Resilience, compassion and wellbeing in times of challenge

Descriptive transcript

Welcome, everybody, to our first Positive Organisational Scholarship and Positive Psychology Community of Practice event. My name is Dr Rosemary Sainty from the UTS Business School, where I teach positive psychology as part of our management discipline group.

Today's event is the first in what we hope is at least an annual event, where we bring together both practitioners and academics to develop a robust conversation around the topic of positive organising. The purpose today is to create a deliberative space—a space where there can be consensus, but also contestation around the issues. This is really important in the positive psychology and positive organisational space, as both practitioners and academics are able to inform each other in their mutual work.

Of course, we now find ourselves in a very challenging situation with the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally, this event was meant to be held in person, and now it's all on Zoom. But it is an interesting time to put to the test the positive approach, and to see just how well we can leverage that as we all move through this really challenging time.

The format of our event, which was held on April 1, began with hearing from the practitioners. First, we'll hear from Dr Susie Green, a prominent practitioner and also involved in academia in this area. She is going to provide us with an overview of the how, why and what of positive psychology and positive organisational scholarship. Then we'll hear from Sue Langley, another prominent practitioner in this space, who will look more deeply into the issue of strengths—the power of unique strengths in a time of disruption.

Following our practitioners, we'll hear from our academics. First up, my colleague Dr Ace Simpson, who has done some really interesting work in compassion and organisations, including compassion in times of crisis. Following Ace, we'll hear from Distinguished Professor Stuart Clegg, who will also be talking about compassion and more broadly about organisational studies. Once we've heard from both the practitioners and the academics, we'll join together in a discussion, which I think you'll find quite interesting. As we round up, we'll particularly focus on the role of leadership during a time such as we find ourselves in, and what positive psychology and positive organisational scholarship can bring to this.

I hope you enjoy our speakers, and we look forward to hosting another event next year and looking back on this year, which I think will be very interesting. Thank you.

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Hi, everyone. I'm Susie Green, and I'm going to give a brief overview of positive organisational scholarship, otherwise known as POS.

Just a little bit of history: the fields of positive psychology and positive organisational scholarship are closely connected. Positive psychology formally launched in 1998 with Professor Martin Seligman, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and Professor Barbara Fredrickson as key leaders in the field. Not long after that, in 2001, and apparently at a conference where it was first launched, the concept of positive organisational scholarship also came to the surface. A publication was formally made in 2003 by Professor Kim Cameron, Professor Jane Dutton, and Professor Robert Quinn.

Apparently, Jane Dutton and Barbara Fredrickson were either studying or working at the same university and shared some ideas. Barb went down the psychology path and Jane Dutton went down the business and management path. I'll talk a little bit about the work that's been done by Jane shortly.

So, what do we know from the science of positive psychology? For those who may not know, positive psychology is formally defined as the science of optimal human functioning. It's certainly not the science of being happy all the time. There has been a lot of research on positive emotions, showing that they broaden our mindsets, allow us to be more creative and solution-focused, and broaden our visual perception. This is really important right now, because we're often in fight or flight and our thinking narrows, so we need some level of positivity to lift ourselves up and see solutions to some of these significant challenges.

Also relevant right now is research on immune functioning. Decades of research show that stress, in particular, has a significant negative impact on our immune functioning, and increasing research shows that positive emotions—and particularly interventions that cultivate feelings of love—have a significant impact on our immune functioning, as do mindfulness techniques.

Quite a lot of work has been done on strengths, and Sue Langley will cover that this evening. There's also been a lot of research on positive relationships and their impact on our wellbeing.

Positive psychology is often critiqued as an individualistic type of psychology, but I disagree. The main aim is that when we're travelling well, we can have a significant impact on those around us. So for me, it very much is a relationship-based psychology.

Hope theory is also important. We'll make available some key research papers, including initial work by Rick Snyder and Shane Lopez, showing that hope is made up of three cognitive components: the capacity to set goals, the sense of agency (our belief in our capacity to achieve those goals), and the capacity to look for multiple pathways to our goals. High hopers tend to have numerous goals, a high degree of agency, and multiple pathways (plan B, C, D, E). The good news is that studies show you can enhance hope, and coaching psychology and evidence-based coaching have been shown to be hope-enhancing interventions.

