The purpose of this area is to provide several complementary views on how to maintain positive thinking at work, especially in remote working environments.
Ice-break
Source:https://shorturl.at/bkuC6
Who are we now?
Purpose
Use this exercise at the beginning of the area, as an icebreaker and energiser. It is great for laughs and for the shedding of stress.
Number of participants and duration
This ice-break can be used with any number of participants, but it works better with up to 16 participants.
This exercise takes approximately 20 minutes.
Description for the participants
(Ask the participants to form a circle. Afterwards, provide them with the following directions:)
“When I point to you, act out my instructions.
When I say “Insta Model”, pose as an Instagram model and the two people closer to you act as photographers, mimicking taking photos.
When I say “Elephant”, pose as an elephant by thrusting your hands together to represent the trunk, and the two people next to you form a circle with their arms to serve as the elephant’s ears.
When I say “Jello”, shake your body like jello and the two people next to you form a circle around you, like a container.
When I say “Daisy”, freeze and do not move at all.”
(It is expected that people get confused and make mistakes. These mistakes will generate laughter and fun. To make the exercise competitive, participants who make a mistake – both the one pointed to and the two participants alongside him or her – can be eliminated from the game.)
(For the online version, the coach will take a shot of the group. Each participant decides how he or she wants to pose for the picture: as Insta model, photographer, elephant – emphasising the trunk or the ears –, jello or a container. Participants can act together with the people that are displayed in the video windows around their own video window.)
Recommended training methods
Learning outcomes
• Setting communication and teamwork among participants.
• Creating a positive and cohesive group dynamic.
Introduction
Source:https://shorturl.at/msxG7
Psychology and positive thinking
Purpose
The purpose of the introduction to the topic of Psychology and positive thinking in this Guide for coaches is to provide an overview of the resources that are included in the Guide on team management and to set the stage for the learning experience. It is important because it helps participants to understand the context and the relevance of the resources, and it also helps them to focus and engage with the content.
Number of participants and duration
You can work with up to 16 participants.
The introduction can take approximately 30 minutes.
Description for the participants
In this area, the following key concepts are addressed:
• Psychology
• Positive psychology
• Positive thinking
• Emotions
The fundamentals of the Psychology and positive thinking area are also covered.
Description for the participants
(Lead a discussion with the participants about the topic of positive psychology, emotions and resilience. You can use the following scenario, or come up with your own.)
“Imagine that you could reduce the problems in society by using your emotions and positive traits. How would that make you feel?” (Ask participants to share their feelings, opinions, ideas.)
“This is what positive psychology is all about. It helps us to focus on hope instead of fear, and to prevent unwanted emotions and behaviours.” (Do a wrap-up and conclude.)
“But what does it mean to be positive or good?” (Ask participants to share their ideas and opinions.)
“It depends on your values and culture. What is good for you may not be good for someone else. So, we need to respect and appreciate the diversity of perspectives and experiences.” (Do a wrap-up and conclude.)
“Now, think about your work. Do you enjoy it? Do you feel positive emotions when you do it?” (Ask participants to share their ideas and opinions.)
“If yes, that is great! Because positive emotions can help you grow and achieve more. They can also help you be more helpful to your colleagues, creating a harmonious and cohesive work environment.” (Do a wrap-up and conclude.)
“And what if you face challenges or difficulties at work? How do you cope with them? Do you bounce back quickly or do you give up easily?” (Ask participants to share their ideas and opinions.)
“This is where resilience comes in. Resilience is the ability to overcome adverse situations and learn from them. It can apply to individuals, groups or organisations.” (Do a wrap-up and conclude.)
“So, as you can realise, positive psychology can offer us many benefits for our personal and professional lives. It can help us to be happier, healthier and more productive.” (Do a wrap-up and conclude.)
Recommended training methods
The coach can put the following questions before the lecture:
• How would you define positive psychology?
• What is the meaning of positive thinking for you?
• Which do you think that are the differences between positive psychology and positive thinking?
