Positive Psychology at Work E-Book

Sarah Lewis

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 419

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Positive Psychology at Work brings the fields of positive psychology and appreciative inquiry together for the first time to provide leaders and change agents with a powerful new approach to achieving organizational excellence. * Draws together positive psychology and appreciative inquiry in the context of leadership organizational challenges for the first time * Presents academically rigorous and referenced material in a jargon-free, accessible manner * Arranged with chapters focused on specific organizational challenges to allow readers to quickly find ideas relevant to their unique situation * Features short contributions from experienced practitioners of positive psychology and Appreciative Inquiry, and includes case studies from the UK, Europe, Australia and the USAÂ

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Table of Contents

Half title page

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication

About the Author

Book Contributors

Preface

Acknowledgements

The Short Version of This Book

1 Introduction to Positive Psychology

Positive Psychology is Not Positive Thinking

How Positive Psychology Differs from Positive Thinking

The Ethical Bias of This Book

Key Themes of the Book

2 Positive Workplaces

Introduction

What is a Positive Workplace?

How Does Positive Organizational Behaviour Turn into Positive Organizational Performance?

Organizational Culture

The Organization as a Complex Adaptive System

Why is Culture so Hard to Change?

How to Create Positive Workplaces

Summary

3 Positive Engagement and Performance

Introduction

Active Engagement at Work

Strengths and Talents

Flow

Mindfulness

Management Influence on Engagement and Productivity at Work

Goal Seeking

Goal Setting

Goal Setting and Environment Contingencies

The Meaningfulness of Work

Strategies for Increasing the Meaningfulness of Work

Summary

4 Positive Communication and Decision-Making

Introduction

Communication

Connectivity

Dynamic Patterns of Communication

How to Build Positive Communication and Increase Performance

Leadership and Positive Communication

Best Self-Feedback

Decision-Making

Emotions in Decision-Making

Micro-Decision-Making

Other Factors that Enhance Decision-Making

Moving from Decision-Making to Sense-Making

Summary

5 Positive Leadership and Change

Introduction

Leadership

Psychopathic Leaders

Organizational Change

Approaches to Change

Leadership Change Behaviour

Effective Leadership Behaviour

Developing Strategy

Summary

6 Positive Sustainable Growth

Introduction

Psychological Capital

Appreciative Inquiry

Positive Profusion Theory of Growth of the Positive Organization

The Three-Circle Strengths Revolution

Summary

7 Positive Relationships at Work

Introduction

Positive Team Working

High Quality Working Relationships

Summary

8 Positive Transformation

Introduction

Key Processes of Flourishing and Inspiring Workplaces

Why Organizations Ignore the Transformative Collaboration Approach to Change

Transformative Collaboration

Patterns of Organizational Life

Transformative Collaboration Approaches

Summary

Other Things You Need to Know

How to Live a Happy and Meaningful Life

How to Have a Better Quality Old Age

References

Index

Positive Psychology at Work

This edition first published 2011

© 2011 Sarah Lewis

Wiley-Blackwell is an imprint of John Wiley & Sons, formed by the merger of Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical and Medical business with Blackwell Publishing.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lewis, Sarah, 1957-

 Positive psychology at work : how positive leadership and appreciative inquiry create inspiring organizations / Sarah Lewis.

p. cm.

 Includes bibliographical references and index.

 ISBN 978-0-470-68320-0 (cloth)

 1. Leadership. 2. Positive psychology. 3. Organizational change. I. Title.

 HD57.7.L49 2011

 158.7–dc22 2010039783

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This book is published in the following electronic formats: ePDF 9781119990406; epub 9781119996217; Wiley Online Library 9781119990390

To Stewart Smith, my husband,

whose gift of love sustains me

About the Author

Sarah Lewis is a fully qualified chartered psychologist, an Associated Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a founder and principal member of the Association of Business Psychologists. She holds a master’s degree in occupational and organizational psychology, attained with distinction, and a certificate in systemic consultation. She is a specialist Appreciative Inquiry practitioner and an expert at facilitating large group events.

She is the managing director of Appreciating Change and is an experienced organizational consultant and facilitator. She has been actively involved in helping people and organizations change their behaviour for 25 years. Her clients include local government, central government, not-for-profit organizations and private sector clients, particularly in the manufacturing, financial and educational sectors.

When positive psychology burst onto the scene, Sarah quickly realized that work in this area both chimed with her practice and offered robust theoretical support to Appreciative Inquiry as an approach to organizational change. She integrates these two approaches in her work and is delighted to be able to extend, explore and share this connection in this book.

Sarah has lectured at postgraduate level and continues to be a regular conference presenter in the UK. She writes regularly for publication and is the lead author of Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management: Using AI to Facilitate Organizational Development, published by Kogan Page in 2007.

