Making Positive Psychology Work Podcast

Dr. Meg Warren is an Assistant Professor of Management at Western Washington University. Meg’s award-winning research uses a positive psychology approach to study how individuals from relatively privileged groups can serve as allies to marginalized outgroups. She’s a co-editor of the International Journal of Wellbeing and the lead editor of two books, Scientific Advances in Positive Psychology and Toward a Positive Psychology of Relationships. In this week’s episode, we explore what the latest research is finding on how we can be better allies in workplaces and why many workplace diversity and inclusion policies fail to make a positive difference. Connect with Dr. Meg Warren: https://megwarren/home You’ll Learn: [ 03:15] - Meg offers some advice for how we can more readily step into conversations about allyship with each other, even when we’re worried about saying the wrong things. [07:07] - Meg shares how researchers define who is in a relatively privileged group and who is in a marginalized outgroup. [09

Dr. Michael Maddaus is a retired professor of thoracic surgery at the University of Minnesota, who has trained with Kristin Neff and Chris Germer to teach self-compassion. Michael currently works with individuals and with surgical groups to help them enhance their resilience and ability to thrive. In this week’s podcast, we discover how investing in small daily wellbeing behaviors can help workers to build a resilience bank account that helps them to avoid burnout. Connect with Dr. Michael Maddaus: https://michaelmaddaus.com/ You’ll Learn: [ 03:23] - Michael defines the three domains of burnout. [05:49] - Michael explains what radical acceptance of emotional exhaustion might look like practically in our jobs. [07:00] - Michael shares what radical acceptance of cynicism might look like practically in our jobs. [08:45] - Michael explains what radical acceptance of depersonalization might look like practically in our jobs. [10:05] - Michael shares some tips for how workplaces can support people experiencing b

Peter Senge, who has been at the forefront of organizational learning since publishing his classic text, The Fifth Discipline, in 1990, provided theories and methods to foster aspiration, develop reflective conversation, and understand complexity in service of shaping learning orientated organization cultures. Throughout Peter’s work with leading organizations around the world, he’s been asking, “How do we create the conditions for people to work together at their best, cultivating the innate system’s intelligence that is our birthright, but is all but lost in modern culture.” As an engineer by training, Peter’s work has always emphasized tools and methods, not for their own sake, but as vehicles for building individual and collective capacities. And these approaches have been captured in the many books he’s published. In this week’s podcast, we explore how to embrace the uncertainty and complexity of navigating change and unlocking learning in our workplaces. Connect with Peter Senge: https://www.solonline.

Today we’re talking to Vikki Reynolds, who’s an activist and therapist who works to bridge the worlds of social justice with community work and therapy. An adjunct professor, she’s written and presented internationally on her work, responding to the opioid catastrophe, refugees and survivors of torture, and supporting violence, mental health, substance abuse, housing, and shelter counselors in gender and sexually diverse communities. In this week’s episode, we explore how to find our zone of fabulousness and the power of collective accountability in the face of work experiences that can lead to “burnout”. Connect with Vikki Reynolds https://vikkireynolds.ca/ You’ll Learn: [01:47] - Vikki explains why our approaches to vicarious trauma and burnout in workplaces need re-thinking. [03:33] - Vikki shares how we can each find our Zone of Fabulousness when it comes to helping others at work. [04:45] - Vikki explains why the goal of ‘safe enough’ rather than psychological safety may serve us better when it comes

Today we're talking to Michael Platt, a Penn Integrates Knowledge professor with appointments in the Department of Neuroscience, the Department of Psychology, and the Department of Marketing in the University of Pennsylvania. Michael works at the intersection of economics, psychology, and neuroscience, and he is a former president of The Society for Neuroeconomics. Michael's work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, The Guardian, and National Geographic and his new book is called The Leader's Brain. In this week’s episode, we explore how understanding more about how our brain's work can help us to thrive at work. Connect with Michael Platt: http://plattlabs.rocks/ You’ll Learn: [01:47] - Michael shares why neuroscience is of relevance to leaders & workplaces [03:33] - Michael shares why our brains crave a sense of certainty [04:45] - Michael shows how leaders can create cohesive & effective teams [08:26] - Michael shares how we can keep the socia

