mental health at work

People throwing papers in the air looking happy - reflecting wellbeing leadership and mental wellbeing - courtesy alena darmel viaPexels

Wellbeing leadership – facilitate healthy supportive working environments

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Wellbeing leadership uses facilitative approaches to nurture supportive relationships. These make success more likely and reduce the stress of conflict and criticism.
This article is part of our series on stress resilience and mental wellbeing..
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Relational Anxiety

They say that, often, people do not so much leave their job, as much as leave their boss. If you speak to anyone about their career, you usually find that they have had times that they found unfulfilling, and unpleasant, even damaging.
And when you explore deeper you usually find that the biggest factor in that is people. It may be an individual, a group, or even an entire work community. You hear stories of indifference, bullying, confrontation, blame, unhelpfulness, secrecy, politics, lies. Situations where everyday is a battle – not so much with the work but with the personalities around it.

The Need for Wellbeing Leadership

being denied the opportunity to ‘belong’ …

facilitate healthy environments in meetings to achieve wellbeing leadershipAnd whereas a healthy team can inspire and amplify everyone’s efforts, an unhealthy team can do entirely the opposite. And in doing so, it can create disabling levels of anxiety and depression. We were all built for relationship, and when we are denied the opportunity to ‘belong’ in this way it can have harmful effects on us. It can strip us of enthusiasm, self-belief, confidence, mental wellbeing, even hope.
But why do these things occur?

… can strip us of enthusiasm, self-belief, confidence, mental wellbeing … even hope

responding under stress source pexels-thirdman-5060570Oftentimes they are the result of unresolved performance anxiety. As those around us feel stressed and vulnerable, they focus more narrowly on themselves and their own needs.  As they feel impotent or see themselves falling short, they can become more demanding of others. In protecting themselves and their own situation, they leave others vulnerable, and even exploit that vulnerability.

survival of the fittest leads to suboptimal choices

Such behaviour doesn’t sit well with them – at least not initially – but needs must. And they begin to justify themselves with stories about it being survival of the fittest – a dog eat dog world. Until it becomes true.
But, in an interdependent organisation, this narrowness of focus, and selfishness, leads to suboptimal choices and everybody losing out. And so the performance situation further declines and the pressure builds even greater. Silos form, the blame game starts, politics abound, stress builds and mental wellbeing declines.

Stressful behaviour

The situation described above is a reflection of the left-hand side of the diagram below.
Extended inner condition model - image of wording on either side of a person representing meaningful conversation
When we feel that our situation and our expectations are being threatened in any way, we tend to close-in. It is psychological. Even small amounts of tension and anxiety – amounts so small we are hardly aware of them – can do it. Our thinking shifts from the subtler higher order functions to older, more direct, functions. If we pay attention to ourselves, we will sense it in an increased alertness, a small tightening in our middles.

the entire balance can shift in a moment

And the shift in our thinking makes it much more likely that we will tend toward the closed dialogue responses on the red side of the diagram above.
The thing is, when we do, our inclination toward judgement or cynicism is picked up by others – often subconsciously. They can perceive it is a threat to their ideas and acceptance, and this will influence their own brain chemistry, accessing other thinking centres in them. In turn, their behaviours shift toward the red, and in a moment, you can find that the entire balance of the discussion has shifted.
And that is in healthy environments. In environments like those described in the first section, people arrive at the meeting already closed. People begin defensive. Empathy is hard to come by. Ideas are quickly shot down. Creativity doesn’t really stand a chance. And meetings stop being productive.
For more on this, take a look at our blog item on meaningful conversation.

Facilitate healthy environments

So how do you avoid this? Or how do you fix it when you are descending into this vicious circle? How do you facilitate healthy environments?
The temptation as the leader responsible for the meeting is to become more directive. For some people this may be driven by the red chemistry that is going on in their brains. For others, it may be the only form of leadership they feel confident in delivering.
Either way, it is more likely to close things down further than to open them up. What is required is a more facilitative approach to leadership. A more vulnerable and open approach. One that defuses the tension and which reflects humility and acceptance. Not from a weak and timid position, but from a strong and assertive one. If you are someone who wants to change the culture in your own organisation, we recommend you consider the following to facilitate healthy environments:

8 Steps for Wellbeing Leadership

bringing it back to green

  • Temporarily accept the current performance. Lets face it, ‘not-accepting it’ is not going to change it. But accepting it alleviates some of the pressure that has led to self-interest and the current decline.
  • Explain what is happening, and in particular your own part in it (this will give others permission to be honest about their own parts too). Give people the insight and the vocabulary to discuss their behaviours and the implications of them without blame or guilt. And then facilitate forums in which such discussions can safely take place, and people can experiment with adopting different approaches.
  • Explore with people the damage that stress may have inflicted on diversity and inclusion, Ensure a clear understanding and a vision for both. Provide education if required. And take the opportunity to agree practices which embrace everyone.

build in a vision for diversity and inclusion

  • Introduce education about open conversation and train people to be self-aware and able to manage their own internal condition in dialogue. Introduce review points into meetings, so that people can more easily see the meta-process and work with it to ensure healthy and supportive dialogue.
  • Equip the leadership with facilitation skills. These skills will provide them with the confidence to achieve their aims using less directive and autocratic approaches. As a result they will be able to more readily see and coach the interpersonal dynamics. In this way, they will better ensure wellbeing leadership themselves through healthy and supportive dialogue.
  • Use more design thinking and participative tools in your meetings. These enable people to contribute without having to compete to dominate the discussion. The tools enable people to relax more – and not continuously be on the alert for the micro-breaks in the dialogue that will enable them to make their point.

enable easier contribution

  • Build a better sense of the Internal Customer. Use a more holistic and systemic understanding of the organisation to help people understand how it works. How their role works through others to achieve the goals of the organisation. And to create a greater sense of interdependence and the role of mutual service in making progress.
  • Remove any divisive incentives that might tempt people to compete at a cost to their colleagues. Reward performance collectively, and attitudes individually. Reward (and celebrate) ‘assists’ more than ‘goals’.

The Benefits of Wellbeing Leadership

The situation won’t change overnight, but it will change. It may need some individual coaching of those who cling to their original behaviours. But as they begin to realise they are no longer benefiting from them, they will either fit in or move on. The result will be a more efficient, more effective and more fulfilling place of work. Creativity will begin to flourish, and performance will grow … and so with the people.
Wellbeing Leadership is all about facilitating healthy environments, and providing an increased sense of belonging and value that will help to minimise the risks to mental health.
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Relevant Links:

Daily re-restructuring for agility? How adaptive structures maximise agile engagement.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast – but what sort of strategy are you feeding it?
Facilitating mental wellbeing – The power of adventure in keeping our minds fit & healthy.
Patterns of collaborative excellence – Rediscovering the lost wisdom of design.
Prescient emotional knowledge management – do you have what it takes?
Enthusiastic meeting - illustrating better meeting design Design meetings to empower mental health and reduce meeting stress

Better meeting design to empower mental health and reduce meeting stress

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Well designed meetings are a vital and powerful tool for transforming the negative effects of stress into positive energy and excitement
This article is part of our series on stress resilience and mental health at work..
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Is stress inevitable?

Challenges are always present. They are what provide us opportunities to add value, to pull together, and to shine. It is challenges that provide us with learning and fulfilment and rewards. But they also involve stress.
So how do we prepare our people to work with that stress so that it doesn’t adversely affect mental health at work? In other words, how do we equip them to use it as a motivator, and not be overwhelmed by it? And how do we ensure the stress is a positive influence and not a negative one.

The need for better meeting design

Typically, the biggest factors in how our people approach challenges depends upon:
  • Their understanding of the challenge and its context
  • Their skills, capabilities and confidence to rise to that challenge
  • The level of support they can expect in tacking the most difficult bits
  • The sense of purpose and meaning the challenge has for them
  • The insight, ideas and creativity that they can bring to the challenge
  • Their attitude and beliefs about themselves and their team in relation to the challenge
  • The appreciation and acceptance they feel in tackling the challenge
Greater levels of these things help reduce stress. But where the levels are low, stress grows, and has a negative impact on mental health at work.
So how do we deliver these factors to the individuals who are tackling the challenge? The answer to that is most likely the meetings that take place around the challenge. Big meetings, small meetings, one-on-ones. To good effect or bad.
The greater the positive influence of these things, the greater the likelihood of success, and the more the challenge seems like an adventure. But if these things are missing, or badly handled, the challenge can seem overwhelming. As a result, its impact on us and the organisation can be damaging.
Meetings are key. However, this is somewhat of an irony, because many of us don’t see meetings in that light.