Sarah’s work can be viewed on her website (www.appreciatingchange.co.uk) and she can be contacted at ++44 (0)7973782715 or by emailing [email protected]

Book Contributors

Alastair J. M. Arnott, Subject Leader of Performing Arts – St Paul’s Way Trust School, MSc Applied Positive Psychology postgraduate student, Results Certified Coach Level 1. www.alastairjmarnott.com; [email protected]

James Butcher, owner of Work Without Walls. Specializes in appreciative learning – helping people learn from their strengths and successes. www.work-without-walls.co.uk, ++44 (0)1303863581, ++44 (0)7976898782. Based in Kent, UK

Wendy Campbell, Founding (1989) and Managing Director of The Glastonbury Company Pty Ltd, Creator of The Resilient Leadership Program for Community Change Leaders. [email protected], ++61 (0)893828071

Kate Coutts is a head teacher in Unst, Shetland, and has background in research. She also works in the private and public sector on leadership development. metasaga.wikispaces.com; [email protected]

Jane Filby, Director of Planning and Resources, Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham, UK. Expertise in load and financial models in HE, management of HE and reward structures. [email protected]

Ewa Francis, learning and development professional, specializing in designing and facilitating people development solutions: personal effectiveness workshops, management development, coaching, mentoring. [email protected]; ++44 (0)7800546291. Based in Surrey, UK and Poland

Mario Gastaldi, owner of Brain Team Consulting. Specializes in designing and facilitating spaces and conversations, live and on-line, leading to engaged change and collaboration. [email protected]; www.mariogastaldi.com, ++39 (0)3489330978

Karena Gomez, C.Psychol. FCIPD. Consultant at KPMG. Specializes in unlocking organization and individual learning to deliver whole-system change. [email protected], ++44 (0)7919808452. Based in Leeds, UK

Helen Higson, Professor of Higher Education Learning and Management and Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Aston University, Birmingham, UK. Specializes in employability competences and intercultural learning. [email protected], ++44 (0)1212043191

Clive Hutchinson, Company Leader of Cougar Automation. Trained as an engineer and then a manager, Clive now devotes himself to helping people become free to play to their strengths

Louisa Jewell, MAPP, Consultant and Facilitator specializing in creating positive and productive workplaces. www.positivematters.com, [email protected], 1-416-481-8930. Based in Toronto, Canada

Joep C. de Jong, CEO at Van Harte & Lingsma. Co-founder of AI Consultancy and has expertise in the practical, daily use of Appreciative Inquiry, special interest in Appreciative Leadership. [email protected], ++31 (0)715191600; ++31 (0)654396936

Leif Josefsson, Metaspace facilitator, coach, networker. Explorer of new technology and thinking. On a learning journey, whether it’s with his two-year-old grandchild or Maasai partner Rafael. www.metaspace.se. Based in Stockholm, Sweden

George Karseras is a chartered occupational psychologist and a Director of Leap Partnership, a boutique consultancy specializing in aligning organizational mindsets to organizational strategy. www.leappartnership.co.uk, ++44 (0)7976789366

Vanessa King, Master Applied Positive Psychology, University of Pennsylvania. Partner, ChangeAble Consulting LLP. Specializing in leadership development, positive change, and creative thinking. www.changeable.org.uk, ++44 (0)7989337083. Based in UK, works internationally

Martin Leavy, Training Development Manager, Dublin City University. Specializes in the design, delivery of training and development inter­ventions together with supporting organizational change. www.dcu.ie, ++353 17005147. Based in Dublin, Ireland

Alex Linley, Founding Director of Capp, the leading people manage­ment consultancy specializing in strengths approaches. www.cappeu.com, ++44 (0)2476323363

Liz Martins, strengths-based change, psychosynthesis and open space practitioner, working with individuals, organizations and communities. [email protected], ++44 (0)1225858406; ++44 (0)7977932066. Based in Bath, UK

Lesley Moore, Director of MooreInsight Ltd, consultant and facilitator of strengths-based change with individuals, public organizations and community networks. www.mooreinsight.co.uk ++44 (0)7813197657; ++44 (0)1959569980. Based in Kent, UK

Nick Moore, Director of MooreInsight Ltd, specializing in co-creating seismic quality and efficiency enhancements in children’s social care, with public and independent organizations. www.mooreinsight.co.uk, ++44 (0)7779082631; ++44 (0)1959569980. Based in Kent, UK

Shannon M. Polly, MAPP, President of Accentuate Consulting, facilitator and consultant specializing in communication/presentation skills and increasing organizational productivity and wellbeing. www.accentuate-consulting.com, [email protected], 1-917-449-1789. Based in Washington, DC

Ann Shacklady-Smith, Senior Fellow, Manchester Business School, Chair Community Empowerment Network St Helens, thrives doing Apprecia­tive Inquiry research, appreciative coaching and whole-system change. [email protected]; [email protected], ++44 (0)1744759390

Tim Slack, Co-Director Appreciating People, Appreciative Inquiry and whole system OD practitioners. www.appreciatingpeople.co.uk, ++44 (0)1514271146; ++44 (0)7986515237. Based in Liverpool UK

Stewart Smith, artist and cartoonist. www.darkhorseart.co.uk. [email protected], ++44 (0)2083051862. Based in London, UK

Ceferi Soler, PhD in Psychology, Barcelona University. Associate Professor ESADE Business School. [email protected]

Professor Michael West, Executive Dean, Aston Business School, Birmingham. His areas of research interest are team and organizational innovation and effectiveness, particularly in relation to the organization of health services

Lesley Wilson, Founder of Dreamcatchers, an organization development consultancy specializing in strengths-based change. Designer of leadership learning journeys and Metasaga guide. [email protected], ++44 (0)7980449135

Preface

Every book written I am beginning to realize poses certain questions, the key one being: Who is it for? In this case the answer is that it is written for its author: it is the kind of book I like to read. I like books that tell me about new, exciting ideas and theories in a clear, easily understood way; that are prepared to recount in some detail key interesting research, but don’t insist I follow every twist and turn of the academic debate; and that give me ideas about how all this interesting new knowledge might be used in the field.