So, why positive psychology at work, or positive organisational scholarship? For me, it addresses three key issues that organisations are facing: reduction of mental illness, wellbeing promotion, and capability building. The same key psychological skills used for mental illness prevention or wellbeing promotion are also used for senior executives for performance and leadership capability. The opportunity now is that these same skills are for everyone, not just leaders. In the words of one of our clients, it's about helping people to be better human beings or virtuous organisational citizens, which is the language of positive organisational scholarship.

If you want to find out more, there's a lot available at the Centre for Positive Organisations at the University of Michigan, Ross School of Business. You could spend a week on that website—there's so much information: academic papers, case studies, resources for academics, and wonderful work that's been done there over the last 17 years.

The definition is that POS is committed to revealing and nurturing the highest level of human potential. It addresses questions like: What makes employees feel like they're thriving? How can I bring my organisation through difficult times stronger than before? What creates the positive energy a team needs to be successful? Wayne Baker, one of the academics at the Centre, has done work on energy contagion through social network analysis.

Some of the topics identified as key areas of research and practice include: ethics and virtues (how do we cultivate attributes such as generosity, forgiveness and compassion?), meaning and purpose (how do we identify a higher purpose for our business and infuse this into our organisation?), positive relationships (how do we create energising, generative relationships in our workplace?), and positive culture (how do we build high-performing cultures of thriving, learning and vitality?). I highly recommend Robert Quinn's book on the positive organisation.

Positive organisational scholarship also has a strong focus on positive deviance. Often, we think of deviance as negative, but deviance actually means deviation from the normal, from the mean. POS scholars haven't spent their time looking at struggling organisations to uncover why they're struggling; they've looked to organisations that are flourishing to uncover what allows them to flourish.

There has been considerable research showing that positive practices like forgiveness, compassion, positive emotions, and a broader range of positive practices have significant impacts on organisational outcomes such as wellbeing, commitment and climate.

In terms of the 'how', there are many organisational change models, but a simple one we use is the Me, We and Us model (from Associate Professor Aaron Jarden, University of Melbourne). When implementing within an organisation or team, look at the individual level (Me)—what can individuals do to enhance their wellbeing and functioning? Then We—the role of the leader and the team. Each team may do positive psychology differently depending on their challenges and area. Then Us—looking across the organisation at systems, structures, policies and procedures. There's no point running resilience training at the individual or team level if the organisation doesn't consider the impact of systems and structures, which can sometimes undermine wellbeing and optimal functioning.

Some positive deviants we've worked with: The Starlight Children's Foundation (I'm an official ambassador), pioneers in Australia who trained all their leaders in positive psychology and rolled it out to all employees. There's a podcast, 'The Examined Life', where I and the CEO of Starlight, Louise Baker, discuss what happened and the impact on their organisation.

Another example is a department at the Reserve Bank of Australia, where we trained all staff, provided positive leadership training for leaders, one-on-one coaching, and collaborative consulting over 12 months, with fantastic results.

The last example is Accenture Australia and New Zealand, where we've combined education and coaching for senior managers, including learning the principles of positive organisational scholarship, appreciative inquiry, positive psychology, and coaching psychology. Leaders receive one-on-one coaching and 360-degree feedback over a year. We were finalists in the Australian Psychological Society Workplace Excellence Awards and had great results assessed internally by Accenture.

Thank you very much to UTS, Rosemary for hosting, and Sue Langley for kindly hosting the Zoom. Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.

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Thank you, Susie, for giving a great overview. My job is to go into the strengths component. Strengths is one key component of positive psychology and positive organisational scholarship. If you look at what positive psychology encompasses now, it's huge, and strengths is just a small component, but one with a lot of research.

I thought I'd start with a little interaction. Everything we do at the Langley Group includes neuroscience. I'd like everyone in the chat to send me a message about what sort of emotions you've been experiencing in the last week.

