How to Feel Better

It’s probably no surprise that happy people perform more effectively at work (source Said Business School) and often when we look at Positive Psychology studies we can find ourselves nodding away as they make sense. However, even though we know that happiness and well-being go hand in hand with performance we often see the reality being that a focus on performance without considering the factors that lead to it looking at it as the end goal rather than thinking about it as the starting point.

As coaches we’re able to influence leaders and teams to reimagine how they achieve productive outcomes by working on their own happiness and well-being first. When we support people to make conscious and positive choices it can enable them to support cultural change. This is the sweet spot where coaching meets positive psychology and uses evidence based approaches to support people to change.

Positive Psychology, Well-being and Flourishing.

A recent (2022) global study by AXA found that the UK workforce are languishing with nearly 50% of people struggling with their emotional well-being. We were the lowest ranked country in the survey. At a collective and individual level there needs to be a change to how we look at well-being and emotional health as it’s quite clear what has gone before isn’t working for a myriad of reasons.

Organisational culture can be built on expectations : often people perceive that they are measured by their output or leaders consider this is the only way forward. Where there are KPIs that people are performance reviewed against it takes a bold leader to step back from using these when leading their staff and start to look at other measures.

The PERMA+ Model and Well-being scales

As coaches there are many tools we can use: I’m a fan of the PERMA+ model by Martin Seligman as a starting point to have conversations about well-being. If you’re doing this in the workplace he’s developed his own scale to use there. The big thing to consider is psychological safety and understanding that people know the purpose of using such tools. Personally, I’ve fallen down by using it and not explaining that it’s there as a starting point to help raise an individuals awareness and work with them to enhance their well-being : this is often where a coach will come in to support them with a plan around what changes they can make. It requires an investment in coaching and in dialogue with employees as there may be things that leaders don’t want to hear.

What is interesting is when this is done well the PERMA+ model or other well-being scales can be the starting point for individual and organisational change. It’s hard to change what we can’t measure and although there is some subjectiveness around well-being and what it includes starting to see it as critical to the organisation as profitability in itself can be a welcome shift for many employees.

Developing coaching skills within organisations

Another way that coaches can impact well-being within organisations is through facilitating training around Positive psychology and well-being to develop the coaching capacity of the organisation. At an organisational level when people have basic coaching skills they’re able to have more effective conversations around these topics and equally to be able to self-coach themselves becoming aware of what their needs are before they might if they didn’t have these skills.

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This is a guest blog by Ruth Kudzi of Optimus Coach Academy. As one of fewer than 70 Master Certified Coaches in the UK, Ruth Kudzi?is independently verified as one of the top coaches by the international coaching federation (ICF).