Today we’re talking to Jessica Amortegui, who’s the Senior Director of Learning & Development at LinkedIn where she designs and delivers programs for leaders and teams. Equipped with a conviction that we are all in beta-mode, Jess believes her work is much more than the opportunity to do what we do best. It’s a training ground to become our most evolved selves. In this week’s episode, we explore how LinkedIn’s development programs are helping their leaders to pivot and embrace their vulnerability to improve performance. Connect with Jess Amortegul: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessamortegui/ You’ll Learn: [02:38] - Jess explains how workplaces can create safe and effective training grounds for their people to become their most evolved selves. [04:47] - Jess shares how we all get stuck sometimes in performing, pleasing, proving, and perfecting and the impact this has on how we show up to our work. [06:51] - Jess outlines how LinkedIn has been helping its leaders to pivot during a year of extreme uncertai

Today we’re talking to Professor Edgar Shein and Peter Shein. Ed and his son Peter together co-founded the Organizational Culture and Leadership Institute (OCLI.org) and have together published the award-winning Humble Leadership and Culture + Change + Leadership: The Corporate Culture Survival Guide, along with the upcoming second edition of Humble Inquiry that will be released in 2021. Ed is Professor Emeritus of MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He holds a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from Harvard University, has consulted and published extensively, and has been the recipient of two-lifetime achievement awards. Peter’s unique work draws on 30 years of industry experience in marketing and corporate development at technology pioneers including Apple, SGI, Sun Microsystems, and numerous internet start-ups. In this week’s podcast, we explore how humble leadership and humble inquiry can help to improve our workplace cultures. Connect with Edgar & Peter Schein: http://www.scheinocli.org/ You’ll Learn: [02:0

Today we’re talking to Dr. Margaret Heffernan, who’s an entrepreneur and the author of six books, including her most recent Uncharted: How To Map The Future. Margaret’s Ted talks have been seen by over 7 million people around the world. She is also the lead faculty for the Forward Institutes Responsible Leadership Program, and she mentors CEOs and senior executives of major global organizations. In this week’s podcast, we explore the difference between complicated and complex systems, and how we can help people to care for their wellbeing as they navigate unpredictable and challenging work environments. Connect with Dr. Margaret Heffernan: http://mheffernan.com/ You’ll Learn: [02:33] - Margaret explains why studies suggest we can only confidently plan the future in workplaces for approximately 150 days at a time. [06:29] - Margaret helps us explore the difference between a complicated world and a complex world and what this means for caring for wellbeing in workplaces. [11:39] - Margaret provides an exampl

Today we’re talking to Doctor Tim Lomas, a Senior Lecturer in Positive Psychology at the University of East London. Tim completed his Ph.D. with a thesis focusing on the impact of meditation on men’s health. And, since then, Tim has published over 70 papers and 11 books relating to wellbeing, linguistics, mindfulness, Buddhism, gender, art, cross-cul- cultural inquiry. His work has been featured in articles in prominent publications, like Time and The New Yorker. In this week’s episode, we explore the third wave of positive psychology recently published in the Journal of Positive Psychology and what leaders can be saying and doing to help team members navigate the complexity of our time. Connect with Tim Lomas: https://www.drtimlomas.com/ You’ll Learn: [02:21] - Tim explains the wave metaphor by sharing his views of the first wave when positive psychology was formalized as a field. [03:09] - Tim explains the second wave. [06:11] - Tim explains the third wave. [09:25] - Tim explains what teams can be thinki

In this week’s podcast, we discover how to soar into your individual or collective purpose at work with four simple but powerful questions to help us navigate uncertainty. Connect with Jackie Stavros: http://www.soar-strategy.com/ [free_product_purchase id="94846"] You’ll Learn: [02:51] - Jackie shares why purpose is so powerful in moments when work and life feel chaotic. [05:31] - Jackie explains how an appreciative inquiry approach can help us to discover the best of what is and what is possible to surface our purpose. [07:45] - Jackie gives us four simple questions to help us SOAR into our purpose. [11:08] - Jackie shares an example of how the four SOAR questions can be used to surface your what and why. [15:48] - Jackie explains how teams and workplaces can use the four SOAR questions to help surface a shared sense of purpose. [18:33] - Jackie offers advice for aligning people’s individual purpose with the purpose of a team or organization. [21:22] - Jackie shares how teams and workplaces drive radical