[Chat responses: Unnatural calm, shock, worry, perplexed, detachment, optimism, uncertainty, frustration, hope, boredom, unease, open-mindedness, overwhelmed with kids and work, sadness, joy, curiosity, anger, grief, surreal compassion, serenity, fear, etc.]

It's interesting—my guess is every single one of us has experienced a whole range of emotions in the last week, from fear and uncertainty and worry and anxiety, through to joy and optimism, and sometimes in the same five minutes. If you're anything like me, I've had those moments as well—real distress at what's going on and what I'm going to have to do from a business perspective, because like Susie, most of our stuff is face-to-face. So all that gets postponed. What do I do with my team? What do I do with salaries? But also, I see this as a huge opportunity—lots of new things coming, lots of new ways of being.

Because all our routines have been thrown out, and many of you understand that your limbic system looks after your habits and routines, when that gets thrown out, our brains get overwhelmed. We're perhaps not exercising as we once were, not getting up at the same time, not doing the same routine. Has anyone found their eating has been a little off? [Many hands go up.] This is your brain doing what it's meant to do. It's having a moment and you are occasionally making poor decisions around what you're eating. I know myself, I had a particularly difficult day on Monday, and after a difficult call, I thought, "I really need a bottle of gin right now." Thankfully, I know enough about my brain to understand what was going on. Then I thought, "I want a really big bag of crisps." I never eat crisps, but I thought it'd be a good idea. I decided that wasn't the best idea, so I went with a bowl of cheese. "Gin is sensible," thank you very much. Yes, exercise has gone to zero, eating and sleep/wake cycle is off, more snacking, dinner at 4pm, etc.

This is a normal thing that's happening in your brain. But if we don't handle it, significant stress over time leads to burnout, insomnia, and mental health issues like depression and anxiety.

I want to bring in the strengths approach because it is one small thing, but sometimes the smallest thing you can do makes the biggest difference, as Alex Linley talks about—a big advocate, researcher and practitioner in this space. This is something we use a lot within organisations because it is significant for performance, but it can also help us right now with some of those emotions.

The definition of strengths (from Alex Linley): Pre-existing does not mean you were born with it; it just means prior to now. It's about authentic and energising, and that's why it works well from an organisational perspective—it's about optimal functioning and performance.

There's a piece of research I love: the Corporate Leadership Council studied nearly 20,000 real-life people in real jobs and looked at performance over a 12-month period. Some people were reviewed with an emphasis on performance weaknesses. That's what we've done for years in organisations—"these are your strengths, these are your development opportunities, let's put goals in place around your development opportunities." Those people saw a drop in performance by 26.8%. The people reviewed with an emphasis on strengths saw an increase in performance of 36.4%.

If you have to focus on the things you are not good at for 12 months, what emotions come up? [Chat: resentment, fear, frustration, self-doubt, inadequate, disappointed, uninspired, less engaged, shame, worthless, boredom.] Many of us want to fix our weaknesses, but over time, all those emotions come into play and our strengths drop. When you focus on your strengths, you feel fantastic, confident, worthy, excited, and your weaknesses also improve because you're fired up and confident.

When we think about what is a strength: performance, energy, use. These are the three things that make the Strengths Profile (in my mind) one of the best tools from a workplace perspective. The VIA is fantastic because it's free, but the energy component of the Strengths Profile really helps bring it to life.

I'll share how you might bring this into practice. Performance is the stuff I do well, but the Strengths Profile distinguishes whether it energises or de-energises me, as well as how frequently I use it. For example, my top two realised strengths are Time Optimiser and Work Ethic—I pretty much work all the time. In times of crisis and disruption, you can still use your strengths. For example, our business had to reconfigure our ops team and I had to let two people go. Before that decision, I tapped into legacy and mission—the legacy I want to leave behind and the goal, the outcome. I had to make a decision based on the best outcome for the business and the majority of people in it. While having that conversation, I used my sense of being centred and emotional awareness to remain inspired and connected, even when making tough choices. I got messages from every single one of my team, including those leaving, saying it was some of the best leadership they'd seen. When you use your strengths, it's easier to handle the tough stuff.