The discussion can be done, firstly, in pairs or groups of three participants. Each group must reach an agreement on the answers to the questions provided by the coach. After, each group can select a spokesperson to share the answers they agreed on and start the discussion with the other groups.
To carry out the task online, breakout rooms can be created for the group’s discussions and, at the end, all participants can get together again in the main room to share their views with the remaining groups.
Learning outcomes
• Defining key concepts related to positive psychology, namely: psychology, positive psychology, positive thinking and emotions.
• Describing the fundamentals of psychology and positive thinking.
• Promoting the discussion about positive emotions and their effect on people.
• Listing benefits of positive thinking at the workplace.
Case study
Source:https://shorturl.at/aoK35
The Holi app
Purpose
The purpose of this case study is to introduce a tool that can support participants in achieving a better well-being state. This case study presents a mobile app for evidence-based well-being and mental health management through clinically-validated coping methods. The app delivers customised journeys based on physiological and behavioural patterns, covering the several aspects of health and providing data-driven actionable insights. Among the features of this app are burnout risk assessment and alert of harmful levels.
Number of participants and duration
You can work with up to 16 participants.
This exercise takes approximately 45 minutes.
Description for the participants
“Let me tell you about a case study of a digital health tool that can help you manage your mental health in a holistic way. It is called Holi and it is a mobile app that offers you evidence-based well-being and mental health management through clinically validated coping methods. You can use it to track your mood, set goals, journal your thoughts, learn psychology techniques, assess your burnout and well-being levels, and get performance, achievements, and well-being analytics.”
(Take the participants through the Case Study, either ask them to go over the information on the platform by themselves, in pairs or share the material yourself. After that, lead a discussion with the whole group, or divide the group into smaller teams and let them discuss.)
“Holi was designed for companies that want to improve their employees’ happiness, strengthen their cultures, increase their productivity, reduce their medical leaves and get valuable metrics.”
“I hope this case study has sparked your interest in Holi and how it can benefit you and your organisation. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to share them with me.”
Recommended training methods
The coach can pose the following questions to the participants:
• Where do you think you can use this application?
• What is useful about this application?
• What can be the benefits of using this application?
After the lecture, the coach can pair the participants and ask them to search other similar apps that can contribute for well-being – in general or specifically oriented for professionals.
After the group work, each pair can select the app they consider the best and present it to the remaining participants.
Learning outcomes
• Identifying apps that contribute to the well-being of individuals.
• Setting and tracking personal goals related to mental health and well-being.
• Applying the knowledge and skills learned from the apps to daily life situations to prevent burnout.
Good Practice
Source:https://shorturl.at/hjnGM
The Happiness Manager
Purpose
The purpose of this good practice is to explain the importance of having a Happiness Manager in an organisation, and the role that this figure plays.
The overall goal of a Happiness Manager is to ensure that employees feel heard, understood, and valued within an organisation, leading to their increased commitment and productivity.
Number of participants and duration.
You can work with up to 16 participants.
This exercise can take approximately 45 minutes.
Description for the participants
“Would you like to work in a company that provides a happiness manager? Yes, you heard me right, a happiness manager! This is a real job title and it belongs to someone who works at Aubay, a multinational technology consulting and information systems integration company in Portugal. Aubay was one of the first companies in Portugal to hire a happiness manager in 2017. This professional goal is to develop a healthy environment that allows employees to feel truly happy in the workplace.
But what does a happiness manager do? Well, they have many tasks, such as:
• Increasing the happiness index at work: They measure and improve how happy the employees are with their work and their colleagues.
• Ensuring that the company’s values are practised: They make sure that the company’s mission, vision and culture are aligned with the employees’ expectations and needs.
• Implementing internal and external communication strategies: They communicate with the employees and the clients about the company’s achievements, challenges and opportunities.
• Fostering a balanced and positive work environment: They create the necessary conditions for employees to feel heard, understood and valued within the company, thus avoiding their discontent.
