Philippa Reed, Chief Executive of the EEO Trust, has
been a strong supporter of Professionelle almost from our
inception. This year we had the double privilege of being asked by
Philippa to present to the EEO Trust's Diversity in Action Workshop
and also being invited to attend the Trust's Work Life Awards
Dinner.
Sarah recently blogged about the presentation, and in this
article, I've concentrated on the Awards.
In these tough economic times, where the constant messages from
the media are of accelerating doom and gloom, attending the Awards
was a very special treat. And as I was sitting there, listening to
the inspiring stories, the whole experience took on an even more
personally poignant meaning for me. That's because these Awards
brought to life many of the positive psychology concepts I work
with and write about. I wanted to share these insights with you,
and I hope you'll find them as helpful as I did.
But first, some background….
Learned Helplessness
I am sure you've heard of learned helplessness. In fact, one of
my personal heroes and someone we refer to a lot on Professionelle,
Professor Martin Seligman, the 'father' of Positive Psychology, is
the one who coined this term. Learned helplessness is a
psychological condition that refers to people (and animals)
learning to act helplessly because of their past experiences.
Because they faced past situations where they couldn't escape harm,
no matter what they did (think: abusive relationship, electric
shock in animals) they learn to believe that nothing they do in the
future will result in them escaping unpleasant situations. So much
so that they fail to recognise when they do have control.
Learned helplessness theory has led to the view that clinical depression
and related mental illnesses result from a perceived absence of
control over the outcomes of situations. And accordingly, cognitive
therapy works to address this way of thinking.
And the Road to Positive Psychology
Seligman's work on learned helplessness led him to recognise the
power of positive psychology - he found that some animals and some
people never gave up, no matter what they were subjected to.
Seligman looked to see what they all had in common. You can read
more on this here . Of course, positive psychology is all
about taking control of situations and finding out what works and
what's good. Positive psychology encourages us to focus on our
strengths and find ways to use them in pursuit of activities that
are meaningful for us. It is through taking control of situations,
using our strengths in doing something meaningful to us, that we
experience flow - and that builds our psychological resources.
The Positive Power of the EEO Awards
So what's any of this got to do with the EEO Work & Life
Awards? Let's face it, it is almost tempting to say - and some do
say just that - "nothing I can do now can makes a difference. The
world is doomed. Look what's happening all around us, we might as
well not bother!"
As I sat at the ceremony and listened to the winning stories, it
dawned on me that what most of the stories shared were passionate
individuals who felt they could make a difference in their
organisations and who successfully undertook to make that
difference.
Listening to their stories, it was clear to me that whether they
knew it or not, they used their signature strengths in the process.
I'll also suspect that making a difference is personally meaningful
for them, and is probably a key part of their personal value
system.
I've chosen to share the stories that I believe most powerfully
illustrate this. Also I chose those stories that I found personally
inspiring. You can read the full set of stories on the EEO Trust web site.
Lucy McKimm from ACC
There was the very moving story about Lucy McKimm, a Team Leader
in Hamilton's ACC scanning unit. When profoundly deaf Kerry Paul
joined Lucy's team, Lucy decided to learn sign language. Lucy made
learning sign language part of her own personal development plan
and told her staff about it. Soon, several of her staff decided to
attend the ACC-funded sign language night classes with her.
It worked on so many levels, as a team building exercise,
increasing productivity and well-being in their immediate team, and
changing mind sets about working with people with disability.
Learning sign language is now one of the suite of team training
programmes for ACC. Lucy McKimm was the joint winner of the Walk
The Talk EEO Award.
I don't know Lucy but I was inspired by her 'just doing it':
signing up, and truly leading by example. Judging by the Awards
audience's response, most others were inspired too. I'd also bet
that some of her top Signature Strengths are Social Intelligence,
Bravery and Valour and Kindness and Generosity. In our workshops
and coaching, we've seen women with these signature strengths and
learnt about how personally fulfilled they are when they can use
them in something personally meaningful for them. As this clearly
was the case for Lucy.
Simon Pomeroy from Air New Zealand
At Air New Zealand, Simon Pomeroy, Manager Sourcing Inspiring
People, believed that in order to attract more young people into
engineering apprenticeships, they had to have young people helping
design the campaign. To this end, he organised "Andy", a 21 year
old staff member, aka AeroCareerBoy, to use Bebo to engage with
young people and understand what was important to them and how to
best target them.