Think about how you can figure out your own strengths and tell your own strength story. Use it in times when you're feeling depleted, despaired, bored, stressed, anxious, and all those emotions mentioned earlier.

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[Rosemary Sainty:] Thanks, Sue and Susie. That's a really nice overview of the field, and giving us all a bit of an experience of what a core part of the positive approach is—the focus on strengths and something to take away. Now we're looking across to academia. This is the core idea about bringing tonight together—to get those different perspectives to really round out the field.

I'm happy to introduce my colleague, Ace Simpson, a Reader in Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour at Brunel Business School, London, and also an Associate Fellow at UTS Business School. Ace's research is concerned with human wellbeing, flourishing and social justice, with a research focus on the cultivation of organisational compassion. His research in compassion in times of crisis, such as the Queensland floods, is particularly pertinent. Ace is going to talk to us about compassion in times of crisis, including that research and cultivating a culture of compassion.

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[Ace Simpson:] Thank you, Rosemary. Thank you, Susie and Sue, for your wonderful presentations. When we started the positive organisational, positive psychology program at UTS, I invited Susie to give presentations from a practitioner perspective to our students, and that was fantastic. I wanted students to be exposed both to the academic side and the research, but also to people like Susie and Sue who are applying this and taking it out to organisations.

A year ago today, I started work at Brunel University London after nine years at UTS Sydney. On my first day, I was introduced as a new recruit from Australia and asked to introduce myself. When I said I research compassion in organisations, the room erupted in laughter. I still don't know what the joke was, but what I do know is that when I tell people I research compassion in organisations, I often get wisecrack responses such as, "Does such a thing even exist?" or, "As a non-sentient thing, can an organisation even be compassionate?"

From my research, I can tell you that every organisation depends on compassion to function. From conducting hundreds of interviews, I can affirm that when pressed, every employee can remember an incident of receiving compassion from a colleague or supervisor during a time of struggle. Some have to think harder than others; some want to describe incidents of being bullied or abused, but when I remind them of the question, everyone gets there in the end.

Causes of suffering can relate to workplace stress, injury, conflict, tension and bullying. In recent times, I've helped organisations address bullying not just through policy or training, but by enhancing organisational compassion capabilities—compassion strengths—as a positive approach to addressing workplace bullying. Other causes of suffering can be from outside work, such as a relationship break-up or grieving a loved one. Disasters, such as terrorist incidents, natural disasters (like the Queensland floods, bushfires in Australia), or a global pandemic like coronavirus, also affect us.

Academic research initiated by Jane Dutton and others at University of Michigan (which Susie introduced earlier) defines organisational compassion as a fourfold process: NEUR—Noticing, Empathising, Understanding, Responding.

- Noticing: picking up on changes in routine, mood, or behaviour. - Empathising: checking in, listening empathically, understanding emotions. - Understanding: trying to see the cause of distress, the circumstances behind the change. - Responding: taking action to alleviate distress.

The critical difference between sympathy or empathy and compassion is that compassion concludes with a response—some kind of action to alleviate distress, whether small or big.

In my research on the Brisbane floods, I found that in some organisations, compassion flows easily and naturally; in others, it's hidden or clandestine. I call this narrow compassion (shared among a clique, helping each other get through the workday) versus broad compassion (support for all kinds of distress, including workplace tensions, personal circumstances, disasters). Narrow compassion doesn't engender organisational commitment, engagement, trust, loyalty, or productivity. Broad compassion does, and also fosters creativity, innovation, and heightened performance.

The critical difference between narrow and broad compassion is organisational support. Training or coaching can help at the micro level, but it needs to reach the meso and macro levels too.

To cultivate organisational compassion, we need to look at: - Leadership: what behaviours are being role-modelled? - Routines and policies: who are we promoting? Is it all task-based, or also about how people interact? - Hiring practices: who are we recruiting and on what criteria? - Policies of support: do we have policies to support employees during times of struggle? - Role definitions: do people see caring for each other as part of being a member of the organisation? - Culture: is it high-level competition or supportive team culture? - Communication: what stories are we telling? Are we recognising the small things—the support, care, and compassion that happens every day?

