark on integrating new team members or face new challenges, consider Tuckman's model as a valuable guide, understanding that transitioning through these phases is a natural process. However, it's essential not to remain stuck in any single phase.

As a leader, how are you supporting your people to navigate these stages?

Unveiling the Power of Personal and Collective 'Culture of Care’ - navigating mindsets for success"

One of the key factors in how we get on in life is our ability to manage our mindset. Like training our bodies for an event, we can also train our minds to deal differently with life and work events. Without this training, we give up personal power and simply react to events around us.

In our volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world (VUCA for short), we are often struck with a myriad of ‘triggers’ that can cause us to react. We can become defensive, aggressive, withdraw or become silent. Our ability to manage our mindset in the micro-moment between the trigger and our reaction ensures our mind care, as well as the collective mind care of our workmates.

Often our emotions have automatic behaviours (both micro and macro) associated with them. When someone annoys us, we can roll our eyes, ignore them, pretend to be doing something else, or try to move on; all at a subconscious level. We display many automated behaviours; both helpful and unhelpful.

Hugely complex in its creation, the inner core of our brain creates our emotional reactions. Also known as the reptilian brain, its primitive responsive behaviour is designed to keep us safe. 

Whereas the outer cortex of our brain is our “thinking” brain. Massively clever and complex, the boundaries of its potential are yet to be fully explored. 

Unfortunately, the outer cortex of our brain is sometimes not activated during certain events, causing us to react, rather than respond. Putting it in colloquial terms; we can ‘flip our lid’.

When struck with a challenging situation that causes us to go into fear, we may come out fighting, belittle someone else, try to engage others in our behaviour or retreat into silence and sulkiness. Our reptilian brain takes over. Fear is often a root cause of this behaviour.

Being able to calm our mind when in this situation is not only vital for our mind care but also for the collective. This requires us to learn to manage our mindset during these moments, as well as that of strategies in our collective mindset.

Humans are social beings, driven by a need to belong and feel valued. Psychological safety is the term used to describe the safety that we feel when we are together (Kahn, 1990 [ 1 ]). When in a group of people, we will screen others to evaluate if they will be rejected, ridiculed, mistreated, ignored or insignificant. This drive to be social is often even more pronounced with people in powerful positions. Our evaluation may cause us to withdraw or move towards someone. 

The thing is, however, this behaviour can be detrimental on a personal and collective level. It can hinder growth and diversity. It can cause us to move towards the more dominant person, or to back away and become silent. This hinders our ability to share ideas, it also engenders a lack of commitment and accountability. At a collective level, it hinders shared responsibility.  

A lack of psychological safety hinders personal and collective potential. 

It causes groupthink, where we agree to the loudest or most powerful voice. 

It stifles creativity, replacing it with the status quo. 

It causes distrust.

We avoid critical conversations, in return for keeping the peace at all costs.

It masks the problems, sending behaviours ‘underground’.

It causes anger, depression, and people to “check out”.

A lack of psychological safety can disintegrate organisational culture. The following table shows the relationship between Organisational Culture and People Mode. Where is your organisation or leadership situated?

We need to operate at two levels: the personal and collective, keeping an eye on the triggers within each. 

Our work alongside organisations supports them to create a “Culture of Care”, developing personal and collective ownership. Each person learns how to understand their emotional-social intelligence strengths and areas for development, and specific mind-care strategies to support them personally. We collectively explore triggers, behaviours, and strategies for maintaining a collective “Culture of Care”. This then lays the foundation for a high-performing team.

If this resonates with you, then feel free to drop us a line and let me know what you are experiencing and how you would like it to be different.

Emotional Intelligence – taming the inner critic

When it comes to emotional intelligence, our inner critic can get a little rowdy!  Though we may try to be actively listening so we can deeply connect into a conversation, if we allow it, our inner critic can put up barriers that don’t allow us to be present, with our mind open, so we can really hear. 

Actively listening means we not only listen, but we seek to connect, understand, and ‘get’ not only what is being said, but the person behind the words. I’m concerned that we have begun depersonalising a process that is based on human connection. 

So how do we manage our inner critic so we can truly connect?

Emotional intelligence & the inner critic

Before we even learn the process of coaching, we need to explore what a deep connection looks like.

We must ask ourselves:

• How comfortable am I, being present to a person?

• How do I convey connection through my body language or my tone?

Let’s consider the story of a young leader.

This woman began in positional leadership early in her career. She was identified by others as showing huge potential, given various roles, and quickly rose to senior leadership positions.

But like a duck on water, visibly she glided along effortlessly, whilst underneath she was paddling madly. If she made the slightest mistake, she would beat herself up, chastising herself for days or even weeks afterwards. When asked to reflect on her journey, she found it difficult to see her achievements, instead focusing on what was missing. She settled for nothing less than an A-grade in her studies and would drive herself hard to achieve this. Guilt played a large part in how she operated. She felt guilty if she wasn’t working and she felt guilty if she wasn’t spending enough time with her children. 

This highly respected leader had incredible people and organisational skills and was also creative in her approaches. Outwardly she seemed like she had it all together.  Only the few she allowed to see behind this, saw someone whose inner critic was running rampant.

She is not alone. 