In this week’s episode, we explore how building a personal highlight reel can be effective in understanding our strengths, and dan shares with us the results of his research on the impact this has for individuals and teams. Connect with Dan Cable: http://dan-cable.com/ [free_product_purchase id="39560"] You’ll Learn: [02:39] - Dan shares why we may struggle putting our strengths to use in our daily lives [04:23] - Dan explains the three-step process to the personal highlight reel [07:10] - Dan explains why the personal hi-light reel is effective [09:49] - Dan explains the impact that doing the personal highlight reel might have in your life [13:57] - Dan shares the bottom-line outcomes for workplaces of focusing on people's strengths [14:51] - Dan provides some tips to help us with self-reflection [22:45] - Dan shares how creating a personal highlight reel helps us have an impact in the world [24:26] - Dan describes some cautions and caveats to be aware of with the personal highlight reel [26:17] - Dan com

In this episode, we explore how it's possible to adapt and thrive, even under extreme circumstances at work and in life as Dan explains how two simple questions can move us towards a thrivers mindset that renews us, or a victim, bystander, or controller mindset that drains us. Connect with Dan Diamond: Website: dandiamondmd.com [free_product_purchase id="39560"] You’ll Learn: [02:37] - Dan explains how power and purpose shape a thriver’s mindset and how it can improve our performance and wellbeing at work. [04:40] - Dan shares how our victim, bystander, controller, and thriver mindsets get shaped and how we can free ourselves of mindsets that don’t serve us well. [09:13] - Dan offers some practical steps we can take to move towards a thriver mindset more consistently at work. [16:12] - Dan shares tips for how leaders can help their teams cultivate more thriver mindsets when times are tough. [22.49] - Dan explains how we can be intelligent thrivers who don’t burn ourselves out in an effort to help others. [25

Today we’re talking to Doctors Peter and Susan Glaser, who have spent their lifetimes researching and teaching people how to connect through conscious communication. Life and business partners for 40 years, they have published three books, including the highly acclaimed Be Quiet, Be Heard: The Paradox of Persuasion, and more than 40 research articles, as well as working with Fortune 500 companies all over the world, including Microsoft, Facebook, and Sony to name a few. In this week’s episode, we explore the simple skills that can improve our ability to listen in ways that help us to understand and persuade each other. Connect with Peter & Susan Glaser: https://www.theglasers.com/ You’ll Learn: [02:37] - Peter and Susan explain why studies suggest that being quiet might be the most powerful way to persuade others. [05:59] - Susan and Peter explain how different conversations at work require us to listen more to others. [07:16] - Peter and Susan explain why listening can be so hard for so many of us. [0

Michele Zanini is the co-founder of the Management Lab, with the wonderful Gary Hamel where they help forward-thinking organizations become more resilient, innovative, and engaging places to work. Together, they recently wrote the bestselling book, Humanocracy, creating organizations, as amazing people inside of them, and their work is featured in the Harvard Business Review, the Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal. In this week’s episode, we explore the simple steps we can each take to make our workplaces more human-centered and less bureaucratic. Connect with Michele Zanini: https://hackmyorg.humanocracy.com/welcome You’ll Learn: [04:33] - Michele explains what studies are finding about the value of embedding humanity over bureaucracy when it comes to caring for worker’s wellbeing and improving performance. [11:16] - Michele offers some practical steps teams can take to move towards a more human-centric approach to working together. [17:06] - Michele explains how you can create a movement in you

Today we’re talking to Professor David Clutterbuck, who is one of the early pioneers of developmental coaching and mentoring – and co-founder of the European Mentoring & Coaching Council. Author of more than 70 books, including the first evidence-based titles on coaching culture and team coaching, he is a visiting professor at four business schools. He also leads a global network of specialist mentoring and coaching training consultants, at Coaching and Mentoring International. In this week’s podcast, we explore how to build a coaching culture. Connect with Professor David Clutterbuck https://davidclutterbuckpartnership.com/ You’ll Learn: [02:29] - David shares the value of having a coaching culture. [04:42] - David describes how mentoring is often wrongly described as advising. [06:47] - David explains the place of teams in creating a coaching culture. [09:22] - David explains what’s at the heart of building a team’s coaching ability. [11:47] - David shares what immediate step we can take to grow our