We call these organisational compassion capabilities. Compassion competencies include speed, scope, scale and customisation—how fast we respond, the types of support available, the scale, and whether support can be tailored to individuals.

When compassion is deeply embedded in leadership, culture, routines, roles, values and communication, people begin to associate compassion with the organisation itself, regardless of industry. I've seen not-for-profits where employees feel bullied, and for-profits where the organisation is very compassionate and caring.

When it comes to crisis, it's difficult to fake compassion. In a moment of crisis, the organisation's general culture will dictate how it responds.

If we had more compassionate organisations, we'd have less stressful work environments, better employee wellbeing, greater commitment, higher engagement, trust, loyalty, better relationships and productivity. Society would also have more trust in business leaders—something that's been in decline in recent years. The days when bosses can get away with being mean just to exercise power are numbered. Narcissistic bullying is self-sabotage for the organisation.

As a research community, we now know enough about organisational compassion to advise leadership on how it can be cultivated. The choice is ours.

Thank you for this opportunity to share with you.

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Now, I'd like to hand over to my colleague, friend and mentor, Distinguished Professor Stuart Clegg.

[Stuart Clegg:] Thanks, Ace. I'm kind of the odd person out here—I'm not a psychologist. I did study psychology as an undergraduate in a behavioural science degree, but I ended up specialising in sociology. It was clear my strengths were not in statistical analysis, so I was told I'd be better off doing sociology.

Let me tell you how I came to positive organisational scholarship. Surprisingly, it was through the study of really evil organisations. I had been writing a book on power and organisations, including a chapter on 'The Heart of Darkness', discussing total institutions like the Holocaust, the stolen generation of Aboriginal children, the Magdalene laundries, the German Democratic Republic, and the Khmer Rouge. I demonstrated that these organisations were not off the scale of normal organisation—they just intensified some normal organisational tendencies. Every organisation has the potential to be somewhat bad, and some to be really evil.

A friend suggested I write about the good stuff organisations could do. I wasn't convinced there was a lot of good around, but I had friends working in positive organisational scholarship, including Ace, who encouraged me to explore this emerging body of work. Our recent book on positive organisational behaviour came about through working with Miguel, Armenio, and Ace.

My way of entering the positive world was by rethinking what I learned as an undergraduate: organisations were founded on communication, coordination and control. Communication occurred through imperative command (top-down), coordination was required because of division of labour, and control consisted of exercising power over subordinates to ensure conformance. The corollaries were sycophancy, secrecy, and sabotage.

Today, I think we need to supplement the big three Cs with two more: compassion and collaboration. The acquisition of these two Cs can transform old-style management. Once compassion and collaboration come into play, the dynamics of communication, coordination and control change. Communication through collaboration changes from top-down broadcast to digital mass self-communication networks, opening up opportunities for open-source strategy and innovation, as well as risks of manipulation and abuse of big data.

Coordination also changes. The biggest difference is in control exercised through power over people. Control through power over people is not the only concept of power—we also have power to and power with. Control as power over is isolating and dominating; power to is empowering, creative and innovative; power with is about conjoining with others to do what might otherwise be unimaginable.

Organisations can use power as a negative, corruptive force, but it can also be an indispensable force for good. Without power, nobody changes the world. Organisations can adopt processes to generate positive approaches to power, create cultures of speaking up, move from command and control to empowering, and stimulate divergence through devil's advocacy.

By powering positivity, organisations do a service to themselves, as major corporate scandals are often a product of the misuse or abuse of power. Of course, the positive can produce unintended or negative effects—there's always a paradoxical side to organisations, including positive ones. It's important to avoid surface positivity or promising miraculous solutions. Fostering positivity may be used as a moral technology aimed at gaining more effort from satisfied employees, on the principle that contented employees produce more profit.

People spend a significant part of their lives at work, yet for many, work life is far from fulfilling. There's now abundant research suggesting ways to manage people decently rather than dreadfully, and that's what I find encouraging about being—even as a fringe member—part of positive organisational scholarship.

