Making Positive Psychology Work

Rasmus Hougaard is the founder and managing director of Potential Project, a global leadership training, organizational development and research firm, who help leaders and organization to enhance performance, innovation, and resilience through mindfulness and other practices grounded in neuroscience and research. Rasmus writes for the Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Business Insider, and has led more than 1500 keynotes and workshops around the world. His most recent book, The Mind of the Leader, is based on research with more than 35,000 leaders and executives and provides a pathway to great leadership in the 21st century.

In today's episode, Rasmus explains why 21st century leaders need to cultivate the qualities of mindfulness, selflessness and compassion for themselves, their teams and their organizations and how this can be practically achieved.

Connect with Rasmus:

Website: www.potentialproject.com

• [02:11] - Rasmus explains why 86% of leaders rate themselves as inspiring and good role models, but 82% of employees see their leaders as fundamentally uninspiring.
• [03:28] - Rasmus explains how leaders can better understand themselves and their impact on others.
• [04:56] - Rasmus shares the mental qualities needed for leaders to be effective in the 21t century based on his research.
• [05:53] - Rasmus explains why the state of flow can impede our ability to be more mindful at work.
• [07:38] - Rasmus shares how our daily focus pattern can help us to be more mindful at work.
• [09:33] - Rasmus explains what leaders can do practically to improve their levels of selflessness and confidence.
• [11:44] - Rasmus shares his suggestions for finding the balance between self-confidence and selflessness at work.
• [13:57] - Rasmus explains why more leaders are rating compassion important or extremely important for effective leadership.
• [17:04] - Rasmus explains how teaching leaders compassion can improve kindness and psychological safety in workplaces.
• [22:43] - Rasmus shares some of his favorite ways to help leaders be more mindful, selfless and compassionate.
• [17:23] - Rasmus completes the lightning round.

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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 for 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 Rasmus!

Dr. Jason Fox is a motivational speaker, best selling author, leadership advisor and wizard rogue of ace repute. Often sought for his fresh perspectives, contemporary philosophies, and deep expertise in motivation design, Jason shows forward-thinking leaders around the world how to unlock new progress and pry deeper into uncharted territory. His clients include Fortune 500 companies around the world, and he's also the best selling author of "The Game Changer" and "How to Lead a Quest: A Handbook for Pioneering Leaders". His research has been featured in the likes of Smart Company, Huffington Post, BRW, and the Financial Review.

In today's episode, we discuss how leaders can challenge the mindsets that keep them stuck in conventional thinking, by embracing the principals of motivational design and framing change opportunities as quests.

Connect with Jason:

Website: www.drjasonfox.com

• [02:14] - Jason explains how game design can be used to motivate behavior change in workplaces.
• [04:13] - Jason explains where gamification often goes wrong when it comes to creating meaningful behavior change.
• [05:02] - Jason shares how a quest – rather than a game – can help leaders bring out the best in themselves and others.
• [08:30] - Jason explains some of the thinking patterns in workplaces that can limit our ability to create change.
• [13:18] - Jason shares how he runs leadership programs to help leaders challenge their traditional ideas about what being a successful leader looks like.
• [15:43] - Jason shares how he helps leaders to maintain momentum for behavior change following workshops and training programs.
• [17:23] - Jason completes the lightning round.

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• How to Lead a Quest by Dr. Jason Fox

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 for 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 Jason!

Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts is a teaching professor of management at Georgetown University, whose research examines how leaders cultivate positive identities in diverse work organization. Laura's publications 'How to Apply Your Strengths' and 'Creating A Positive Professional Image' are among the most popular articles from Harvard Business Publishing and have been featured in several media outlets. She's the editor of numerous books including Exploring Positive Identities in Organizations with Jane Dutton and is a co-founder of RPAQ Solutions, a research and consulting firm that brings strength-based practices to leaders who seek extraordinary performance and personal fulfillment.

In today's episode, we discuss creating a positive work identity, and the effect it has on our personal brand, our sense of meaning and our relationships at work.

Website: lauramorganroberts.com

• [02:43] - Laura explains what it means to have a positive work-related identity
• [09:32] - Laura introduces the GIVE model to help us build more positive identities at work.
• [15:36] - Laura explains how cultivating a positive identity can shape your personal brand.
• [19:23] - Laura shares how psychological safety can impact people's ability to build a positive work-related identity.
• [24:23] - Laura completes the lightning round.

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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 for 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 Laura!

Leah Weiss is a researcher, lecturer, consultant, and author who teaches compassionate leadership at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she created the perennially waitlisted course, Leading With Mindfulness and Compassion. Leah is a principal teacher, and a founding faculty member of Stanford's Compassion Cultivation Programme conceived by the Dali Llama. Her first book "How We Work: Live Your Purpose, Reclaim your Sanity and Embrace the Daily Grind" focuses on developing compassionate and soft skill-based leadership, while also offering research backed actionable steps towards finding purpose at work.

