Healing Ecosystem Component 4 – The Role of Individuals

While components like structure and climate play important roles in the healing ecosystem model, by setting the context in which people interact and do their work, human beings are arguably the most important contributors to an ecosystem that nurtures both collective performance and morale. And while much of the current work on burnout and well-being has focused on the role leaders play in advancing or undermining a flourishing workplace, there is an equally important contribution from all individuals present in an organization.

Considerable scientific research and secular discourse has focused on individual-level well-being at work over the past several decades. This has inadvertently elevated a victimhood narrative:  how employees suffer from poor decisions made by managers, cultural conflicts, underinvestment in their growth to increase profits, overwork, and ill-designed workflows and digital tools.  This narrative makes collaborating on completing tasks more complex or difficult. Much guidance for leaders and managers derived from this research has emphasized a relatively narrow focus on resilience interventions, which are designed to build the tolerance of individuals to endure stress, uncertainty, and increasing workplace demands with less burnout and complaining. Among these are calls for more funded meditation classes, corporate wellness programs focused on fitness and healthy eating, and access to mental health services provided by the organization. 

While well-intentioned, the problem with this approach is that it focuses almost exclusively on individual states of depletion – or burnout – and how to motivate individuals to “top up” their tolerance for unhealthy work environments mostly on their own time and effort. A better approach is to ask, “how can individuals contribute to creation of a healing ecosystem at work?” This shifts the nature of individual contribution from efforts to preserve and protect oneself toward attention to collective well-being through individual action. It makes it easier for leaders to frame their work as well, by focusing not only on structure and overall climate, but also what types of invitations empower individual employees to contribute to healing in the workplace. 

Individual-level contributions to a healing ecosystem at work can take many forms. Some are well-established acts that we often call “engagement drivers”:  including others in a way that creates a sense of belonging on a team, talking regularly with colleagues about the deeper meaning and purpose of work, and recognizing others for positive impact. Others align with well-known methods for improving systems and processes, such as offering ideas for making daily workflows easier or speaking up to help prevent small errors from being passed along, unaddressed, until a major catastrophe develops. A third is inviting individuals to help find and promote creative ways to weave positive emotions into daily work in small doses, frequently. 

What are these emotions? According to Barbara Fredrickson, these are feelings like gratitude, inspiration, curiosity, awe, serenity, joy, hope, amusement, pride, and love. Access to these emotions inside work – rather than only at a yoga class outside of work or on vacation – for a few seconds or minutes at a time is proven to increase resilience, allowing individuals to bounce back faster from the inevitable challenges and stresses inherent in all organizations. More important, experiencing these emotions serves to tap into “tiny engines” within each person, creating positive energy momentum that is passed along to others. Think of the last time you had a good laugh with colleagues at work – a moment of amusement – or said an authentic thank you — gratitude — to someone in the organization. In both cases, the energy of tapping into a positive emotion was shared with another person. And studies suggest that doing this promotes healing, health, and well-being for each individual experiencing these emotions.

So, while much current dialog about workplace well-being focuses on how to help people step away and recover from negative experiences in their organizations, there is a different path toward a healing ecosystem that asks how we can invite every individual to creatively cultivate and share positive emotions, often and in small doses (typically at little cost!), inside of daily work. This turns our workplaces into sources of healing, not only depletion that must be overcome through resilience practices. When was the last time you tapped into a positive emotion at work? How could you do this with someone several times in the next week?