So this is the book I have attempted to write: the key ideas, research and pragmatics of positive psychology at work drawn together into one reader-facing volume. I have also attempted to illuminate the application of positive psychology in different workplace settings and cultures so that many different readers will find an example that resonates with their workplace or work challenge. My aspiration is that it will be interesting and useful to leaders and managers, students and consultants, and people at work interested in how things could be improved.

I have attempted to make the text lively and interesting as well as informative and scholarly. To achieve this balance I have had to make some choices and I want to say a few words about these.

Accounts

I have chosen to insert short accounts of practice as supplements so that they don’t break up the flow of the main chapter narrative and you can read them at a point in your reading that suits you.

Summaries and Key Points

I have chosen occasionally to pull out the key points of the discussion in the text to help readers keep the big picture of the discussion, or a map of the main points, to hand.

Stories

I have included occasional stories from my own experience, some work-based, some more personal, to illuminate arguments in the text. I have done this on the basis that sometimes a story aids understanding and also to leaven the dough of academic exposition. I realize that these are as likely to annoy as to charm. In my defence I can only say I road-tested them with my contributors, and those included passed the squirm test. Feel free to skip them if they are not to your taste.

Cartoons

I have also included some cartoons. My hope is that these will illustrate points in a dramatic way and also that they offer a little light relief.

Referencing

I thought long and hard about the level of referencing in this book. An organizational leader who read an early draft made it clear that too many references really interfered with his pleasure in reading the text. On the other hand, I get really annoyed reading under-referenced books or footnoted texts, where I can’t easily see where the information came from.

So my compromise is this: key pieces of research that I explain in some detail are properly referenced as the primary source. Elsewhere I have given as the reference the book, or book chapter, from which I have gleaned the information I am presenting. Further, in a slight departure from best academic practice, I haven’t constantly re-referenced my source with ‘ibid.’. Instead, unless I introduce a new name or clearly switch to my own observations, you can assume the information continues to come from the same source until told otherwise.

In addition, I have added some further reading at the end of the chapters for those who want to explore a particular area or idea further, with a few notes about the nature of the text. I hope this will help readers find the kind of books they like to read among the ever-growing selection available.

So that’s it. I have learnt a huge amount researching and writing this book and have enjoyed the journey tremendously. I can only hope that you buy this pristine volume and rapidly deface it with underlining, exclamation marks, question marks, comments, dog ears and coffee stains. Such, to me, are the signs of a useful book.

Acknowledgements

In 2007, along with my colleagues Jon Passmore and Stefan Cantore, I wrote a book called Appreciative Inquiry for Change Management. I enjoyed the experience so much that when Wiley-Blackwell asked me to write a book about positive psychology and Appreciative Inquiry I leapt at the chance.

From the beginning my ambition was to comb the ever-widening field of positive psychology research and theory for that most relevant to the challenges of leading, or working in, organizations. I wanted to combine that theory with examples of how it is being put into practice across the world, as people ask ‘So what?’ and play with ‘What happens if … ?’ I am blessed that so many colleagues, friends and contacts were kind enough to put pen to paper, and it is the unfailing support of the positive psychology and Appreciative Inquiry community that I wish to acknowledge.

Each contribution is clearly acknowledged in the text and details can be found on page xiii. My contributors have all been unfailingly patient with me as my ideas for the book have developed and so my ideas of what I want from them have changed. The text is immeasurably enriched by the generosity of my contributors who come from the UK, Australia, America, Canada, Italy, Poland, Spain, Holland, Sweden and the Republic of Ireland. I thank them all.

I wish also to thank my husband, Stewart Smith, who has provided the cartoons that appear in the text. Working to my very inexact briefs he has somehow managed to produce simple and impactful images that illustrate, with humour and wit, the points I am attempting to make.

My eldest son, Jem, also deserves my thanks for his extensive help with the part of the whole project that I find the hardest: the final detailed checking of text and referencing. He has been diligent in his efforts and any mistakes which remain are entirely my own.

There are a number of people who not only made contributions but who also took the time to read and comment on earlier drafts of various chapters. They are Clive, Martin, Ewa, Shannon, Helen, Mario, Ceferi and Karena. My grateful thanks go to them all.

I wish particularly to thank Clive Hutchinson who alerted me very early on to the danger of writing an over-referenced academic text that was of little interest to active and pragmatic organizational leaders. I hope I have successfully diverted the course of this book to avoid this outcome!

Karen Shield and Darren Reed of Wiley-Blackwell were kind enough to approach me to write this book and have been unstinting in their efforts to help me get it right.