Meeting stress

image of frustration in non inspirational meetings - source Engin Akyurt via PixabayThere is overwhelming anecdotal evidence that people see meetings as an obstacle rather than an enabler. All too often, and for too many people, meetings seem (and perhaps have become) a distraction to simply getting on with their work.
Instead of meetings being a means to handle and reduce stress through the means defined above, people find that many meetings add further stress. And this meeting stress is totally unnecessary, and the result of lack of meeting design. Such meeting stress is a major cause of issues in mental health at work.
And there is good reason for this. We have somehow lost sight that the value of a meeting is the difference it makes to those who attend it. We couch meeting objectives in terms of inanimate deliverables. But the only thing a meeting CAN change is how people act as a result of it. All that it can do effectively are deliver the bullet points above.

the value of a meeting is the difference it makes to those who attend it

A decision is sterile and impotent without the understanding and commitment of those required to effect it. The fact is, if your people do not need to change, even in a small way, then you don’t need a meeting. And if they do need to change, then that is what the meeting needs to deliver. The content is simply a means to achieve that. In a well-designed meeting, the people do not so much work on the content, as the content works on the people.
We need to begin to see meetings as a means to change people to what they need to proceed. Then we will start to design meetings as journeys in which we address what is missing (from the bulleted list). Our objectives would reflect skills, attitudes and shared understanding. And people would not only see their value, they would eagerly engage with them to play their part in that journey.
The value of your meetings depends not only on the journey, but the extent to which people engage with that journey. Their adoption of what is needed is much more likely if they are actively involved in developing it. For that reason, your meeting (especially if it is virtual) should use participative tools wherever possible.

Steps to better meeting design

So for your meeting design, here are some practical things to think about:
  • Do you know what they need in respect of the above bullets? If not, can you talk to them to find out?
  • How much of what is required can be delivered through interaction with their colleagues in a well designed meeting?
  • What did they feel about the last meeting in this regard, and why? Can you raise the bar for this one?
  • How will you use participation to build personal and team ownership and support?
  • How can you better engage their insight, ideas and creativity in the plans that you want to build?
  • Where can you authentically express your appreciation and acceptance for what they have achieved already?

expectations on people are not getting any easier

The expectations on people are not getting any easier. The challenges to which we refer are increasingly frequent, perhaps even daily, occurrences. Better meeting design is all about systematically rethinking our everyday meetings until they better equip people for those everyday challenges.  If people in our organisations do not like meetings, it is a very clear indication that they are poorly designed. And if they are poorly designed, we are handicapping ourselves and our people in a competitive race for the future.
Share this on Linkedin –   |   Follow Culturistics insights on Linkedin –

Relevant Links:

Daily re-restructuring for agility? How adaptive structures maximise agile engagement.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast – but what sort of strategy are you feeding it?
Facilitating mental wellbeing – The power of adventure in keeping our minds fit & healthy.
Patterns of collaborative excellence – Rediscovering the lost wisdom of design.
Prescient emotional knowledge management – do you have what it takes?
eople holding speech bubbles as a metaphor for feedback and growth mindset as a route to mental health - rawpixel viaPXhere

Using feedback & growth mindset to sustain mental health at work

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Learning cultures are key to avoiding an overload of stress as we face greater levels of change. Key to making them work is embracing failure and feedback. This article is part of our series on stress resilience and mental health at work..
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The role of culture in mental health at work

Culture is a massive factor in mental health at work. A challenge that might be seen as exciting in one culture can be the cause of great distress in another. In part this is down to influences that we have covered in previous articles:
But perhaps the biggest cultural influence on mental health at work is the organisation’s response to ‘failure’. This is also a massive influence on whether the organisation fosters a growth mindset or a fixed one.

Performance culture abhors failure

business performance culture reflected in numbers of a screenOrganisations have long tended to be performance-obsessed. The financial markets have set a paradigm where profits grow in every cycle. And they expect changes in leadership when they don’t.  This is exacerbated by media reporting, which publicly humiliates leaders who fall short in some way.
This has created a business culture where failure is seen as something to be avoided at all costs. Where those involved are tarnished and lose credibility, or even benefits. And where, as a consequence, blame, finger-pointing and conflict are rife. The first victim of any conflict is always openness and truth. As a result, learning becomes ‘in short supply’. This can have a huge detrimental impact on mental health at work.
The problem is that these organisations all see ‘failure’ as the antithesis of ‘performance’. Rather than the precursor to it. And this has permeated the culture resulting in behaviours that directly oppose and penalise growth mindsets.

is failure the antithesis of performance?