Today we’re talking to Dr. Peggy Kern, who is an associate professor at the Center for Positive Psychology at the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education. Peggy’s research is collaborative in nature and draws on a variety of methodologies to examine questions around who thrives in life and why, including understanding and measuring healthy functioning, identifying individual and social factors impacting life trajectories, and systems informed approaches to wellbeing. She has published three books and over 100 peer-reviewed articles and chapters. In this week’s episode we explore the hot-off-the-research-desk findings of how workers are caring for their wellbeing after a year of continuous uncertainty and disruption, and the three simple skills we all need to thrive at work. Connect with Peggy Kern https://www.peggykern.org/ You’ll Learn: [04:30] - Peggy shares what the latest data has found about caring for workers' wellbeing when the circumstances around us are dramatically changing. [09:32

Today we’re talking to Anne Scoular, a former diplomat, Citibank trained international banker, and organizational psychologist, who is recognized as one of the five leading experts in business coaching globally by the Harvard Business Review. Much in demand for her expertise, Anne has served on a number of expert panels and policy committees, and she is the author of The Financial Times Guide to Business Coaching. In this week’s episode, we explore how coaching can transform leadership and organizations, and Anne helps us understand how we can bring a coaching mindset to the work that we do every day. Connect with Anne Scoular: https://www.meylercampbell.com/ft-guide-2nd-edition You’ll Learn: [01:41] - Anne explains how organizational coaching differs from mentoring and other types of coaching. [03:21] - Anne explores why coaching is so important for leaders right now. [04:51] - Anne talks us through her framework for different styles of coaching leaders can use. [09:09] - Anne shares examples of the posit

Today we’re talking to Dominic Price who is the Work Futurist at Atlassian Software, an Australian multinational that develops products for software development, project management, and content management including our teams’ all-time favorite tool, Trello. Dom has responsibilities spanning seven global research and development centers, and he is the in house team doctor who helps Atlassian scale by being ruthlessly efficient and effective with one eye on the future, and he’s personally run hundreds of sessions with Atlassian’s teams globally to help them build healthy and high-performing teams. In this week’s episode, we explore evidence-based, playful practices to improve the health and performance of teams – even in the midst of challenges. Connect with Dominic Price: https://www.atlassian.com/blog You’ll Learn: [02:22] - Dom shares his insights on some of the biggest changes that you think workplaces might face when it comes to trying to bring out the best in their people as they start to look ahead to

Today we’re talking to Tal Ben-Shahar, a serial entrepreneur, a lecturer, and author, whose books have translated in more than 25 languages. You may know him from having taught two of the largest classes in Harvard University’s history, Positive Psychology and The Psychology of Leadership. In this week’s episode, we learn important lessons from the most popular course at Harvard ten years later and what business leaders and practitioners can do to be more effective at positive psychology interventions. Connect with Tal Ben Shahar: http://www.talbenshahar.com/ You’ll Learn: [02:06] - Tal explains why people were so interested in taking his psychology course at Harvard University ten years ago when it became the most popular course at the school. [04:20] - Tal explains what gets lost when leaders do not know how to be well. [07:03] - Tal shares some examples of what his students from ten years ago are doing differently as today’s leaders. [11:33] - Tal explains the tipping point philosophy for change. [14:56

Today we’re talking to Dr. Lindsey Godwin, who is a professor of management at the Stiller School of Business at Champlain College in Vermont, and the academic director of the David L. Cooperrider Center for Appreciative Inquiry. A practitioner and possibility-iser, Lindsey has a passion for helping individuals and organizations leverage their potential through strength-based change and is a sought after international speaker, consultant, and facilitator whose work has been published in a variety of journals and books, and presented at conferences around the world. In this week’s episode, we discover the three things workplaces are doing to successfully navigate change even in the midst of uncertainty and disruption. Connect with Dr. Lindsey Godwin: https://lindseygodwin.com/ You’ll Learn: [03:19] - Lindsey shares the most intriguing findings from a new study of 1,400 Australian workers on how they are navigating change during this very uncertain and unusual time. [05:27] - Lindsey explains why despite the