The Short Version of This Book

To create positive and inspiring workplaces

1. Create a workplace that feels good.

2. Play to everyone’s strengths.

3. Recruit for attitude.

4. Encourage positive deviation.

5. Build social capital.

6. Make sense together.

7. Be an authentic leader.

8. Create conditions for change.

9. Create reward-rich environments.

10. Be appreciative.

To learn how to do these things, read this book.

1

Introduction to Positive Psychology

Positive Psychology is Not Positive Thinking

This distinction is important, but unfortunately there is a certain amount of confusion about these two ideas. We shall first examine positive thinking to enable it to be distinguished from positive psychology, before going on to consider positive psychology in its own right. Positive thinking has a history all of its own, brilliantly traced by Barbara Ehrenreich in her 2009 book Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. This book traces the origin of positive thinking to a particular human malaise prevalent in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, which took the form of unexplained fatigue and mysterious physical symptoms. It occurred at the time when a Calvinist doctrine of joyless, work-oriented, fearful, sin-avoidant living was in the ascendant. While this religious perspective and its accompanying prescriptions of hard work and sobriety contributed to, and supported, the work ethic that helped make the US the country it is, it also reduced the amount of positive emotions in life, such as hope, joy, passion, interest and happiness. From our perspective we might suspect this malaise to have been a form of depression.

The recommended cure was frequently complete bed rest without stimulation – no reading, no company, bland food and in a darkened room. With the benefit of hindsight we might question the wisdom of such a prescription. At the time few did until Phineas Quimby came on the scene. Quimby had little respect for the medical profession and set himself up as an alternative healer. He identified Calvinism as the source of the problem, arguing that it was oppressive guilt that was laying his patients low. He eschewed the depression-inducing prescriptions and instead developed a talking cure ‘through which he endeavored to convince his patients that the universe was fundamentally benevolent’ (Ehrenreich, 2009, p. 85). He suggested to his patients that they were essentially at one with this benevolent mind and that, through this power of connection, they could use the power of their mind to cure their own ills.

Such magical thinking, a belief that you can influence things by thinking, is not new. To anthropologists it is known as sympathetic magic and is prevalent in native, or unscientific, cultures; hence, perhaps, the close association between promoters of the benefits of positive thinking and shamanistic, Native American or other Native culture practices. Such an association isn’t always benign. In 2010, three people died and 20 more were injured in a Native American steaming ritual run by self-styled spiritual guru James Arthur Ray (Harris, 2010). In addition to these sweat-lodge deaths, there is a history of people being injured by fire-walking, such as the 20 managers of the KFC fast-food chain in Australia who, in 2002, received treatment for burns caused by fire-walking (Kennedy, 2002). Again in July 2010 eight employees in Italy had to go to hospital with foot injuries from fire-walking, which were expected to take up to 10 days to heal (Hooper, 2010).

Sensible people try these forms of magical thinking or sympathetic magic because they offer hope and because they bypass other, harder routes to achieving what they want. But this isn’t to say that, as with many things, there isn’t some truth in it. Visualization does have an effect on human behaviour, but through the medium of our actions, not through the medium of the magic of our thoughts. It is unfortunate that positive thinking and positive psychology both contain the word ‘positive’ and that both make reference to the power of positive visualization. However, it is possible to distinguish the two fields.

How Positive Psychology Differs from Positive Thinking

The main difference is that positive psychology is subject to the rigours of scientific experimentation and endorsement, suggesting that the phenomena discovered are reliable and repeatable: if it worked in the studies, then under the same circumstances, it is likely to work again. Positive thinking deals more with the realm of anecdote and exhortation. It also takes up the tautological position that, if it didn’t work, it’s because you weren’t positive enough (Ehrenreich, 2009). Positive psychology is about accruing a body of knowledge that is useful to people who want to live good, long, happy and productive lives, while positive thinking is about persuading people that what happens to them is their own fault. (Of course, this is usually presented in more upbeat fashion – that what happens to them is under their own control!)

Positive psychology literature can also be distinguished from positive thinking literature in that it accommodates the reality, and necessity, of negativity: it not only accommodates the reality of negative events, emotions, behaviour, and so on, but also recognizes their importance to human wellbeing. Negative emotions and outcomes are recognized and accommodated by positive psychology in at least three ways. First, within positive psychology there is a recognition that bad things happen to people through no fault of their own; there is such a thing as randomness. It is possible to live a life free from carcinogens (tobacco, alcohol, red meat or exposure to toxic agents) and still contract cancer at an early age. Bad luck if you will. Second, negative emotions can serve a useful purpose. Fear, anger, sadness, anxiety, stress, and so on are essential for alerting us to threats to our wellbeing so that we can do something about them. They are necessary to our survival. Finally, it is clear that some well-intended behaviour has adverse outcomes, due to a basic inability of people to understand all the causal relationships within which they operate. In other words, we are all susceptible to making mistakes with unforeseen negative consequences. That’s life.

Positive psychology is further distinguished from positive thinking by the fact that it has ‘body of knowledge’ structures such as collegiate bodies, university departments, professors and rigorous accredited academic courses that work to collate and share information. It has all the paraphernalia of scientific discourse with peer-reviewed journals and academic conferences. Its practitioners apply to respected scientific bodies for research grants. Assertions made as fact can be checked, verified or refuted by others. People build on other’s work and acknowledge their debts to them. Traditionally, within the scientific establishment this has meant that the discoveries made often remain within the ivory towers of academia, only seeping slowly into public consciousness. Now something different is happening.

