Making Positive Psychology Work Podcast

Cliff Kayser is a consultant who brings 25 years of experience with senior-level OD internal positions with the Washington Post and the National Cooperative Bank, as well as his external consultancies and coaching practice with experienced and successful partners, polarity partnerships and the Institute for the Polarities of Democracy. Cliff is on faculty at American university’s master’s in OD, and a coaching fellow for George Mason University Center for the Advancement of well-being, which is where he and I met. In this week’s episode, we explore how to balance “either/or” thinking with the need for “and” so we honor competing polarities when it comes to the way we work together. Connect with Cliff Kayser: https://www.experienceit.com/ You’ll Learn: [01:40] - Cliff explains what polarity thinking is and why it matters in workplaces. [02:26] - Cliff offers some examples of the common polarities workplaces have been grappling with over the last 12 months. [03:38] - Cliff explains how teams and workplaces c

Valorie Burton is the founder and CEO of the Coaching and Positive Psychology Institute and a best-selling author, international speaker, and life strategist. Valorie has a master’s in applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and her company provides coaching, coach training, and resilience training and has served clients in all 50 American states and 15 countries on six continents. Since 1999, she has written 13 books on personal development, including the best sellers Successful Women Think Differently and What’s Really Holding You Back? And she’s been featured in media outlets around the world. In this week’s episode, we explore how to practice racial empathy in workplaces and the simple steps workers can take to be respectful and effective white allies. Connect with Valorie Burton: https://valorieburton.com/ You’ll Learn: [03:13] - Valorie explains how the murder of George Floyd caused her to speak out on the need for racial empathy. [07:28] - Valorie shares why in order to beco

Dr. Suzy Green is a Clinical and Coaching Psychologist – and Founder & CEO of The Positivity Institute, a positively deviant organization dedicated to the research and application of Positive Psychology for life, school, and work. She is a leader in the complementary fields of Coaching Psychology and Positive Psychology, was the recipient of an International Positive Psychology Fellowship Award, has lectured on Applied Positive Psychology as a Senior Adjunct Lecturer in the Coaching Psychology Unit, at the University of Sydney for ten years, and is an Honorary Vice President of the International Society for Coaching Psychology. On top of all of that, Suzy has just released her brand new book called – The Positivity Prescription. In this week’s podcast, we explore what ‘wellbeing coaching’ is and how we can make this more accessible in workplaces. Connect with Suzy Green: http://www.thepositivityinstitute.com.au/ You’ll Learn: [02:42] - Suzy shares what wellbeing coaching is and how it differs from othe

Al Comeaux is a former executive at Travelocity, GE, American airlines. As a senior leader, Al has championed change across a range of workplaces and undertaken a 20-year journey researching why so many change efforts fail and what's needed for success. Al is the founder of Primed For Change, a disruptive project to prepare leaders to take organizations successfully through change, and this week he has released a new book called Change Management. In this episode, we explore how senior leaders think about change in workplaces and how they can balance being SMART with taking an approach that wins people’s HEARTS. Connect with Al Comeaux: https://alcomeaux.com/ You’ll Learn: [02:58] - Al explains what most often takes leaders by surprise when it comes to trying to successfully create change in workplaces. [06:23] - Al helps us explore if leaders should be more focused on understanding the problems or the opportunities for change in their organization. [07:44] - Al offers tips for helping leaders to consiste

Mandy O'Neill, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Management at the George Mason University School of Business and a Senior Scientist at the University Center for the Advancement of Wellbeing. Mandy holds a doctorate in Organizational Behavior from Stanford University Graduate School of Business where she was a National Science Foundation graduate fellow and is an expert on organizational culture, immersions in the workplace, and women's careers. Mandy consults and conducts academic research across a wide range of organizations, including Fortune 500 corporations, global technology firms, major medical centers, and emergency response teams. Her work has been published in a variety of scholarly and practitioner journals, including Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Fast Company, Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, and the Harvard Business Review. In this episode, we look at the headlines of the Wellbeing Lab research from the US and the importance of a culture of companionate l