• Being a messenger, facilitator and mediator between employers and their employees: They are the personification of the human dimension of a company, with whom the employees can dialogue.
The happiness manager also implements some actions to boost the well-being and performance of the employees, such as:
• Talent management: They identify, develop and retain the best talent in the company.
• Active listening offices: They provide a space where employees can share their feedback, suggestions and concerns with the happiness manager or other colleagues.
• Mindfulness techniques: They offer sessions where employees can practise meditation, relaxation and stress management techniques.
• Free continuous training: They organise courses and workshops where employees can learn new skills or improve their existing ones.
• Conferences: They invite speakers from different fields and backgrounds to share their insights and experiences with the employees.
• Support to expatriates: They help employees who relocate to another country for work-related reasons with their integration and adaptation process.
• Teleworking: They allow employees to work remotely from home or other locations when possible and convenient.
• Sports activities: They encourage employees to participate in physical activities such as yoga, running or cycling.
As you can see, a happiness manager has a very important role in a company. They help to create a happy and productive workforce that benefits everyone involved. I hope this good practice has inspired you to think about how you can improve your own happiness at work. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to share them with me.”
Next, we provide you some tips to help you increase happiness in your workplace .
Recommended training methods
Before the lecture, the coach must conduct a brainstorming, by asking participants: “What do you think are the tasks of a Happiness Manager inside an organisation?” This way, participants engage in the session and get motivated to learn more about it.
To finish the session, the coach can ask participants about the main aspects that a Happiness Manager would have to focus on if that position existed in the organisations they work for.
Learning outcomes
• Describing the role and responsibilities of a happiness manager in an organization.
• Reflecting on the impact of employees’ contentment on employees’ performance.
• Evaluating priority intervention areas to improve employees’ happiness and performance.
Interview
Source:https://shorturl.at/ciwyY
Purpose
The purpose of this interview is to explain and exemplify the challenges that some professionals faced during COVID-19 and still face every day during remote work, and how they overcome these challenges, also using positive thinking.
Number of participants and duration.
You can work with 16 participants.
This exercise can take approximately 45 minutes.
Description for the participants
“Welcome to this roleplay activity where you will practise your interview skills. This is a creative exercise where you will pretend to be an interviewer or an interviewee and ask and answer questions related to Psychology, Positive psychology, Positive thinking, Emotions.
First, you will prepare your own script for the interview, anything that is interesting to you about the topic. Then I will divide you into pairs. You will take turns in being an interviewer and an interviewee.
You will lead an interview with each other and act as if you were in a real interview situation.”
(Let the participants prepare their scripts and assign pairs.)
“You can now start the roleplay. Interviewers, please read the questions aloud, one by one, and give time for the interviewees to answer. Interviewees, please read the answers aloud and try to sound confident and professional. Take your time and immerse yourself in the interview scenario. Then change your roles.”
(Let the participants play roles.)
“This activity gave you valuable insights into the dynamics of an interview process. Now, let’s come back to the whole group and discuss what you learned.”
(Ask questions to the participants like the ones used in the interview. Some possible questions are:
• How did you feel during the roleplay? Were you nervous or relaxed?
• What did you learn from playing the role of an interviewer or an interviewee?
• What were some of the challenges or difficulties that you faced during the roleplay?
• How did you handle them?
• What were some of the best practices or tips that you used or observed during the roleplay?
• How can you apply what you learned from this activity to your own interviews in the future?)
(After the discussion, share with the participants the interview with Filipa Simões, the training coordinator @ Inforpreparação, Portugal. Ask the participants to read it by themselves on the platform, or ask for two volunteers to read it aloud for the whole group, one being the interviewer and the other being Filipa. Ask the whole group for any insights, applicability, inspirations.)
Recommended training methods
Learning outcomes
• Identifying challenges of remote training.
• Describing strategies for maintaining motivation and positive thinking during remote training or working.
• Recognising the importance of trainers/professionals using positive language to keep positive thinking of trainees/colleagues.
