
If you showed employees things that are good or that stimulate
contentment… the brain creates comparable realities.
Martin Seligman, founder of the positive psychology movement and former president of the American Psychological Association, researched and tracked 47 severely depressed adults. Seligman included two interesting elements.
1. Participants focused on proven events that increase happiness —For instance they wrote
down three things that went well that day… and avoided discussions of things that caused them unhappiness
2. Communities were drawn together to encourage people to pay attention to the happiness-inducing exercises on a regular basis.
Can you guess the results of Seligman’s study….Depression in 94 percent of the participants decreased significantly…. Many went from clinically severe depression to clinically mild symptoms. The impact of focusing on events that produce happiness affected people in ways similar to the effects of medication and cognitive therapy combined help severely depressed patients.
Can you see brain based implications for managers who want to bring about organizational change…. Some managers will want to use this exercise personally first… as a way to increase their ability to help employees to focus their attention on specific visions of the firm....
Imagine the results for your firm... when leaders simply help people to focus on organizational improvements or the firm's positive targets… When people see a good and envision results of that good over time… they change to produce more of that good....
Now that I think of it... there'd be wonderful side benefits because organizations would likely be more inclined to shape their visions in ways that employees can envision and bring about the good! What do you think…?










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