Interestingly, in contrast to other lines of inquiry in psychology, and possibly in response to the changing world, the founding mothers and fathers of positive psychology undertook from the beginning to make a conscious effort to get the information they were gaining over the wall of the cloistered world of academia. They felt that what they were thinking about, learning about and discovering how to practise was too fundamentally important to human life to be isolated within a small closed community: the world needed to know. Accelerating the rate of transmission of knowledge from the specialist community to the general public is not without risk.

In attempts to make work more accessible to the public a fine line has to be trodden between the danger of ‘dumbing down’ the message and producing something in the style of an academic paper, with the attendant danger of discouraging potential readers by detailing the scientific journey in too great a depth. This is a point that Barbara Held raises in her critique of positive psychology, where she notes the over-reliance on a few key, and not entirely satisfactory, research events for statements of a causal relationship between happiness and longevity (2004, p. 16). Held also notes a lack of attention to mixed or contradictory findings and an emphasis on clear, simple messages for the public. Clearly, there are dangers associated with bringing an embryonic science to the public too quickly.

Such caveats notwithstanding, the field is demonstrating a commendable rigour in pursuing both an academic and a more general reading public. As I write a range of texts already exists. Those aimed at the general reader include, for example, Positivity (Frederickson, 2009), Authentic Happiness (Seligman, 2002) and Now, Discover Your Strengths (Buckingham and Clifton, 2002) – all aimed squarely and pragmatically at helping people improve their lives. Accompanying these on the positive psychology bookshelves are texts aimed more at practitioner or academic markets. These include Positive Psychology Coaching (Biswas-Diener and Dean, 2007), A Primer in Positive Psychology (Peterson, 2006) and Positive Psychology in a Nutshell (Boniwell, 2008) – all excellent integrated texts. For readers who like their academic information straight from the horse’s mouth, there are rigorously referenced edited texts that pull together expert papers, most recently The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology and Work (Linley, Harrington and Garcea, 2010). High on academic standards, they are richly referenced and make for dense reading.

This book aims to complement the existing field. Working to bridge the gap between academic rigour and accessibility, it hopes to avoid the Scylla of dumbing down and the Charybdis of interruptive referencing. This text aims to offer a guided read through the science from this developing field pertinent to the challenges of running, leading, managing and working in a workplace organization. It aims to illuminate the science with useful anecdotes, practical examples, top tips and the occasional cartoon. In this way it aims to present a central argument that positive psychology can lead us to a new era of organizational understanding and practice. Much of the research comes from the US, which leads this field. However, the research has spread remarkably quickly and people all over the world are picking up these ideas and working on how to develop them. I have tried to incorporate examples of practice from Europe and the US and beyond. I have also tried to demonstrate how these findings are relevant to public and private, large and small organizations.

So this book needs to be read within a series of caveats: the science is young; it is more soft than hard science; there is an ever-present danger of over-eager interpretations of preliminary results; there is a tendency within the field to over-generalize and over-extrapolate findings; there can be a glossing over of the null hypothesis findings; and there are slips from established correlations to speculative causality. This text is not designed to be a critical academic text and I shall not be taking the reported findings from positive psychology and subjecting them to rigorous scientific criticism; that is a job for the academic community. Instead, I am offering the best information that is currently available about what seems to distinguish the more virtuous, beneficial, flourishing and inspirational workplaces from the average or worse, to boost your chances of ensuring that your practice within your organization promotes the best that organizational life can offer.

Many managerial texts seem to be written from an unquestioned position that what is good for the organization is good for the workers; that practices that increase productivity need no particular ethical justification. Little consideration is characteristically given to the impact on the worker. These books are written from a managerial perspective, where the unspoken aim is to get more, the best, out of employees. I have always felt slightly uneasy about this assumption and would be wary of adding a book to that cannon.

The Ethical Bias of This Book

The justification for this book, one that I also hope further distinguishes it from its positive-thinking cousins, is the clear reference to an ethical base. Cameron, Dutton and Quinn (2003), discussing their work on positive organizational scholarship, a sub-branch of positive psychology if you will, note that positive organizational scholarship is not value neutral:

It advocates the position that the desire to improve the human condition is universal and that the capacity to do so is latent in most systems.

(Cameron et al., 2003, p. 10)

They also suggest that this school of organizational studies, while recognizing the importance to organizational life and survival of goal achievement and making a profit, chooses to prioritize for study that which is ‘life giving, generative, and ennobling’ (p. 10). In other words, they hold a firm belief that organizational life is neither inherently good nor bad. Rather, it contains the potential to be both and it is a worthwhile and ethical endeavour, in which they are engaged, to discover how to help organizations unleash their potential for good.

From a slightly less lofty position, I start from the observation that most people are obliged to earn a living by working in an organization. Given this, anything we can do, as psychologists, to help that experience be life-enhancing rather than spirit-deadening is a good thing. For all those hours on someone else’s payroll, to add to the sum of good things in someone’s life, to increase their sense of a life well lived and to enhance their capacity to experience positive emotional states are good things. So this book is not about trying to get more out of people in terms of hours or effort, although this is often a side-effect of a growth-enhancing working life, such may be the occasional benefits; it is about pursuing wellbeing at work as an ethical endeavour in its own right.