Activity
Source:https://shorturl.at/bsEFR
Keeping a positive attitude
Purpose
The purpose of this activity is to help individuals recognise the challenges that they go through during life, think of strategies how to overcome them, and learn how to put these strategies into practice so that they can be effective.
Number of participants and duration
You can work with up to 16 participants.
This exercise can take approximately 90 minutes.
Description for the participants
“At first you will be doing some self-reflection. You will try to identify and reflect on the challenges in your life. Let me take you through a process that can help you do this.” (Share with the participants the Guide for Team management to give them some help. Provide them with enough time, app. 10 – 15 minutes to think about their life. Ask them to write these challenges down on a sheet of paper.)
Now try to find alternative ways of dealing with the challenges in your life. (Share with the participants the Guide for Team management. Let them engage in self-reflection for approximately 10 minutes. Then ask them to form pairs with other participants (use breakout-rooms for online version) and let them discuss, help and inspire each other through peer coaching. Leave them enough time for this, at least 20 minutes.)
“And now, finally prepare your own plan of action that will help you put into practice new ways of facing challenges. Please, be specific.” (Share with the participants Guide for Team management. Introduce to the participants the method of action planning and give them about 10 minutes for creating their own action plan. You can ask them to share it with others if they feel up to it.)
Recommended training methods
After all participants have finished the three steps, the coach can ask participants to voluntarily share their findings, highlighting the strategies to overcome challenges.
Learning outcomes
• Identifying and reflecting on the challenges in life.
• Recognising personal strengths that can be used to overcome challenges.
• Finding different ways of dealing with the challenges in life.
• Committing to an attitude towards challenges focused on solving them.
Assessment
Source:https://shorturl.at/bkuC6
Quiz
Purpose
The purpose of the Assessment is to evaluate to which extent participants learned about Psychology and positive thinking during the exploration of the resources of this area.
Number of participants and duration
You can work with up to 16 participants.
This exercise can take approximately 90 minutes.
Description for the participants
“Welcome to this individual self-assessment where you will test your knowledge.”
(Ask participants to go to the platform and find the assessment for area 1, or share the assessment questions with the participants through your computer .
“Carefully read each question/exercise and answer/complete it accordingly and correctly. Do not worry if you are not sure about an answer. Just pick the answer that seems the most plausible to you.
You can take as much time as you need for this assessment. There is no time limit. When you are done, please submit your answers and check the results.
Good luck!”
Recommended training methods
After all participants answer the self-assessment, the coach can read each question aloud and ask specific participants to say their answers and explain why they gave those answers.
Previously to the discussion, as an option, the coach can ask participants to pair and check with each other if they gave the same answers to the questions, to promote reflection about them.
Learning outcomes
• Identifying how to adopt positive thinking in daily work-life.
• Explaining the importance of positive thinking at work.
• Assessing own level of level of competences regarding positive thinking.
Additional resources
In this video, Martin Seligman talks about psychology – as a field of study and as it works one-on-one with each patient and each practitioner. As it moves beyond a focus on disease, what can modern psychology help us to become?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FBxfd7DL3E
Csikszentmihalyi describes how he became interested in “a life worth living” during his childhood experience of the Second World War and how it triggered his life-long fascination with happiness.
www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_flow_the_secret_to_happiness
In this video, Lea Waters makes a strong argument for why we need to hear more positive news and shares how delving into the good side of human nature helped her struggle with depression.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=80U__KwX0iU&t=1s
In this video, Schwartz suggests that the secret to happiness is living with lower expectations.
www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choice
Nic is the director of the New Economics Foundation’s Centre of Well-being. He’s contributed vast amounts to the Happy Planet Index – the world’s first sustainable wellbeing measure and authored The Happiness Manifesto about the blinkered pursuit of economic growth.
www.ted.com/talks/nic_marks_the_happy_planet_index
15 favourite positive psychology TED talks to inspire you about key themes, from how we measure happiness to why our questions matter.
www.positivepsychology.com/positive-psychology-ted-talks/