As a result, for people within those organisations, taking on risk is highly stressful. People do not want to associate themselves with potential failure. Consequentially, support for challenging or ambitious projects is difficult to enlist.
Therefore, people tend to limit themselves to safe projects – ones that build only marginally on what is already known. Furthermore they select the most capable people in the organisation, and this creates resource conflicts and limits the development opportunities for the less experienced.
Real learning, in both the individual and organisational senses of the term, is kept to a minimum. Thus the organisation not only resists a growth mindset in its people, it has a fixed mindset in itself. Even the concept of feedback gets subverted – but more on this below.

Learning culture embraces failure

However, healthy organisations with a learning culture treat failure as valuable. They rightly see it is a reflection of the degree of ambition. A natural consequence of a balanced approach to risk. And an opportunity for learning and encouraging growth mindsets.
learning culture dance as a metaphor for pushing the envelope and the need for failure, feedback and a growth mindset for real performance and sustained mental healthIn a learning culture, failure is expected. If everything you do is successful, you are clearly not pushing the envelope hard enough. Thriving organisations need creativity and ambition. And these inevitably generate failures.
Therefore, in a learning culture, the level of failure is a function of your level of creativity and innovative ambition. Both of which will be necessary for the organisation to thrive. Furthermore, embracing that failure releases new data and insight to the organisation. Creating a culture of openness around failures enables the organisation to get the information that will bring it closer to success. Success that can leap ahead of the performance of organisations with more staid approaches to risk.

failure is a necessary reality in maximising success

But let’s be clear here. A learning culture doesn’t actually prefer failure to success. It just accepts that it is a necessary reality in maximising their success. And they are not willing to limit themselves to ‘safe’ and obvious ways forward which limit and slow their performance potential.  Nor do they want their people hiding failure, and thereby denying their colleagues the insights that are available through it.
Which brings us back to feedback.

Feedback as an evaluation

Attitude to feedback is a key indicator of a culture’s underlying attitude to failure.
In a performance culture, ‘success’ forms a key component of individual identity. Its synonyms are regularly, if informally, used to define and categorise people. And those reputations significantly influence the opportunities and benefits of that individual.
As such, ‘feedback’ can prove somewhat of a liability.

we tend to experience feedback either as an endorsement, or as personal criticism

We all understand ‘intellectually’ that feedback is good for our learning and development. But in a culture where failure is ‘a bad thing’ we tend to experience feedback either as an endorsement, or as personal criticism. It is great when it adds to our reputation and our personal confidence in how we are perceived. But if it highlights any shortcomings, our emotional concerns tend to mask any sense of intellectual joy we may have at being presented with new learning opportunities.
As a result, while our head says we look for feedback so we can identify and address those shortcomings, our heart is saying ‘no way’. We find ourselves becoming emotionally tense inside (even if we manage to suppress the appearance of it). Often, we ‘forget’ to ask for it. We become defensive, or rationalise what we are hearing. And we find explanations that justify us in ignoring it. This not only blocks growth mindset, it also adversely affects mental health at work.

Feedback as data and insight

Feedback is an increasingly key component of the ‘future of work’. As more of the routine elements of our roles are automated, more and more of our work will concern change. And more and more of that change will be effected through the relationships we have with colleagues and customers.
Our value will be the value we add to others. And key to finding new ways to add value will be a growth mindset, our creativity and our ability to innovate. Not everything will work first time. In a learning culture feedback is crucial to learning from the impact we are having on those around us.
So how do we separate the emotional from the intellectual?

change your organisation to one that embraces failure

The first way is “work for an organisation that embraces failure”. If you have influence, then change the culture. If you don’t, then move on. The reality is that if you are stuck in a performance culture that you cannot change, then politically and pragmatically you are stuck with playing the game. However, if you can change the culture, even just your bit of it, then do so. Celebrate failure. Explain why. Champion those who over-reach and innovate. Encourage people to take risks. Reward learning over performance. All in balance of course. Basically, embrace and promote the belief that, if you are innovating, you are inevitably having some failures
And give people a better understanding of feedback.

A better understanding of feedback

Feedback is not, and cannot be, any sort of judgement of us. How can it be?
In reality, feedback can only ever be a self-assessment of the person giving the feedback. The only thing they know for sure is how they have been impacted. They are only really equipped to provide feedback on themselves and how they experienced things.

