Sustainable Organizations: The Ideas of Martin Seligman
In an earlier post, I wrote that the ideas of thought-leader Dov Seidman, CEO of LRN and author of How, are likely to have a profound effect on organizations in the years to come. In this second post on thought leaders affecting the evolution of organizations, I highlight the work of Martin Seligman.
Seligman, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, founded the positive psychology movement when he became president of the American Psychological Association. There isn’t adequate space in this post to provide an overview of positive psychology, so for those who are interested in learning more, I highly recommend reading an article co-authored by Seligman entitled “Positive Psychology: An Introduction” and a New York Times’ Magazine article entitled “Happiness 101” that describes how the positive psychology movement is growing.
Positive psychology has identified 24 character strengths that it believes — and a growing body of research shows — affect human flourishing. These character strengths are universal. Religious thinkers and moral philosophers throughout the ages have advocated them. Political, social and economic cultures that have been sustained for long periods of time have these values and systems that don’t (i.e. coercive utopian systems such as communism and fascism), fail because the values they promote work against human flourishing.
Our research at E Pluribus Partners identified a “Character > Connection > Thrive Chain” (see below) that posits organizations and individuals thrive because they are comprised of people who embrace and behave in ways that reflect the character strengths and in doing so create “Connection Cultures” which meet universal human needs such as meaning, respect, recognition, belonging, autonomy and personal growth. Learn more about positive psychology and the Character >Connection>Thrive Chain on pages 116-130 of the free digital book download of Fired Up or Burned Out.
Recent research from The Conference Board and the Corporate Executive Board make it clear that employee engagement is at dismal levels but eventually leaders will discover that embracing and behaving in ways that reflect the 24 character strengths creates Connection Cultures and develops the corporate character strengths necessary to produce sustainable organizations.
(To enlarge the diagram below, click on it once until it appears then click on it a second time for an enlarged version.)
Michael Lee Stallard is President of
Happiness coaches are part of the great conspiracy that began some 20 years ago when CEO’s , hedge fund managers and bankers discovered if they outsourced jobs to China and India it would increase the bottom line and they would all get rich. If they could not outsource they discovered another way. They terminated half the workforce and piled the work on those who remained. They followed this by bringing in the happy coaches to put smiles on these overworked underpaid miserable employees. Remember “smile or your fired”. These executives, bankers and hedge fund managers who took over the once proud manufacturing industry in America and broke it up, outsourced the work or shipped entire factories offshore for obscene profits while destroying the lives of millions of employees don’t need happy coaches. I wonder why?
Read—
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Negative-Influence-of-by-william-czander-091020-724.html
William,
Thanks for voicing your opinion. I completely agree that piling more work on fewer people, smiling and being positive alone will not improve productivity in a sustainable way. I disagree, however, that there is any conspiracy afoot and I think it is better described as a continuous drive to improve productivity (which I believe is good if done in the right way). Unfortunately, few leaders understand the importance of developing the right type of culture to boost productivity, a topic I wrote for about in “The Connection Culture: A New Source of Competitive Advantage” at this link: http://changethis.com/manifesto/show/44.06.ConnectionCulture
In “The Connection Culture” I describe the character strengths (or values) identified by the positive psychologists and how such values contribute to meeting universal human needs that help people thrive. If people in a culture believe and behave in ways that are consistent with these values — that include respecting and valuing people as human beings — it will boost employee engagement and strategic alignment, which in turn will boost productivity, innovation and overall performance. If positive psychologists are teaching this, then it will help employees rather than harm them. This line of reasoning is why leaders such as Jim Goodnight of SAS Institute invest considerable sums to develop healthy cultures.