In this week’s podcast we explore relational agency, and the four simple skills you can build in your teams to listen deeply, lift each other, and turn challenges around. Connect with Arne Carlsen: https://www.bi.edu/ You’ll Learn: [03:25] - Arne explains what relational agency is and why it matters when it comes to our wellbeing and performance at work. [07:08] - Arne outlines how we can build more respectful engagement in our relationships at work. [10:30] - Arne shares how we can practice generative resistance and healthy conflict with each other at work. [13:08] - Arne outlines how liberating laughter compliments generative resistance and how we can create more of it in workplaces. [16:27] - Arne offers tips for cultivating psychological safety within ourselves and our relationships. [18:46] - Arne explains how the Best Reflected Self exercise can help us discover our strengths and improve our relationships. [23:35] - Arne shares how leaders have introduced these relational agency skills successfully t

In this week’s episode, Scott Barry Kaufman talks about his new book, “Transcend: The New Science of Self Actualization” in which he unearths some of Dr. Abraham Maslow’s unfinished work. He shares common misconceptions on the hierarchy of needs, how workplaces can support collective actualization, and why it is important to stay positive at this time of COVID 19—even amidst uncertainty or suffering. Scott brings in familiar psychology research to create a case for how leaders can be more enlightened in their approaches. Connect with Dr. Scott Kaufman: https://scottbarrykaufman.com/ You’ll Learn: [03:41] - Scott explains Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory and why there is a misconception in using the pyramid metaphor. [07:09] - Scott explains how we can use the ideas and resources in his book at a time of global pandemic. [12:52] - Scott explains how values play a part in creating transcendent workers and workplaces. [17:59] - Scott shares how workplaces can help team members create more moments for integr

Warren Nilsson is an associate professor of social innovation at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business and the faculty associate of the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation. He’s also the co-founder of Organisation Unbounded, an international community of inquiry and experimentation, exploring how social purpose organizations can more closely align their internal practices and cultures with their external social change goals. Warren has worked with social purpose organizations in North America, Africa, and South Asia connecting his academic research with practitioner-driven social initiatives. In this week’s podcast, we explore what any workplace can learn from social change organizations about the two unique steps they take to create positive change inside and outside of their workplaces. Connect with Warren Nilsson: https://organizationunbound.org/ You’ll Learn: [03:08] - Warren explains how learning to successfully create social change can help to transform any organization. [05:22] - W

Anne is a Change Professional who has managed change programs across multiple industries, from large scale systems implementations through to workplace transformations, with a focus on changing cultures and building internal business change capability. For the last seven years, Anne has been bringing wellbeing into her change programs with fabulous results and has been referred to as “the Magic Maker”. In this week’s episode, we explore the practical actions workplaces can be taking to care for their people’s wellbeing during a time of disruption and rapid change. Connect with Anne Lomax:  Anne Lomax You’ll Learn: [01:50] - Anne shares how the CoVID-19 pandemic impacted Qantas as a workplace. [02:24] - Anne’s essential first step to supporting people during a disruption. [03:23] - Anne’s number one priority for worker wellbeing during the CoVID-19 disruption. [03:54] - Simple, practical ways to support wellbeing during a disruption. [05:51] - What goes into a daily calm session? [08:22] - Anne’s biggest le

Bruce Daisley was previously Twitter’s most senior employee outside of the United States in his role as Vice President across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Bruce’s passion for improving work led him to create the podcast Eat Sleep Work Repeat on using evidence-based approaches to make work better and he’s recently released a book of the same name. In today’s podcast, we explore how leaders can help bring out the best in their teams as more workers suddenly find themselves working remotely. Connect with Bruce Daisley: https://eatsleepworkrepeat.com/ You’ll Learn: [02:48] - Bruce shares some of the evidence-based practices that helped him to bring out the best in himself and his teams at Twitter. [07:20] - Bruce shares Twitter’s invitation to #lovewhereyouwork and why as a leader this became his priority. [11:33] - Bruce offers some practical tips for staying physically distanced but socially connected with each other at work. [14:54] - Bruce explains how we can manage the stress that comes with worki