Context of feedback - learning culture diagram illustrating the range of possible factors. But growth mindset accepts our part in working with these

They may, perhaps by tradition or a lack of humility, couch it in terms of judgement and evaluation of you. But how can they know? How can they know all of the factors (including their own attitudes and behaviours) that led up to what they experienced?
They cannot.
Therefore, any attempt at an ‘evaluation of you‘ based on their experience is inappropriate, poorly informed, and probably arrogant.
However, their opinion of what resulted for them is actually vital information for you.
Whatever the reasons that led up to them having that opinion, they will act in accordance with it. And so, if they feel they got no value, they will act as though they got no value. And the harsh reality will be that no value will be transmitted through them.
Now, if that is what you intended, fine. But if you intended that they should get value, and should be able to use that value effectively to benefit the organisation, then the fact that it hasn’t happened is an important piece of information.
You might not be ‘to blame’. But you are in the best position to realise that you still have a gap to close, and that you may want to adjust some of the variables to make it happen. And if you, as a result, can improve those variables, then you have learned something.

It is not about YOU

And that learning is valuable, but not value-laden. It helps you to grow, but it doesn’t mean you were flawed beforehand. This perspective lies at the core of a growth mindset.
This understanding of feedback is key. If we, consciously or subconsciously, see it as an evaluation, that will be a barrier to learning. In such situations it can be difficult for us to accept the insight without accepting the ‘judgement’. And learning is much easier to assimilate when it doesn’t come laden with emotional baggage.
Any education worthy of the name is bound to be dangerous (Louis Néel). Real learning at the edge of our potential comes at the cost of of mistakes. But if we can see these mistakes as the inevitable steps to who we were destined to be. The fastest route to the value we can add. Then we can get the very best learning out of each one.
The best thing an organisation can do is to accept this fact, and imbue it into its people. Give them a love of feedback. Equip them with a humility in providing it. Key to this is an acceptance by all concerned that falling short is an expected and admirable consequence of reaching far.
Share this on Linkedin –   |   Follow Culturistics insights on Linkedin –

Relevant Links:

Daily re-restructuring for agility? How adaptive structures maximise agile engagement.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast – but what sort of strategy are you feeding it?
Facilitating mental wellbeing – The power of adventure in keeping our minds fit & healthy.
Patterns of collaborative excellence – Rediscovering the lost wisdom of design.
Prescient emotional knowledge management – do you have what it takes?
Man standing on a peak - metaphor for spirituality mental health stress resilience

Inspiration and spirituality as a means to better stress resilience at work

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Mental health issues challenge who we are – they question our identity. If we can help people better access the things that make them fully human, we can better equip them to have the answers they need when those questions get asked. This article is part of our series on mental health and stress resilience at work..
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‘Having spirit’ is our best defence

Stress in business is on the increase, and this is adversely affecting our mental health at work. When such levels of stress exceed our natural ability to handle them, the consequences are most commonly a decline in mental health at work. And this is usually manifest in anxiety, and depression, all too frequently at a level that means we cannot function effectively.
In the previous articles in this series, we have looked at strategies to diminish or avoid unhealthy levels of stress. This included how we organise, use creativity, work together, lead others, prepare ourselves and learn from each other to improve mental health at work. In this article on stress resilience we look at how we handle the stress that still gets through. Stress resilience is our ability to handle these levels of stress without it affecting our mental health at work.
We diminish the impact of stress when we retain a belief in ourselves and our potential – a spirit of hope, perseverance and love – and a faith that we can make a difference. Woman holding balloon - metaphor for spirituality and adventure - courtesy Tirachard Kumtanom via PexelsThese things give us arguments to keep anxiety at bay, and to lift us away from depression. In this way, they give us a resilience to cope with more stressful situations than might be possible without them.
We might term these things our ‘spirtuality‘ – as in to have ‘spirit’, or be ‘spirited’. A sense of inner resolve. A force for good. The determination to pick ourselves up and start again. They are the things we most easily lose during bouts of anxiety and depression. But they are also our best defence against those bouts, and sometimes our best chance of recovering from them.

Spirituality sets us apart

However, over recent decades, our prediliction for: the material in business; the purely rational in science; and polarity in politics and the media has led us to pay Image of money courtesy Wolfgang Eckert via Pixabayless attention to those things that cannot be explained in those terms. As a result, we have abandoned the concept of ‘spirituality’ to more superstitious perspectives. And we have lost sight of its true potential to balance materialistic and rational dominance. Sadly it is no longer a term that can easily be used without prejudice or misunderstanding.

we are not machines – so don’t think like one

But as the world grows ever-increasingly more complex and uncertain, materialism, logic, and binary arguments are insufficient to cope with the rate of change we are required to work within. As a result, their has been a realisation of how much we have allowed the balance to slip. And a resurgence of re-embracing our ‘spirit’ in things like mindfulness, diversity, emergence, authenticity, vulnerability and trust.