Throughout this text, then, you will find reference to the ethical basis for suggesting a particular practice or intervention. We shall be constantly referring to the bedrock science of positive psychology, which is about what it means to be a good person and to live a good life. A positive psychology-based understanding of aspects and elements of organizational life offers us an ethically viable choice about how to be leaders and managers. Without this compass we can get waylaid by the snake oil salesmen and find ourselves submitting our colleagues and workers to humiliating and even dangerous juju practices, as we saw earlier.

Ehrenreich suggests that one of the reasons why positive thinking-based activities took such a hold during the last years of the twentieth century was the undermining of the power of rational management techniques by the speed of change. It was no longer sufficient to accumulate a depth of knowledge of your organization and your business to prepare you for senior leadership. Your knowledge was too quickly outdated. Ehrenreich credits Tom Peters, of In Search Of Excellence fame (Peters and Wasserman, 1982), as one of the first to create the bandwagon of constant downsizing and renewal as he began to appreciate the speed of world change. And it is undoubtedly true that the world is, competitively speaking, a smaller place, that innovation offers a shorter market lead-time and that ideas spread at the speed of the internet. Does that mean organizations have to abandon any rationality in their attempts to manage or lead and resort instead to charlatanism and magical thinking to forge new paths? Is it possible to offer leadership based on authenticity, integrity and an ethical base, as well as detailed knowledge and skills? Increasingly, the research shows that this is not only possible but also productive.

There is an inherent paradox in a lot of the research in the area. Virtuous practices are consistently found to produce good results for people and organizations. Yet to simulate virtuous practices to produce the good results can lead to a lack of authenticity that is quickly detected and so undermines the intended outcomes. As John Lennon famously said: ‘Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans.’ So positive psychology suggests that good organization results happen to you when you are busy making your organization a good place to be. There is no shortcut. If you as a leader don’t practise what you preach, don’t live by the values you espouse for the organization, are unable to show humility as well as pride, sorrow as well as delight, then people will quickly spot the ‘authenticity gap’ and into that gap cynicism will flow. Entrenched organizational cynicism can undermine the best efforts at organizational improvement.

Key Themes of the Book

As I have researched and written this book a number of themes have emerged. These are threaded through the chapters. The reference to an ethical basis for science shared and advice given has already been mentioned. Throughout the book we shall be treating organizational change as an ethical and moral act.

You will also find continual references to the power of positivity, or ‘feeling good’. It is worth reiterating that positivity is not a brand of positive thinking. It is not about pretending bad things don’t happen or that people never feel down. Rather, it refers to the balance of positive emotions against negative ones in people’s lives. It is becoming clear that this ratio profoundly affects both individual and organizational wellbeing. The more positive emotions are studied, the clearer it becomes that they are hugely important and powerful factors in human wellbeing. Interestingly, one of the most powerful approaches to organizational change, Appreciative Inquiry (Cooperrider et al., 2001), which developed independently of the school of positive psychology (although they are now coming much closer together), incorporated an early recognition of the power of positivity in achieving organizational change: one of the key principles of Appreciative Inquiry is the principle of positivity.

Appreciative Inquiry is another theme that is present in this book, along with other whole-system interventions. When I started to write I didn’t appreciate quite how much backing the research would give to the importance of thinking and intervening at a whole-system level in organizations. Yet time and again the implication from the research is that piecemeal, or linear, interventions are unlikely to be as successful as whole-system approaches. These are explained in more detail in Chapter 8, which was added to the original book plan as it became apparent that many paths of inquiry led to them as a practical way forward. The link is that these methods invariably build social capital.

The importance of social capital to organizational life and wellbeing is another theme. The terms ‘social capital’ and ‘relational reserves’ refer to the quality of relationships and interactions within the organization. They profoundly affect organizational capability. Key to building good reserves of social capital is an affirmative bias within organizational life, and the importance of this is another of the book’s key themes. Together, these ideas – positivity, ethical actions, affirmative bias and whole-system approaches – hold out the exciting and tantalizing possibility of building sustainable, flourishing, inspirational organizations for the next stage of organizational development. Organizations are living entities within a living world. This means that we need to give up our ideas of organizations as dead machines and instead understand them as complex, adaptive systems.

Understanding organizations as complex, adaptive systems is the final unifying theme of the book, along with an important idea that stems from this way of viewing organizations, that of the value of ambivalence. Complex adaptive systems are explained in Chapter 2 and will be referred to as a frame of reference for understanding organizations throughout the text. The value of ambivalence has been another interesting discovery on the path to writing this book. Organizations have a tendency to regard clear, unambiguous statements and positions as the basis for strong, clear organizations. Increasingly, research is indicating that the best organizations incorporate, rather than attempt to banish, the ambivalence inherent in human life. At a fundamental level the existence within the brain of both an approach and an avoidance behaviour system (Pickering and Gray, 1999) suggests that we need ambivalence to survive. Organizations, it seems, also benefit from an ability to hold two opposing ideas, thoughts and approaches in their repertoire of behaviour. We explore this more fully in Chapter 4.

