What’s the big deal with Positive Psychology? Part Six

The last few weeks, I’ve been writing about Positive Psychology – a large contributing factor to our coaching practice here at LIV.

Today’s the last post of the series – Case Example.

I spoke briefly about a case example earlier, but let’s look at another incorporating the aspects of positive psychology we explored.

Ken (name changed), a team leader, came to LIV because he was uncertain how to help his team become better. He noted negative emotions, in fighting, and less than stellar team output. The team’s cohesion was poor.

Ken knew his team members were competing versus working together. There was a lack of team goals and rewards. Everything was individually based.

We co-created small steps to reframe the focus on team goals and rewards. At first, there was resistance because individual goals were always the way things were done.

Ken leaned into his values, he highly valued teamwork as he experienced best practices of teamwork at his previous job, and he used a coaching mindset.

“What would it be like if we worked together versus competing with each other?” Relief, fun, great, were some of the responses. (Positive emotions)

“How can we make that happen?” He focused on solutions. (Small changes)

“What are our strengths on the team?” He asked each member to highlight a strength of each of their teammates. (Strength based)

“How can we give and take each of these strengths?” (Give and take)

“Why is this important?” (Happiness and Purpose)

Sounds simple, right? It wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns. There were many discussions and tweaks with his team. Ken recognized and rewarded team successes consistently. Slowly but surely, with Ken’s small changes, the team’s behaviors shifted, which Ken also acknowledged and praised. Soon the team realized they were actually enjoying work and their team’s output greatly improved, which was recognized by Ken’s superiors. Ken shared the praise from his superiors with his team.

“We did it together.” Ken said to his team. All felt joy and pride.