In today's episode, Leah talks to us about why business leaders are lining up to learning how to be more compassionate in workplaces and how this is helping them to harness the wisdom of their emotions, to fail better in order to learn and to find more purpose in their work.

Connect with Leah:

Website: leahweissphd.com

• [02:01] - Leah explains why graduate students are lining up to learn how to be more compassionate leaders in workplaces.
• [04:17] - Leah explains why practicing compassion at work doesn't mean we need to be doormats for others to take advantage of.
• [06:32] - Leah explains the difference between compassion and empathy.
• [09:44] - Leah provides some practical tips to harness the wisdom of our emotions at work instead of suppressing our feelings.
• [17:03] - Leah explains how leaders can help their people to fail better at work.
• [19:56] - Leah provides her tips on how we can mindlessly going through our work days.
• [21:32] - Leah completes the lightning round.

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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 for 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 Leah!

Susan David is an award willing psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, co-founder, and co-director of the Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital, and CEO of Evidence Based Psychology, a boutique business consultancy. She's the author of the number one Wall Street Journal best selling book "Emotional Agility," based on her concept that Harvard Business Review heralded as a management idea of the year, and has been featured in numerous leading publications including The New York Times, Washington Post and Time Magazine, and has worked with the senior leadership of hundreds of major organisations including the United Nations, Ernst & Young, and the World Economic Forum.

In today's episode, we'll discuss why emotions are not simply positive or negative, and how we can navigate the way we feel in more agile and effective ways at work.

Connect with Susan:

Website: http://www.susandavid.com/

• [02:20] - Susan explains why thinking of emotion as positive or negative can undermine people's ability to thrive.
• [07:25] - Susan suggests that thinking of emotions as data, rather than as good or bad, can help people develop emotional agility.
• [14:40] - Susan shares her recommendations for ensuring people own their emotions, rather than letting their emotions call the shots.
• [19:16] - Susan provides tips for how teams can practice emotional agility.
• [20:43] - Susan shares how the skills of emotional agility can build psychological safety in teams.
• [22:39] - Susan explains how self-compassion can make it easier to be emotionally agile.
• [26:09] - Susan shares how tiny tweaks and the willingness to keep pushing beyond our comfort zones can enable emotional agility.
• [24:29] - Susan completes the lightning round.

• MPPW Podcast on Facebook
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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 for 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 Susan!

Dr. Adam Fraser is a human performance researcher and consultant who studies how organizations adopt a high-performance culture to thrive in the challenging and evolving business landscape. Adam has worked with elite-level athletes, the armed forces, and business professionals of all levels, and in the last five years, he has delivered more than 600 presentations to over 50,000 people in Australia, New Zealand, and Asia.

In today's episode, we'll be discussing how struggle functions as a stimulus for change in workplaces.

Connect with Adam:

Website: dradamfraser.com

• [02:09] - Adam shares how he's been helping leaders at Queensland Urban Utilities evolve their mindsets and behaviors to better support their people.
• [04:21] - Adam explains how he creates safe spaces for them to learn to lead with vulnerability.
• [06:15] - Adam shares what his research has found about helping HR teams to thrive.
• [08:11] - Adam expands on what his research has found about the importance of having challenging opportunities at work.
• [14:31] - Adam explains how diversity helps to create positive disruptions in workplaces.
• [16:44] - Adam shares how the creation of third spaces can help people to thrive.
• [23:07] - Adam shares his tip for the hottest workplace wellbeing over the next 12 months.
• [24:29] - Adam completes the lightning round.

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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 for 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 Adam!

Michelle is a senior fellow at the University of Melbourne and holds a Masters in Positive Psychology and a provisional Ph.D. on how AI summits create positive disruptions that enable systems to flourish. She's the author of several books, and her newest book, "Your Change Blueprint" with Professor David Cooperrider is about to be released. Michelle also works with organizations around the world on finding ways to help people flourish.

In today's anniversary episode, we'll discuss Michelle's hot of the PhD presses research findings on how AI Summits can be used to create positive disruptions that enable people and systems to flourish.

Connect with Emily:

Website: https://www.michellemcquaid.com/

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• [01:50] - Michelle explains how Appreciative Inquiry helps people and systems to create positive changes.
• [03:46] - Michelle outlines how an AI Summit differs from other appreciative inquiry applications.
• [07:03] - Michelle shares what she has observed about AI Summits around the world and their ability to help people and systems to flourish.
• [10:26] - Michelle explains how self-determination theory shapes successful AI Summits.
• [12:43] - Michelle explains why creating opportunities for generative connections shapes the success of an AI Summit.
• [15:25] - Michelle shares why her research found an AI Summit needs a 6d – not a 4d – cycle to make it work.
• [18:22] - Michelle introduces the 12 magic mechanisms that explain how to use an AI Summit to create a positive disruption.
• [21:49] - Michelle shares her tips for when an AI Summit might most benefit your system.
• [24:19] - Michelle completes the lightning round.