Business is reawakening to spirituality

Image of creative curious right brainAll of a sudden things like hope, love, loyalty, character, centredness, integrity, trust are back on the business agenda. And we are just about reaching the point where we can re-appropriate the term ‘spirituality’ to mean something which reflects the impact and potential of all of those things. Which is just as well, because if we were to attempt to tackle what is coming without them, we would all have serious mental health issues. Spirit is key to stress resilience at work.

spirituality is key to tackling the challenges we face

So, in terms of mental health at work, how can we use this opportunity to help people to access and develop these things, and to better protect them from mental illness?
    1. Firstly, talk about it. Gradually rebuild their vocabulary to enable them to gain a better grasp of their spiritual side, and its importance to them in building stress resilience at work. Launch discussions on topics like: authenticity; vulnerability; mindfulness; diversity; creativity; story-telling; personal narrative; trust; spirit … And build their insight, their understanding, and their ability to articulate their feelings in this area. Most of all, bring it back centre stage so they know this is normal. They do not need to suppress it.

creativity is a spiritual act

  1. Secondly, introduce and build the role of creativity in your meetings. Creativity is a very spiritual act. Whether you express it in influencing images, writing, concepts or patterns of activity. Creativity changes our relationship with the way the world is and might be. It is about moving beyond the confines of our situation and tapping into things we do not fully understand. In doing so, it reshapes the world around us. And the joy that we feel in our spirit when that happens is a spiritual reaction to what we are doing – a connectedness with something bigger and more enduring than our physical selves.
  2. Thirdly, equip yourself and your people with a mindset of ‘adventure’. Adventure creates stress resilience at work by providing a valid alternative to a victim mindset in response to change.

Develop a mindset of adventure

To clarify a mindset of adventure, I would like to contrast the example of two people working in the same role facing identical circumstances. Their workload is higher than they can reasonably cope with. Things go wrong from time to time. They inevitably get complaints and encounter blame. Head office has blocked further recruitment and introduced a brand new system. And there is new initiative starting to look at changing the process, again.
  • As a result, Jeb feels that: he is stuck; and suffering the consequences of bad decisions made elsewhere; the blame is unfair; mistakes are inevitable given the set up; nobody listens; his team-mates let him down; he wants to avoid the initiative; if his performance drops further he will be fired;  and he just wants to make it through each day – all of which is totally true!
  • While Aja: choses to stay; wants to learn from how she responds to the challenge; is curious to find how bad decisions might be reversed; empathises with the blame and with her team mates; wonders about options for self-help; sees the initiative as a way to fix mistakes; and to learn new skills; believes listening starts with her; knows they won’t fire her – and if they did, that will be a new experience; sees each day as a new opportunity.

it isn’t what happens to you, it is what you make of what happens to you

Even though everything else is equal, Aja’s level of stress resilience is obvious in her perspective. She is clearly getting far more out of her day than Jeb. It also means that she is far less likely to suffer stress and depression. And the only difference is her spirit – her sense of adventure.
As time goes on, and all other things remain equal, Jeb will infuence and attract more Jebs. Aja will influence and attract more Ajas. And hopefully they will make her team leader because then maybe she can help the Jebs develop a sense of adventure and stress resilience too.

the future is an adventure, or a disaster – you choose – you literally choose!

The reality is that Jeb and Aja’s context is going to be a common consequence of the changing future of work. Increasing uncertainty and complexity will generate extra work, confusion, tensions and mistakes. It will also generate opportunity, new experiences and connections, learning, and insight. But if we are to equip our people to not only survive but thrive in this new world, we are going to have to help them engage with a mindset that emphasises the latter.