Given the collapse of the world financial markets following the unbridled pursuit of profit and the proliferation of unedifying unethical practices, the time has come to take a look at the evidence suggesting that organizations can be built on virtuous and ethical principles and still be profitable and sustainable. This book brings together the various parts of the jigsaw of research, theory and practice from positive psychology and Appreciative Inquiry to explore how this can be achieved and sustained.

2

Positive Workplaces

In 2009 I ran a series of large group events at a manufacturing organization. The organization was about to introduce a new Enterprise Resource Planning IT system and needed to help everyone become aware of the changes in behaviour needed to get the best of the new system, particularly the need to enter very accurate data. The investment in this new IT was symbolic of a wider shift in the culture of the organization. One of the events we ran was a simulation of both the ‘real’ movements of goods through the manufacturing process and the ‘virtual record’ of these movements. Each part of the process – goods inwards, production, sales, pick, customer service, pack, assembly, planning and the client – had a stand in a large circle. Each stand was the equivalent of a computer terminal. They also had the kit needed to run the simulation: cardboard boxes, labels and a few specific bits of product. We had some people in another room who were the central processing unit (CPU): they were wholly dependent in their decision-making and planning on the data that came to them on cards about what was going on. In other words, they couldn’t see what was physically happening. In this way we assembled all the disparate parts of the production process, normally spread out over a 42-acre site, in one, very long room. Now they were in a much better position to see the normally hidden patterns of interdependence.

We ran three rounds to simulate a three-month time period. Each round focused on effecting the delivery of an order from its receipt to the dispatch of the goods. However, between each round we introduced a ‘glitch’, a departure from procedure that would happen for the best possible reason. For example, we arranged for someone to ‘borrow’ some product from a location to solve the problem of an urgent order that was being fast-tracked. We arranged for someone to ‘solve’ the problem of a lack of the exact specified product to fulfil an order by using some other product that could act as a substitute. All of these glitches were agreed by the planning team to be exactly the sort of immediate, local, pragmatic problem-solving activity that resulted in stock changes not being properly entered on the virtual system. If this sounds complicated, it was. One thing the planning team learnt in devising this event was how complex the links and problems were within the existing system of production. Our ‘model’ of the process for the exercise was highly simplified.

The exercise was a great success. Over the course of the three rounds the gap between the reality and the record grew as ‘small’ discrepancies led to further errors. By the end we had a CPU issuing production orders that production couldn’t meet because the product was either not where the CPU insisted it was or, if it was there, the quantity was insufficient. We had people improvising like mad to try to make up orders and we had a customer threatening to take their business elsewhere as they got part or late deliveries. By the end of the third round very small errors in the computer information were about to result in the loss of an account worth £500,000 p.a.

The event was highly illuminating. Those present were able to see and experience how ad hoc decisions that made good sense in their local context were highly damaging in the context of the whole. They could see how their small problem-solving decisions, if left unrecorded or uncommunicated, could escalate further downstream into huge problems and frustrations. They could see how if they didn’t tell the computer exactly what they were doing, it would start to tell them to do things they couldn’t do. They saw the connection between tiny daily decision-making in their areas and £500,000 worth of business. In other words, they gained a much deeper understanding of the systemic nature of the production system and its relationship to the virtual world of the computer system. Their mental model of the world changed significantly. At a deep level they understood the importance of ensuring that the computer system had accurate data, and of informing other parts of the production process about what was happening in their section that could have impact elsewhere. In terms of creating learning, heightening awareness and inspiring changed behaviour, it was a great success. However, the proof of the pudding would be in the eating when the new system came in.

Various things happened after this that meant I didn’t have any contact with the site for the next year. When I returned to the site on other business I bumped into one of the event planning team members, who is now on the troubleshooting team for the new IT system, which is now installed. Other changes have taken place on the site, including the merger of some workers from another site. He mentioned in passing that 80% of his time is spent sorting out problems with the workers who have come across from the other site, who only make up 20% of the total production team. I asked what these errors were about – had they had less training, for example? He thought it was about attitude. Workers from the other site weren’t as engaged and willing to try to sort things out. They weren’t as forgiving of the teething issues. They weren’t as willing to work with the problems to ensure the data entered were accurate; they were more willing to blame the IT system. It would seem that the collective experience of discovering the interdependencies of the virtual and real system created a culture of shared awareness, engagement and ownership among the group we worked with that is delivering dividends now. By working together in a way that mimicked the way they would need to work together to successfully embed the new system, the exercise helped them create a positive experience of how things could be: creating a more positive workplace for themselves.

Introduction

In this chapter we explore what characterizes a positive workplace and the processes that create and support such cultures. We suggest that it is helpful to view organizations as complex adaptive systems and to view culture as organizational patterns of behaviour. We conclude by briefly outlining Appreciative Inquiry as an appropriate approach to creating positive workplaces.

What is a Positive Workplace?

What is a positive organization? Is it possible for an organization to be run and managed in such a way that it is good for people and good for business? What are the secrets of positive workplaces?

