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Making Positive Psychology Work

If you believe as we do that by uncovering tested, practical ways to help people move from functioning to flourishing at work, we can better navigate the incredible challenges and opportunities our world faces, then this podcast is for you. Our goal each week is to give you access to the world’ leading positive psychology, positive organizational scholarship and neuroscience researchers and practitioners to explore their latest research findings on how you can improve wellbeing, develop strengths, nurture positive relationships, make work meaningful and cultivate the grit to accomplish what matters most. If you want evidence-based approaches to bringing out the best in yourself and others at work, then consider this podcast your step-by-step guide.
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Now displaying: September, 2019
Sep 27, 2019

Cy Wakeman is a drama researcher, global thought leader, and New York Times bestselling author, recognized for cultivating a counter-intuitive, reality-based approach to leadership. Cy has helped companies such as Google, Facebook, NASA, and many others to navigate our rapidly changing world, using good mental processes to harness energy wasted in workplace drama, and reinvest that effort into achieving profound business results. Her work has been featured in several media outlets around the world. The author of several books, her latest is No Ego: How to Cut the Cost of Drama and Entitlement, and Drive Big Results.

In this week’s episode, we explore at why most of us waste 2.5 hours a day on average in emotional workplaces dramas and the simple steps we can take to ditch the drama, improve our wellbeing and save ourselves time, energy, and money.

Connect with Cy Wakeman: 

You’ll Learn:

  • [02:36] - Cy explains why workplaces lose billions of dollars every year due to the emotional waste of employees.
  • [03:29] - Cy outlines what her research has found drives drama in workplaces.
  • [05:23] - Cy shares why most of us lose 2.5 hours a day in unnecessary dramas at work.
  • [08:07] - Cy provides some questions leaders can use to help their people ditch the drama.
  • [14:23] - Cy shares why leaders can find it hard to ditch the drama in workplaces.
  • [15:54] - Cy outlines why a lack of accountability drives drama in many workplaces and how this can be addressed.
  • [20:24] - Cy shares why fostering engagement without accountability often leads to entitlement in workplaces.
  • [24:29] - Cy shares her insights on why change management should die as an organizational practice in order to minimize drama in workplaces.
  • [27:27] - Cy explores how managing our emotional waste better can improve psychological safety in workplaces.
  • [29:52] - Cy explains why it’s not enough for employees to just manage their own emotional waste, but why leaders and organizations need to support these behaviours.
  • [31:26] - Cy completes the Lightning Round.

Your Resources:

Thanks for listening! 

Thanks so much for joining me again this week.  If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of this post.

Please leave an honest review of the Making Positive Psychology Work Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. They do matter in the rankings of the show, and I read each and every one of them.  And don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates. It’s free!

You can also listen to all the episodes of Making Positive Psychology Work streamed directly to your smartphone or iPad through stitcher. No need for downloading or syncing.

Until next time, take care!  Thank you Cy!

Sep 20, 2019

Rachael Powell is the Chief Customer, People and Marketing Officer at Xero, a cloud-based accounting platform for small and medium businesses around the world. She's an experienced business executive with a demonstrated success across strategy, marketing, and human resources. Rachael has a Masters in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Melbourne and is passionate about enabling people to do the best work of their lives.

In this week’s episode, we explore how Xero, a cloud-based accounting platform for small and medium businesses around the world, are using positive psychology to help their people thrive as they do the best work of their lives.

Connect with Rachael Powell: 

You’ll Learn:

  • [02:29] - Rachael explains how she began applying what she learned in the Masters of Applied Positive Psychology to her leadership of the people and culture function at Xero.
  • [04:22] - Rachael shares why Xero chose Professor Martin Seligman’s PERMAH framework to guide their wellbeing strategy.
  • [05:32] - Rachael outlines how Xero operationalized the PERMAH framework across five different continents in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment.
  • [10:14] - Rachael shares her tips for what’s worked best when it comes to embedding a wellbeing strategy across the workplace.
  • [13:05] - Rachael talks about the struggles of embedding a wellbeing strategy across a workplace and how Xero is working to overcome these.
  • [17:43] - Rachael shares her biggest a-ha when it comes to taking the science of positive psychology and applying it practically in a workplace.
  • [19:50] - Rachael shares her thoughts on the role CEOs and leadership teams play in the success or failure of wellbeing strategies in workplaces.
  • [21:53] - Rachael offers some cautions and caveats for people trying to improve wellbeing in workplaces.
  • [23:09] - Rachael completes the Lightning Round.