Leading by adventure

Waiting for someone to experience mental health issues is too late. For those who feel mentally trapped within their circumstances and their minds, the levels of change we will experience will be overwhelming. But it is easier if we develop new strength way ahead of any damage ocurring. We need to take them on a journey into their imagination, their spirit, and the resources that are available to them now. We need to give them time to: appreciate new perspectives; develop new skills; and gain confidence in their spirit way ahead of the time that it is all that stands between them and a deep dark pit.

an adventure into ourselves and our potential

To begin this journey, we ran a 50 session weekly programme called ‘Leading by Adventure’. It is a series of short weekly challenges that tap into exploring and developing different aspects of the mind. Helping people to see it as the untapped resource that it is, and lifting them to an understanding so that they can use it effectively under stress. Feel free to use this as a resource to build stress resilience and mental health at work with your people. LeadingbyAdventure.com
Share this on Linkedin –   |   Follow Culturistics insights on Linkedin –

Relevant Links:

Daily re-restructuring for agility? How adaptive structures maximise agile engagement.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast – but what sort of strategy are you feeding it?
Facilitating mental wellbeing – The power of adventure in keeping our minds fit & healthy.
Patterns of collaborative excellence – Rediscovering the lost wisdom of design.
Prescient emotional knowledge management – do you have what it takes?
Picture of man leaping through air - metaphor for stress resilience - mental health at work

Stress resilience and mental wellbeing: Making stress healthy and productive

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As the rate of change and complexity grows, mental health at work is in decline. We need to build stress resilience into our working practices. This is the introductory article to our series on stress resilience and mental health at work.
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Accelerating the causes of stress

Mental health at work - impact of stress at workIn the West, workplace stress and problems with mental health at work now accounts for over half of all lost time.
Amounting to 12.8 million days annually in the UK alone. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Before people’s mental health drops to a level where they are too ill to work, stress manifests itself in massive inefficiency: An environment of conflict, poor decisions, waste, lack of motivation, and delays. And that is in addition to the massive human cost for those affected.
Furthermore, every time someone goes sick, the effect is to increase workloads, stress, and these negative effects on the people around them. Mental health issues create further mental health issues.

Stress is killing your people and your productivity – but it doesn’t have to

Not only is the general trend getting worse, but the causes of stress and poor mental health at work are also increasing. Faster change, greater competition, more complexity, longer exposure, increased uncertainty.
Technology and globalisation are powering ever accelerating disruption, and there is nothing we can do to avoid it.

Building stress resilience

We cannot avoid change. But we can do something about the stress resilience of our people and organisations to engage positively with it.
And to do that we have to do something about our own engagement with change.
Manager_under_stress_of_timeBecause the fact is, that these stresses and the risk of mental illness is also affecting us. In many ways the impact of change is having its greatest influence on the leadership. Whether we admit it to ourselves or not, we too are increasingly busy. More and more, we are handling complex and ambiguous situations. Many of us are feeling it a struggle to keep up, and are unable to find time to ourselves.
At the very point when our people need us to think ahead and find a long term strategy for best handling these mounting pressures, we find ourselves least able to do so.

Building stress resilience starts with us

But if we don’t, it will only get worse. We may not have the time to do what is needed. But we need to find it or things will start breaking. People will start breaking. We will start breaking. The consequences for our mental health and the mental health of our employees is massive.
We have to bite the bullet. Whether that is reprioritising, or temporary resources, or getting help. We have to make the time to better ready ourselves for what is already upon us.  We have to build our own mental health. And then we have to take care of the stress resilience of our organisations. To look more deeply at how stress manifests itself within them. And to find more productive channels to handle it.

Current data on stress

Mental Health at work - Causes of Workplace StressSo what are the causes of stress for your organisation?
The HSE report into work related stress, anxiety and depression identifies the main precipitating events as follows:
  • 42% are down to factors intrinsic to the job and its expectations
  • 26% are due to interpersonal relationship issues
  • 17% are caused by change and expectations of personal development
These figures are not dissimilar to mental-health figures reported in the US by the American Institute of Stress (46% workload, 28% people Issues).

Stress strikes at the core of who we are

Unsurprisingly, these events are connected with fundamental human needs for security, affection and control. Three things that are echoed in Maslow’s hierachy of needs.
This explains why they are so devastating for people.
It also ties in with what we need to be successful as we cope with the demands and opportunities of our work. The things we need to rebuild our mental health:
  • The opportunity to deliver something of value,
  • A support network of people to do the bits we cannot,
  • And the learning and insight to do our own bit well.