When Martin Seligman first coined the term ‘positive psychology’ in 1999 he suggested that this new domain would have three key areas of study: positive emotions, positive traits and positive institutions, the third being those where people flourish. At the time he identified as positive institutions democracy, strong families and free inquiry, which suggests he was thinking more of societal institutions than commercial organizations. However, a growing field of research known as positive organizational scholarship is developing which integrates positive psychology and organizational research. The particular quest of this field of research is to understand better the characteristics of the most positive workplaces. The key question they are investigating is: How does an organization within which people are able to flourish differ from those in which they merely survive, or indeed languish?

The best workplaces are defined as those that achieve exceptional organizational performance, that is, where outcomes dramatically exceed common or expected performance. In particular the researchers have studied organizations that recover exceptionally quickly from downsizing, or indeed escape altogether the negative consequences, outlined in Supplement 2.1. Gittell, Cameron and Lim (2006) found that these exceptional organizations behave in qualitatively different ways from their competitors before, during and after downsizing. In particular, it transpires that by their habitual behaviour they have built up a reservoir of social and financial capital, organizational resilience and goodwill that allows them both to downsize differently and to recover from the negative effects more quickly. At such difficult times they reap the benefit of having an abundance culture which they have nurtured and developed over time.

Supplement 2.1 The Dirty Dozen Negative Effects of Downsizing

These are the commonly observed effects of downsizing on organizations.

1. Employee loyalty decreases.

2. Team work deteriorates, people feel more isolated.

3. Decision-making is pushed up the organization.

4. Many of the best people leave.

5. Morale declines.

6. Organizational politics and coalition formation increases.

7. Conflict escalates.

8. Both employees and managers develop a short-term orientation.

9. Experimentation and creativity decline.

10. Criticism, scapegoating and complaints directed at top management increase.

11. People are more resistant to change.

12. People are less willing to communicate openly and share information.

(Cameron et al., 1987)

Three things make up an abundance culture: positive deviance, virtuous practice and an affirmative bias (Cameron, 2009).

1) Positive Deviance

A positively deviant organization is one that is flourishing, benevolent, generous and honours people and their contributions. It is focused on creating an abundance of good and positive things (see Figure 2.1). By contrast, most organizations are primarily focused on preventing bad things from happening, on narrowing the deficit gap rather than building the abundance bridge. This distinction is subtle but highly significant. All organizations want excellence, but it is how they go about trying to achieve it that makes the difference. Organizations with a deficit orientation are focused on achieving consistency by solving, or preventing, errors and inefficiencies; they aim to maintain a minimum standard. Organizations with a positive deviance orientation, while not ignoring problems, focus on growing towards excellence and exceptional performance; they aim to exceed a normal standard. Organizations that display positive deviance are likely also to display a high level of virtuous actions and practices.

Figure 2.1 Abundance bridge.

2) Virtuous Actions

Virtuous actions have a positive impact on others and are undertaken regardless of reciprocity or any reward beyond that which is inherent in the act. Acting virtuously might be helping a stranger in difficulty, forgiving someone who has done you wrong or offering wise counsel even though you won’t benefit from the outcome. Increasingly, research is demonstrating how good it is for us to behave in these ways towards others. Take forgiveness: the ability to demonstrate forgiveness is associated with broader and richer social relationships; a greater sense of empowerment; better health; faster recovery from disease; and less depression and anxiety. Being compassionate, fostering hope and optimism, and acting with integrity have similar benefits (Cameron, 2003).

A key factor in bridging the abundance gap is the presence in the organization of lots of virtuous interactions, such as being helpful to each other and generous, sharing information and forgiving people when they make mistakes. These individual acts can be encouraged and supported by virtuous organizational practices such as strengths-based performance appraisals and appreciative ways of working. Many examples of such practices are given throughout this book. A culture characterized by these benevolent and forgiving processes allows people to be fully themselves at work, so they don’t need to put as much effort into defending themselves against unjust accusations or into justifying mistakes, fearing they won’t be forgiven. Energy instead goes into working out what went wrong and how to improve things. When known for their strengths, people can acknowledge their weaknesses rather than trying to disguise them for fear of being found lacking. The contrast between a workplace characterized by these ways of interacting and the perhaps more familiar context where weaknesses are exposed and criticized is evident. It seems such positive ways of behaving are not only good for us but are also good for business.

Cameron and colleagues found that the perceived level of virtuousness (trust, optimism, compassion, integrity and forgiveness) in an organization is positively correlated with the perceived performance (innovation, quality, turnover and customer retention) of the organization. In addition, this perceived performance is positively correlated with more objective measures of organizational performance, such as the profit margin. This finding effectively means that organizational virtuousness and performance are positively related (Cameron et al., 2004). More recently, in an investigation into the financial services sector, 45% of the variance in six measures of financial performance was accounted for by the implementation of positive practices, again supporting the strong relationship between virtuous behaviour and business success (Cameron and Mora, 2008). In another very important study, the speed and robustness of a return to financial viability in the airline business after the destruction of the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001 were found to be significantly related to the virtuousness of the downsizing strategies (Gittell et al., 2006). We look at this fascinating research in more detail in Chapter 5. Taken together these results point to an unexpected finding: virtuous processes are highly correlated with excellent business performance. One form that virtuous organizational practice might take is to emphasize growing strengths rather than correcting weaknesses. This practice would also be an example of the general affirmative bias displayed by these flourishing organizations.

3) Affirmative Bias