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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 for 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 Michelle!

Emily Larson serves as the director of the International Positive Education Network and is an assistant instructor in the Masters of Applied Positive Psychology program at the University of Pennsylvania. Emily has worked on various positive education projects in Nepal, India, the Philippines, the UK and the USA. She holds numerous board positions and is a published author.

In today's episode, we'll be discussing how schools are applying positive psychology to help improve wellbeing across the school environment and what other organizations can learn from their efforts about creating systemic change.

Connect with Emily:

Website: ipen-festival.com

• [01:58] - Emily explains what schools are learning about applying positive psychology findings to improve people's wellbeing.
• [03:05] - Emily shares why a systemic approach to improving people's wellbeing can be so important.
• [05:10] - Emily provides a case study of how a school is implementing a systemic approach to the wellbeing of teachers, students, and their community.
• [10:13] - Emily shares how change champions within a system can help to embed wellbeing practices.
• [12:09] - Emily explains the power of a common framework and common language when it comes to systemically improving wellbeing.
• [14:05] - Emily explains some of the struggles whole system change approaches have encountered when it comes to improving people's wellbeing.
• [17:03] - Emily explains how positive education practitioners from around the world are coming together to share their learnings and work more closely together.
• [23:10] - Emily completes the lightning round.

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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 for 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 Emily!

Amy Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School. She's an expert on leadership, teams and organizational learning, whose research on psychological safety in workplaces has been discussed in the New York Times, the Financial Times, Forbes and many other media outlets around the world and is the author of several books, including her most recent, Extreme Teaming: Lessons in Complex, Cross-Sector Teaming.

In today's episode, we discuss why Google have found that psychological safety is the common factor in all of their highest performing teams, and what you can do in your workplaces to improve psychological safety for others.

Connect with Amy:

Website: Amy Edmonson HBS Faculty Profile

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• [02:03] - Amy explains why more and more workplaces are talking about the need for psychological safety.
• [04:43] - Amy offers practical tips for leaders to improve the levels of psychological safety in their teams.
• [06:38] - Amy explains how leaders can practice inclusive leadership to improve psychological safety.
• [08:45] - Amy shares why courageous conversations can be problematic in workplaces.
• [11:15] - Amy explores the intersection between psychological safety and growth mindsets.
• [12:39] - Amy shares her tips for creating psychology safety in more temporary teams.
• [14:10] - Amy talks about ways of assessing psychological safety in teams.
• [16:44] - Amy explains how to help teams get over the politeness hump when it comes to improving psychological safety.
• [19:49] - Amy outlines some of the biggest challenges leaders face when it comes to improving psychological safety at the moment in workplaces.
• [21:18] - Amy shares why a coaching mindset can help improve psychological safety in teams.
• [22:17] - Amy completes the lightning round.

• How to Turn a Group of Strangers Into a Team | Amy Edmondson | TEDxHGSE
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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 for 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 Amy!

Dr. Mark Williamson, who is the Co-founder and Director of Action for Happiness. Since creating and launching Action for Happiness in 2011, Mark has engaged with a vast range of organizations, projects, and people on the topics of happiness, well-being, and resilience, including leading academics, major multinational corporations, public sector organizations, policymakers, schools, charities, and community organizations. He's led the development of all of the Action for Happiness resources and activities and has spoken regularly on related topics at events and conferences across the UK and around the world.

In today's episode, we'll explore how Action for Happiness are helping to improve people's wellbeing in workplaces and communities around the world.

Connect with Mark:

Website: actionforhappiness.org/

• [02:04] - Mark explains how Action for Happiness became a global movement to improve people's wellbeing.
• [04:09] - Mark shares how Action for Happiness has mobilized wellbeing champions around the world.
• [07:07] - Mark shares how Action For Happiness help bridges the gap between knowledge and action when it comes to improving people's wellbeing.
• [10:27] - Mark explains how coaching circles can provide social support for people creating behavioral changes.
• [13:51] - Mark explains how to have meaningful conversations in workplaces about wellbeing behaviors.
• [15:58] - Mark shares an example of a company building wellbeing practices across their workplace.
• [17:57] - Mark explains why organizations will continue to invest in wellbeing programs over the next 12 months.
• [21:15] - Mark completes the lightning round.

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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 for 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 Mark!