The power of positive psychology for innovation
There are a lot of books, website, blogs that talk about innovation management but only a few focus on the people development side. Usually we have tendency to focus on the holy grail recipe such as design thinking or business model design, however one of the key element is to develop an ideator into an inventor, further into an innovator and hopefully into an entrepreneur. This is all about people development, if an organization wants to develop great projects, it will need the right people behind.
It is important to introduce the concept of positive psychology for innovation. There are two universities focusing on this topic nowadays, the Fung Institute UC Berkeley, and IE business school. Both universities have developed a curriculum where positive psychology support corporation strategy and innovation. In particular knowing, that the rise of start-ups in quality and maturity obliges corporations to adopt more flexible organizations in order to offer employees an environment where they feel engaged and empowered to express their creativity and to generate and implement ideas that are source of value for the company.
The concept of positive psychology consist in focusing on positive emotions, well-being and healthy life. By building an environment that allow people to flourish and express their best talent. This requires to remove anxiety, worries and stress that are mostly related to depression and poor outcome at the workplace. If you look at google, as highlighted recently by the Harvard Business Review, it is interesting to see that they start their advanced management program with emotional intelligence and positive leadership : Google Toolkit. Leaders are trained to identify their personal character strengths to adopt positive behaviors in order to face challenges and achieve goals. Job becomes a calling, where passion becomes the driver as an intrinsic motivation allowing innovation endeavors. With this attitude, leaders on-board their teams under a positive culture and work climate where performance and productivity increases. This creates the right environment for the company to transform and for innovation to emerge. Motivated by creative spirit, rather that fear, company adapts to changes coming from market places dynamics, and capture opportunities to sustain profits. Employee will gain autonomy and redesign their job profile matching the needs of the company. By crafting their role, employees leverage on heir inner abilities and talents, driven by their interests they achieve more. When multiplied by the team members and having some spillovers, we have natural enrichment of ideas, additional energy to overcome obstacles. Connecting and networking is easier with positive attitude. Team requires people to be ready to give and offer support. Having such a supportive workplace allow innovation to take place and it is the role of the manager to measure the morale and happiness of the team as an key indicator of productivity and performance.
Here are a few advantage of building a positive workplace. People having happiness and fullness will be capable to set high goals and persist longer towards them. Engaging a team in problem solving and conflict will require less energy and reduce the tension. Under less stress, cooperation will take place in a fast and efficient way. The positive attitude is built mainly from quality relationships. Some connections at work nourish your strengths feelings and good moods that you will easily pass to your colleagues in a contagious way. Human nature is focused on connecting people and understand their inner will. Developing positive relationships help to mitigate difficult times at work. It is worth having quality time with people to get to know them, understand their attitude. In particular, in a context of general demoralization or mistrust, often during company reorganization, it is important to build on optimistic people and place them strategically in teams that could benefit from their energy and positive attitude.
A positive workplace and leadership know the strengths of each employee and maximize the engagement of them. This creates energy and motivation, people are happy to share their success and learn from each others. Also, because employees want to have impact, they need to see and measure the outcome of their work in order to have satisfaction, recognition and reward. Setting goals in a positive way will ensure intermediate outcomes. Leaders can then be supportive on those achievements. By taking interest on employees qualities and exploring how to develop them. It is therefore important to set goals that ensure a strong sense of engagement and connection with other colleagues. Goals need to be divided into achievable steps that provide satisfaction and motivation for the following stage. The positive feeling of achievement is usually short so it is better to enjoy building meaningful steps along the way rather than only focus on the outcome. Aligning goals with value and strengths are one of the best way to perform better.
In any companies, employees are the most important asset. Despite the current economic situation, mutation of job markets, there is a shortage of talents. Decade of management have focused on individuals, building their career in a single organization and using short term wins to climb the ladder. Those times are over… People are no more afraid to leave for a better workplace, they know they will develop better and their career will reflect their talent. Therefore many corporate officers are implementing “positive psychology” techniques in their workplaces. By encouraging employees through small rewards, they become more generous, friendly and productive. Therefore building on engagement, and accomplishment can transform the workforce and therefore the company in a more resilient and adaptable to changes.