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[Panel discussion and Q&A:]

Rosemary: Looking back on where we've come with the discussion so far—Susie, the importance of integrating research; Sue, using what's come from research and the benefits of strengths; Ace, what you've learnt from your research on compassion is so pertinent to what's happening at the moment; and Stuart, there's an optimism about what this field can bring, particularly to where we are right now. We're seeing some really positive things and compassionate responses.

At this point, we'd like to have some questions from participants.

First question to Ace: The 'R' of your acronym—response and organisational responses. Some organisations are working hard at coming up with good responses. For organisations that haven't yet cultivated compassionate cultures, can broad and narrow compassion coexist?

Ace: Absolutely, it's possible. My research shows that particularly in large organisations with many departments, some divisions are very compassionate and caring, others are lacking and have more bullying. We've done correlational studies showing a negative correlation between bullying and compassion within the same organisation. Psychological safety is a key factor—when people feel safe, you see more broad compassion; when unsafe, more narrow compassion. Even within the same department, you might have most people feeling supported, but some not getting that for various reasons. Life is messy and complex.

Regarding the current context, some organisations moved quickly to let go of employees at the outset of the pandemic, others held back, recognising their responsibility and the need to rehire people later. If you let people go quickly, even if they come back, how much loyalty and engagement will they have? Some governments have guaranteed employees' wages, which will be interesting to study in terms of economic recovery.

Rosemary: Another question—what evidence is there of boards bringing compassion to the boardroom? And from John: Can you suggest any tips to implement or drive positive thinking in a climate of uncertainty and downsizing? Is there research to show increased client satisfaction, revenue, profitability—the business case—from a positive approach?

Susie: There's increasing recognition in positive psychology and ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy) that it's not just about being positive or happy and getting rid of negative emotions. The more you try to do that, the stronger they become. We need to acknowledge emotions as normal and give people space to process them. I struggle with the term 'positive thinking'—for me, it's more about hopeful and optimistic thinking. Hope theory looks at goals, agency (belief in our capacity), and multiple pathways. High hopers have plan B, C, D, E. When this hit, I was up in the middle of the night listing creative ideas. Positive emotions allow creativity and solutions to emerge. When we're in fight or flight, our thinking shuts down. We need to balance acknowledging emotions and building positivity to allow solutions and ideas to occur.

Sue: There's a lot of research supporting these things, linking to productivity and profitability. Many organisations try to embed wellbeing and positive psychology programs to increase profitability, and that may be the case. If your organisation offers genuine support for your wellbeing, resilience, and strengths, they may get productivity and profitability because you'll be happier and more engaged. Engagement is an emotion. If I feel better at work, I'm more creative, perform better, am kinder and more collaborative.

On overuse of strengths: Some strengths, if overplayed, can be detrimental to you or others. For example, personal responsibility—saying yes to everything—can be de-energising over time. Humour can be overplayed in the wrong context. My strengths of time optimiser and work ethic are unlikely to de-energise me, but I know they can be de-energising for others. It's about dialling them in appropriately.

Ace: On negative emotions, research around compassion is interesting. For compassion to deliver positive impacts for the giver, it requires genuine empathy—compassion is Latin for 'suffer with'. When you suffer with another, it triggers a stress response, but when you act to alleviate it, it triggers a calming response, boosting immunity and wellbeing. If it's superficial compassion, those effects are not achieved.

Stuart: Sometimes, the social construction of reality changes dramatically, as we've seen recently. We've moved from an ideology of lack of compassion and austerity to one of compassion, born out of concern for the economy. It'll be interesting to see what happens when the pandemic is over—will we go back to business as usual, or will compassion continue in policies? It's a pertinent question for the times.

Rosemary: Marco Berti asks, could we stop treating people as a problem to be managed and instead as a resource for mutual support, advice and guidance—a grand collaboration?

Stuart: We can, but organisations are historical objects. If they've been running on control, coordination and top-down communication for a long time, even when you bring in collaboration and compassion, there's still an undercarriage of the old ways.

Rosemary: In the last minutes, a round-up question to each panellist: What could be a central c