Practice Notes

Welcome to the May Practice Notes

 

What's new in the world?

Positive Psychology Coaching

A useful book we have come across is Practicing Positive Psychology Coaching by Robert Biswas-Diener, John Wiley and Sons, 2010.

It contains a wide variety of valuable positive psychology coaching exercises. Here’s one of them: the Ideal Self.

This is a simple exercise that asks people to imagine themselves in the future and to picture and envision the life they want for themselves. It focuses on the good and the possible. Visioning a possible future self is relevant at work and at home.

So, to create your ideal future self, you need to imagine yourself in the future. The following questions help create your future ideal self. We’re focusing on your role at work.

1. Describe where you would be working?

2. What is it you value in your working life and circumstances that you would like to achieve?

3. To what extent is this vision of your future working life internal versus the product of some external factor or someone else’s values?

4. Describe your future working life: how you get there, your office, your role and the type of work you would do.

5. What is it you value that you would like to achieve in your ideal future working life?

More evidence that making progress in meaningful work equals staff engagement.

We have previously reported on research that asserts that the number one engagement factor for knowledge workers is making progress in doing something they see as meaningful.

But how can managers help staff recognise the progress they are making? Anabile and Kramer have some suggestions in their May 2011 Harvard Business Review article 'The Power of Small Wins'. They argue that managers can use catalysts and nourishers.

Catalysts are actions that support work. They include setting clear goals, allowing autonomy, providing enough resources to get the job done, helping with work and allowing a free exchange to ideas. All lead to a surge in positive emotions and engagement.

Nourishers are actions that support people. These include respect, recognition, encouragement, emotional comfort and opportunities for affiliation.

This sounds rather likes Management 101. What’s new? Nothing perhaps except the evidence that many managers studied were neither catalysts nor nourishers.

To help managers put this into practice, here’s a simple checklist to use at the end of every day.

 

Catalysts

1. Did the team have clear short and long-term goals for meaningful work?

2. Did team members have sufficient autonomy to solve problems and take ownership of projects?

3. Did they have sufficient time to focus on meaningful work?

4. Did I give or get them help when they needed or asked for it? Did I encourage team members to help one another?

5. Did I discuss lessons from today’s successes and problems with my team?

6. Did I help ideas flow freely within the group?

 

Nourishers

1. Did I show respect to team members by recognising their contributions to progress, attending to their ideas and treating them as trusted professionals?

2. Did I encourage team members who faced difficult challenges?

3. Did I support team members who had a personal or professional problem?

4. Is there a sense of personal and professional affiliation and camaraderie within the team?

We think these basic but useful ideas and practices are worth trying out. Good luck!