Within three months of launching the Bebo site, Air New Zealand
was talking to 1500 young people. This engagement helped them shape
an entire campaign to attract young people into engineering. It
included online media, school visits, road shows and a 'make it
fly' competition where high school students competed for the
longest flight by a glider made with an empty soft drink can and no
more than $20 worth of other recycled items.
And the result? In 2007, Air New Zealand spent less than
$100,000 and recruited 108 engineering trainees - the highest
intake for a decade. And yes, they won both the "Tomorrow's
Workforce" award and the supreme Work & Life Award from the EEO
Trust!
Those of you who are working or have worked in large corporates
will know how hard it can be to do something as different and
untried as this. In many large organisations there will be many
nay-sayers who point out how high risk something like this can be.
Again, I am sure that somewhere in his top signature strengths,
Simon probably has Ingenuity, Practicality and Leadership. And,
boy, did he and his team use those!
A personal angle on the ANZ's Award
The ANZ's story is personally meaningful for us in
Professionelle. The ANZ won the Workplace Diversity Award for its
suite of interventions aimed at increasing diversity in the
workplace. These encompass women and leadership, networking groups,
flexibility, and more. Another unique aspect at the ANZ is that
they've established a Diversity and Inclusion Council, which is
made up of senior business executives rather than HR professionals,
to "tell the Diversity Story" from a business perspective.
The Bank won its prize for its overall efforts. But we
personally know one of the people who contributed greatly to these
efforts: Sarah Lochead-MacMillan, a commercial banker from the ANZ.
Our Sarah, Sarah Wilshaw-Sparkes (and yes, the multi double
barrelled theme is a source of many internal jokes), met the ANZ
Sarah at a networking event very early on in our establishment.
Sarah Lochead MacMillan (SLM) was then a new immigrant from the UK.
She knew she had to set herself up with networks as these are key
to professional success and she did so with zest and passion.
With the bank's support, SLM set up the Very Early Lunch Club in
South Auckland. It was a vehicle for local women business owners to
network and generate business from one another and for her to raise
her own profile as the banker of choice. She then leveraged her
learnings from this networking experience and began to contribute
significantly at work to networking and professional development
for her female colleagues throughout the ANZ.
SLM has been a passionate and loyal advocate for Professionelle,
inviting us to present at those women's network events and
sponsoring our own workshops in Auckland this year. She's also used
our articles in the bank's internal newsletters, thus referring us
to many more women to join. We actually do know what SLM's
signature strengths are as she completed them as part of our
workshops. Her top strength is Bravery and Valour. She also has
Social Iintelligence and Leadership somewhere in the mix, and all
of these are clearly evident in her efforts.
Sphere of Concern and Sphere of Influence
The most powerful lesson for me in all these stories goes to a
concept I learnt many years ago. Unfortunately, I've never been
able to find out who originally came up with it (if any of you
know, please write in). It is about concentrating on your sphere of
influence, and not worrying about your sphere of concern which
includes much you can't influence. We all have things that concern
us but that lie outside our influence. Things such as the global
credit crunch are an example. If we spend all our energy focusing
on things that concern us but which we can't immediately influence,
we grow helpless. And in the process, our sphere of immediate
influence actually shrinks.
But as the Awards stories so powerfully demonstrate, if we
concentrate on those things that both concern us and which we can
influence - be it embracing disability in our team, marketing
engineering as a viable career to young people, or establishing
networks for women - we actually increase our sphere of influence
and that results in our being able to have more influence on more
aspects of our lives!
All these awards were won by people who decided to do something
about things that concerned them at their work, and which they were
in a position to influence. For some this was part of their jobs,
and for others only tangentially. What they all did though was take
control of the situation and use what positive psychology calls
signature strengths to do something meaningful to them. They didn't
necessarily get paid more for it, and yes they were acknowledged
(eventually), but I bet that what was most rewarding was the doing
itself.
We can all make a difference, and we can all have fun making
that difference take shape. It's really just a matter of
trying.
© Professionelle Ltd 2008