Dr. Adam Fraser is a human performance researcher and consultant who studies how organizations adopt a high-performance culture to thrive in this challenging and evolving business landscape. Adam has worked with elite athletes, the armed forces and business professionals of all levels. In the last eight years, he has delivered more than 1200 presentations to over 300,000 people in Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. Adam is also the author of four best-selling books, including his latest one, Strive, which I’m looking forward to delving into today. In this episode, we explore the benefits of struggle when it comes to our learning and growth and the four practical steps we can take to get more comfortable with struggle. Connect with Adam Fraser: dradamfraser.com You’ll Learn: [02:35] - Adam shares what enables us to strive [06:46] - Adam talks about why we need to make struggle our friend [07:55] - Adam explains about the value of negative emotions [12:26] - Adam introduces foreground and background behaviors

Dr. Peggy Kern is an associate professor at the Centre 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’s published three books and over 85 peer-reviewed articles and chapters. In this week’s podcast, we explore the impact COVID-19 and the economic downturn is having on workers’ wellbeing and performance, and what leaders and workplaces can be doing to support them. Connect with Peggy Kern: The Wellbeing Lab You’ll Learn: [02:45] - Peggy shares her latest research findings on how workplaces can help workers to care for their wellbeing. [11:03] - Peggy explains what research over the last two weeks has found about the impact of COVID-19 and the sudden econ

Dr. Michelle McQuaid and Dr. Paige Williams are the co-founders of The Leaders Lab, which helps leaders to thrive and create thriving workplaces. They use evidence-based approaches that draw on the latest research in neuroscience, positive psychology, leadership, and systems thinking to help leaders and workplaces move beyond just the need for resilience, to become antifragile. In this week’s podcast, we explore the practical steps leaders can take to be more neurologically robust and antifragile, so they can help themselves and their teams thrive during this time of unprecedented disruption and change. Connect with Dr. Michelle McQuaid & Dr. Paige Williams: https://www.leaderslab.com/ You’ll Learn: [02:50] - Michelle shares hot-off-the-research-desk data about the impact coronavirus and the economic downturn is having for leaders and their teams. [06:06] - Michelle and Paige explore how leaders can be antifragile and thrive even during this time of great unpredictably and disruption. [10:48] - Michell

In this week’s podcast, we explore how pro-social principles and tools can help groups collaborate more effectively together by creating safe spaces, to be honest about what they want, what they fear, and how this shapes the way they choose to work together. Connect with Paul Atkins:  https://prosocialinstitute.org/ You’ll Learn: [02:32] - Paul explains why collaborating with each other is often challenging at work. [04:18] - Paul shares why we often struggle to appreciate the differences in each other. [05:40] - Paul outlines the prosocial process and how it might help us to collaborate better with each other. [07:48] - Paul outlines the eight-core design principles that guide the prosocial process. [16:58] - Paul shares an example of how the prosocial principals and tools can be applied in workplaces. [23:36] - Paul offers some simple questions we can use to help create more prosocial ways of working together. [27:45] - Paul offers some tips for dysfunctional teams to become more prosocial and collaborat

In this week’s episode, Dr. Michelle McQuaid explains the 5 evidence-based MAGIC factors that make p positive change possible in workplaces, and how you can activate these in your own work or across your whole workplace. Connect with Michelle Mcquaid:  The Change Labs You’ll Learn: [02:37] - Michelle explains what positive change is and why it should be our goal in workplaces. [04:09] - Michelle outlines the 5 evidence-based MAGIC factors for creating positive change. [10:56] - Michelle shares how her virtual global team embeds the MAGIC factors to create positive changes together. [15:07] - Michelle shares why workplaces often struggle with generative conversations and self-organization. [21:18] - Michelle offers some tips for people who feel they have little control over how change unfolds in their workplace. [24:43] - Michelle enters the lightning round Your Resources: MPPW Podcast on Facebook MPPW #082 with Gervase Bush Thanks for listening!  Thanks so much for joining me again this week.  If you e