Mental health and the working environment

Within each of these areas, there are a number of factors which enable these things. And there are cultural influences which connect them together and maintain a sort of equilibrium.
Diagram of flows of stress in the work environment
In a healthy environment, stress can energise these things. This creates a situation where each part positively supports and reinforces the parts around it and delivers an efficient outcome. People can experience this virtuous circle as a sense of ‘flow’ which can be deeply fulfilling and reinforces positive mental health.
Diagram of Positive flows of stress in the work environment

Optimum stress creates a sense of ‘flow’

However, if stress builds beyond that healthy level, other influences begin to take over. People become more closed in their interactions, and struggle to find the time to do things properly. As a result, they suboptimise, and the culture suffers from toxic behaviours and attitudes.  These actually make the job more difficult and unpleasant, increasing the already high levels of stress in a vicious circle. People tend to experience this as frustration and politics. And this can lead to depression, anxiety and other mental health issues.
Diagram of negative flows of stress in the work environment

Excessive stress creates frustration and politics

It should be obvious from the diagrams that these influences are negative not only for the people concerned. They are also negative in terms of business efficiency and effectiveness.

Stress and our inner condition

Stress may be largely introduced by external factors. But our internal mindsets are also a big factor in the stress we ourselves experience. It also affects how our responses to our own stress impact those around us, and the stress they experience.
Diagram of mental health at work - starting with the internal spaceWhat happens in this ‘internal space’ holds the key to how people handle stress. It also determines the extent to which that has repercussions for the mental health of their colleagues and the overall system.
It is within this space that people win or lose the fight for their own mental health.  And, it is also within this space that we do the key work to shift the balance from vicious to virtuous circles. It is from here that we launch our campaign to ensure stress remains healthy and productive. Both for the organisation and for the individuals concerned.

Some basic truths about stress

Before we get into how, I would like to flag up a few observations. I believe these are key to thinking through the next steps.
  1. The first is that the reality of how stress affects your organisation is not binary as the red and green diagram might indicate. These are just the extremes of a scale wherein most organisations will be reflected somewhere in the middle. Diagram showing spectrum of stress - continuum of conditionsIn fact, it is rare to encounter an organisation which is wholly red or wholly green in this. That said, given the relative business and people benefit of the green descriptions over the red ones, there is always merit in actively seeking to become more green.

    stress mostly begins around meetings

  2. The factors, behaviours and attitudes identified, both good and bad, are most evidenced and affected by meetings. Meetings large, small and one-to one; physical or virtual; formal or informal. These are the business activities which are most influential in creating positive or negative flows. And for generating good or bad outcomes within these stress maps.

    meeting impact is rarely measured

  3. Do people know the extent to which meetings within their organisation have a positive or negative influence on the factors in this stress map? Most executives would not have any data on the proportion of meetings which fell into each category. Or whether there was any meaningful patterns within that. This, in itself, is part of the problem.

    roles will be inherently about change

  4. Future of work graphicAll extrapolations of how work will change over the coming decade highlight the extent to which routine will be automated, and people’s roles will be inherently about change. As a result, levels of collaboration will continue to increase. And continuous learning will become the key business skill for those who will thrive in this emerging future of work.

Stress resilience through change will be the key skill

For many people, “who I am” and “how meetings take place” are relatively fixed concepts. We don’t do a lot of analysis of meeting design. Nor do we spend a lot of time questioning how we think. We tend to take both largely for granted, assumed, not really thought about.
And yet, in a world where change is the only constant, these things become the key differentiator between success and failure. Their active, self-directed, development becomes THE key strategy in designing a competitive response to change. And the best levers we have in managing stress, developing stress resilience, and building mental health.
Working with “who I am” and “how meetings take place” will be key to our success. They are the things that will most impact the stress resilience of our people and organisations. Thereby enabling them to cope with the levels of change that the future will bring.

Seven strategies to build mental wellbeing and stress resilience

Over the next few weeks, we will take a look at a number of strategies that organisations can adopt to take greater control of these things:

Structural influences on mental health at work

Leadership influences on mental health at work

Each of these things not only reduces the negative consequences of stress that people experience. Each of them also make the organisation more effective, and dramatically reduce waste and inefficiency of time, effort, ideas and resources. Use Linkedin to follow our thoughts as they develop.
Acknowledgements: The four quadrants which evolved as this platform for understanding stress at work was inspired by the structure of a powerful self-reflective workshop created by Dr Sue Howard
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Relevant Links:

Daily re-restructuring for agility? How adaptive structures maximise agile engagement.
Culture eats strategy for breakfast – but what sort of strategy are you feeding it?
Facilitating mental wellbeing – The power of adventure in keeping our minds fit & healthy.
Patterns of collaborative excellence – Rediscovering the lost wisdom of design.
Prescient emotional knowledge management – do you have what it takes?