There are many incredible leaders of all ages whose inner critics are sabotaging their work and well-being. This internal fight however doesn’t have to be. The road to inner-critic recovery begins with self-empathy. If you’ve found yourself connecting with this leader’s story, then I encourage you to explore the following pathways to increase your emotional intelligence with self-empathy. 

The 3 elements that contribute to empathy

According to Roche Martin, the three elements that contribute to empathy are: listening, curiosity and emotional connection. When we apply these not only to those around us, but to ourselves, both the outer and inner critic can be tamed. For those who are trying to tame the inner critic these three elements can be applied in the following way:

Listening: The key to listening is sometimes NOT to listen; particularly if you are saying unkind things to yourself! A way of checking this is to ask yourself:

“Would I talk to someone else like this?” “Is it true? What’s the evidence?”  

Begin by checking your internal messages and looking for counterevidence. Attune your listening to the positives.

Curiosity: Being able to hold information away from you and look at it with a sense of curiosity is an important skill to learn. To view it from a “That’s interesting!” mindset helps one disassociate from the emotion and reflect from an objective standpoint. From this viewpoint, we’re able to gain a less emotionally charged perspective.

Emotional Connection: Part of having an emotional connection involves showing compassion; both towards others and ourselves. This means allowing oneself to be ‘real’, to make mistakes and to forgive oneself. It also includes giving and receiving aroha. This may take the form of taking time out and doing something you enjoy. This doesn’t have to be something large; it may just mean giving yourself ‘permission’ to take time out to go for a short walk during a busy day. 

Our #developme challenge

As you go forward into this week, spend some time practising self-empathy. 

• Become aware of your inner voice

• Hold its messages away from you with a sense of curiosity and compassion

Over time, as you continue to do this your inner critic will become lessened. You will learn to be gentler on yourself, to find inner calm, and to acknowledge and appreciate the gifts you have to offer. 

The journey may not be easy, but it is well worth taking.

How Deliberate is your Leadership?

One of the core messages of the emotional intelligence leadership work I do with New Zealand schools, businesses, teams and individuals, is to help them notice the choice point in their behaviour.

Most often, our behaviour is an automatic reaction to a trigger or a scenario. We are creatures of habit, and that predictability provides us with a level of safety. Understanding the impact of your thinking on your behaviour and those you lead is vital. Deliberate leadership starts with you.

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

~ Reframed from Viktor Frankl: Man’s Search for Meaning

The mindset of choice

Viktor Frankl was a man who endured horrific hardships during the second world war in several Nazi camps including Auschwitz. Frankl lost his mother, brother and wife at concentration camps. Viktor and his sister were the only survivors from his family.

The message within this quote has huge implications for our lives and leadership today. It speaks deeply about a mindset of choice. A mindset where we’re able to create space prior to a response. A space to make considered choices before we respond.

Unlike animals, we have a pre-frontal cortex which enables us to move beyond a stimulus-response mode of operating. It allows us to place logic and thought into the stimulus we encounter. This ability can vary between people and stimulus, depending on elements such as:

• our past experiences

• the severity of the stimulus and;

• our current level of emotional intelligence

Emotional Intelligence guru, Daniel Goleman teaches that providing there are no neurological impairments, we can develop our emotional intelligence and so too the power of choice over our responses, resulting in growth and freedom.

Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace

Jo had been at her workplace for three years. Over that time, she made huge inroads and achieved positive results within the organisation. Recently, however, she had begun feeling upset with the direction the organisation was taking. She was starting to feel that the more she gave, even more was being asked of her with little, to no acknowledgement.

Another person came to work alongside Jo. This person brought different strengths, but in Jo’s eyes was getting all the kudos and was starting to achieve things Jo had been trying to instigate over the past three years, as well as taking the accolades for it. Jo was feeling sidelined, as though all her hard work stood for nothing.

There are a variety of emotional responses Jo could now take. She could:

• Retreat into her shell, just do her job and no more

• Have it out with the other person or their boss

• Start speaking ill of the new person behind their back

• Start looking for other jobs

• Attempt to have a civil conversation with the person

Jo has choices in this situation. A choice to hide, undermine, blow up, run or have a conversation. Which of these choices move beyond stimulus-response? Which of these choices requires emotional intelligence? Which of these choices provides an opportunity for growth?

Jo’s leader also has choices to make! What would you have done?

• Would you have even noticed a change in dynamics?

• Could you have identified what was ‘at play’ in the situation?

• How would you have dealt with it?

• Would you have even bothered dealing with it?

• Would you have identified the impact if Jo left; both for the organisation and for Jo?

Emotional agility

Part of the process of emotional agility is being able to show up to the feelings, thoughts, and emotions that are a natural part of all workplace relationships. All teams experience them. Without a bedrock of workplace-wide emotional intelligence tools and capabilities, the ability to create a distance that is healthy and to then make choices that are productive and effective can be extremely limited, resulting in continual team turnover and job dissatisfaction.

Identifying that ‘choice point’

Remember, as a Team Leader, deliberate leadership starts with you. Understanding the impact of your thinking on your behaviour and those you lead is vital to your institutional success.

And as individuals, we must realise that ‘choice point’ holds the key to the level of success we’ll attain throughout our working lives.