Stewart Friedman is an organizational psychologist at Wharton and founder of Wharton’s Leadership Program and it’s work-life integration project. Listed among HR magazine’s most influential international thinkers, Stewart has written two best sellers, Leading The Life You Want and Total Leadership. And his newest book, which is about to be released, is Parents Who Lead. In this week’s podcast, we explore the practical steps we can take to integrate our work and our life to create four-way wins across our career, our family, our community and ourselves (mind, body, spirit) and the impact this has on our wellbeing and performance at work. Connect with Stewart Friedman:  https://www.totalleadership.org/ You’ll Learn: [02:18] - Stew explains how we can create four-way wins by integrating our careers, our family, our community, and our own needs to improve wellbeing and performance. [06:29] - Stew offers some practical tips to help us improve the integration of our career, our family, our community and ourselve

Peter Block is an author and citizen of Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the author of nine books including Community: The Structure of Belonging, The Abundant Community with John McKnight and coauthor of An Other Kingdom. His work is in the restoration of the common good and creating a world that reclaims our humanity from the onslaught of modernism. In this week’s episode, Peter Block explains why listening and connecting are the core leadership strategies needed in workplaces today, how to work with cynics, and what the key questions and conversations have been in his work as an organizational turned community development practitioner-scholar. Connect with Peter Block:  https://www.peterblock.com/ You’ll Learn: [03:32] - Peter explains why listening is a core capacity needed in workplaces today and why being a role model or visionary leader is not necessary. [06:58] - Peter explains what conversations are necessary in shifting organizational narratives. [08:58] - Peter shares how he assesses whether an organizat

Dr. Kelly McGonigal is a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University. As a pioneer in the field of science help, her mission is to translate insights from psychology and neuroscience into practical strategies that support personal wellbeing and strengthen communities. Kelly is the author of several books, including the international bestseller, The Willpower Instinct, and The Upside of Stress and her newest book is The Joy of Movement. In this week’s episode, we explore the latest research on why movement – not just exercise – is so important for our wellbeing and the simple, joyful ways we can get moving more. Connect with Kelly McGonigal:  http://kellymcgonigal.com/ You’ll Learn: [02:17] - Kelly shares the latest research findings on why movement is so important for our wellbeing. [05:23] - Kelly explains why we don’t have to exercise in order to enjoy the wellbeing benefits that come from moving. [11:30] - Kelly shares some of the latest research on how high-intensity movement – like running

Dr. Michelle McQuaid is known for her research, books, and tools, which help people create positive changes and thrive more consistently in their workplaces.  Michelle holds a Master in Positive Psychology, and a Ph.D. on how Appreciative Inquiry Summits create positive disruptions that enable systems to flourish, and is a co-founder of The Change Lab. In this week’s episode, we explore how leaders and workplaces can tackle complex challenges and create positive changes through the use of language, conversations, and self-organization. Connect with Dr. Michelle McQuaid:  https://www.thechangelab.com/ You’ll Learn: [02:17] - Michelle shares her thoughts on the ability for the latest research in human flourishing to help create positive changes given all the challenges our world faces at the moment. [05:23] - Michelle shares some tips for workplaces to create more positive changes. [11:30] - Michelle outlines the simple actions leaders can take to make change a more positive experience. [15:49] - Michelle sh

Today we're talking to Tom Rath, an author and researcher who has spent the past two decades studying how work can improve human health and wellbeing. During his 13 years at Gallup, Tom was the programme leader for the development of Clifton StrengthsFinder, which has helped over 20 million people to uncover their talents, and went on to lead the organization's employee engagement, wellbeing, and leadership practices worldwide. For the past 5 years Tom has served as a Gallup senior scientists, and is also an advisor, investor, and partner in several startups. His ten books, including StrengthsFinder 2.0, Wellbeing, and Eat Move Sleep have sold more than 10 million copies. His newest book, Life's Great Question: Discover How You Contribute to the World, has just been released. On today's episode, we're discussing how to ensure our work isn’t doing more harm than good when it comes to our wellbeing, and the simple steps we can take to align our contributions to the things that are meaningful and energizing for