Your Resources:

Thanks for listening! 

Thanks so much for joining me again this week.  If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of this post.

Please leave an honest review of the Making Positive Psychology Work Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. They do matter in the rankings of the show, and I read each and every one of them.  And don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates. It’s free!

You can also listen to all the episodes of Making Positive Psychology Work streamed directly to your smartphone or iPad through stitcher. No need for downloading or syncing.

Until next time, take care!  Thank you Rachael!

Sep 13, 2019

Robert Quinn is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, one of the co-founders of the field of positive organizational scholarship, and a co-founder of the Ross Centre for Positive Organisations. Bob's research and writing focuses on purpose, leadership, culture and change,and he is in the top 1% of professors cited in organizational behaviour textbooks. The recipient of multiple teaching awards, Bob was recently named one of the top speakers in the world on the topics of organisational culture and related issues. And last year, his talk on personal purpose went viral and has been viewed by over 16 million people. Bob has published 18 books, and his most recent book, The Economics of Higher Purpose, has just been released.

In this week’s podcast we explore the economics of higher purpose in our workplaces and how we can find and consistently honor our purpose.

Connect with Robert Quinn: 

You’ll Learn:

  • [03:22] - Bob explains why the economics of higher purpose is a conversation every workplace should be exploring at the moment.
  • [07:33] - Bob outlines why a higher purpose shifts our mindsets and commitment from being employees or agents to owners in our workplaces.
  • [11:51] - Bob shares how workplaces can envision being a higher purpose organization and overcome the thought walls that might get in their way.
  • [16:03] - Bob explains why organizations need to discover – rather than invest – their higher purpose.
  • [22:13] - Bob shares his tips for embracing the messy and magical process of bringing a higher purpose to life across a workplace.
  • [27:30] - Bob shares the story of how KPMG gave their people the freedom to self-organize and take responsibility for the things that matter most to them in relation to the higher purpose.
  • [33:05] - Bob completes the Lightning Round.

Your Resources:

Thanks for listening! 

Thanks so much for joining me again this week.  If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of this post.

Please leave an honest review of the Making Positive Psychology Work Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. They do matter in the rankings of the show, and I read each and every one of them.  And don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates. It’s free!

You can also listen to all the episodes of Making Positive Psychology Work streamed directly to your smartphone or iPad through stitcher. No need for downloading or syncing.

Until next time, take care!  Thank you Bob!

Sep 6, 2019

David Bryce Yaden is a Research Fellow and PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania, where he works in the Positive Psychology Centre. David's research focus is on the psychology and neuroscience of spiritual, self-transcendent and other positively transformative experiences. Specifically, he's interested in understanding how these experiences can result in longterm changes to wellbeing. And how they alter fundamental faculties of consciousness, such as the sense of time, space, and self. He's the editor of the book, Being Called. And he's currently writing a book called, The Varieties of Spiritual Experiences: A Twenty-First Century Update. His work is being covered by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, New York Magazine, and NPR.

In this week’s podcast, we explore how positively transformative experiences can leave us feeling called to our futures and the impact they can have on our wellbeing and performance.

Connect with David Yaden: 

You’ll Learn:

  • [03:53] - David explains why we’re called by our futures – not just pulled by the past - and what impact this has for our wellbeing.
  • [06:28] - David outlines the difference between trying to find meaning and purpose in our work, to being called to the work we do.
  • [09:07] - David shares what his research is finding makes a positively transformative moment possible for each of us.
  • [11:06] - David explores if positively transformative experiences can be created or need to be allowed to spontaneously occur.
  • [13:13] - David outlines what his research is finding in terms of the impact the positively transformative moments might have for us or others.
  • [16:58] - David explores potential interventions workplaces can use to create positively transformative experiences for people and their limitations.
  • [20:33] - David outlines ways workplaces can help people to feel more called to their work.
  • [22:30] - David completes the Lightning Round.

Your Resources:

Thanks for listening! 

Thanks so much for joining me again this week.  If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of this post.

Please leave an honest review of the Making Positive Psychology Work Podcast on iTunes. Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and greatly appreciated. They do matter in the rankings of the show, and I read each and every one of them.  And don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes to get automatic updates. It’s free!

You can also listen to all the episodes of Making Positive Psychology Work streamed directly to your smartphone or iPad through stitcher. No need for downloading or syncing.

Until next time, take care!  Thank you David!

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