Mental Health

00:00:00: Bern said that people need recognition, just like they need food.

00:00:05: A stroke is any unit of recognition a thank you... ...a question.. ..a genuine look and people who get too few positive strokes will in a way take negative ones rather than none.

00:00:20: So honest specific recognition is not a soft extra it as basic psychological nutrient and it costs you nearly nothing.

00:01:07: on link it in posts.

00:01:12: But when I ask leaders at my workshops what exactly is mental health, well you usually get a short silence and then perhaps somebody says something like... Well does that mean perhaps someone has not burned out?

00:01:26: That's the start but let us dive deeper!

00:01:30: So today i want to do three things.

00:01:32: first explain what Mental Health really means based on research.

00:01:37: Second, look at it through three lenses that I work with every day as a coach.

00:01:42: Transactual analysis, systemic thinking and the so-called hypno-hypno-systemic approach.

00:01:49: And third i will give you concrete things You can do as leader or as team member starting next Monday.

00:01:57: So one thing up front It is not about diagnosing anybody!

00:02:03: If your are a leader ,you're a team member not the psychiatrist and nobody on your team needs a label from you.

00:02:10: What you need is clear picture, good language... ...and few tools!

00:02:16: Let me start with this small scene.

00:02:18: Picture a mid-sized company around six hundred people.

00:02:21: There's a Team Lead.

00:02:23: let call her Anna.

00:02:25: Anna is known to be reliable smart always available.

00:02:30: Her team loves her.

00:02:32: Her boss loves her even more because whenever there's a problem Anna takes care of it.

00:02:38: In her annual review, Anna says she is fine no complaints!

00:02:43: Her sick days zero...her results excellent.

00:02:48: and yet if you look closely ...a few things have changed.

00:02:53: She doesn't laugh as much before in meetings..she used to have ideas.

00:02:58: now she mainly has tasks.

00:03:01: When somebody asks her on Friday what she's planning for the weekend, and says well sleep I think.

00:03:08: Is anamentally ill?

00:03:10: Probably not!

00:03:12: is Anamentally healthy?

00:03:15: That's exactly the question for today.

00:03:38: Let start with a definition.

00:03:40: The World Health Organization describes mental health as A state of Well-being in which people can cope With the normal stresses Of life realize their abilities, learn and work well... ...and contribute to that community.

00:04:00: So notice which words are in there?

00:04:03: Coping, growing working contributing!

00:04:08: And notice what was not in there.

00:04:11: There were no diagnosis.

00:04:14: The American sociologist Corey Keyes made this even clearer with his dual-continua model.

00:04:23: For a long time, we pictured mental health as one line healthy on One end ill.

00:04:31: On the other hand keys showed that there are actually two lines.

00:04:36: One line goes from Mental illness to no mental illness.

00:04:40: The other goes from what he's called languishing To flourishing.

00:04:45: Flourishing means you feel good about life You have meaning Good relationships and A sense of growth.

00:04:54: Languishing is the opposite.

00:04:56: Not ill, not in crisis but somehow flat empty running on autopilot.

00:05:03: and In his first large study with American adults keys found that only a minority were truly flourishing while a sizable group was languishing And the biggest group who's somewhere in the middle just about okay?

00:05:19: And here's the part that should make every leader sit up.

00:05:22: In later research, Key and his colleagues found that people whose positive mental health went down over the years had a clearly higher risk of developing a true mental illness.

00:05:37: So languishing is not a harmless grey zone.

00:05:41: it's often an early phase.

00:05:44: Remember Anna?

00:05:46: Anna isn't ill but she may well be languishing.

00:05:51: And that's exactly the moment when a leader can still make big difference long before anybody needs a doctor.

00:05:58: Let me explain this with simple picture, A battery.

00:06:01: Everyone of us has mental batteries.

00:06:04: Work can drain it With pressure Conflict Uncertainty Or constant interruptions like our iPhones And work Can charge It!

00:06:14: With meaning Recognition Good colleagues and feeling making progress.

00:06:21: Organisational psychologists describe the same thing in more scientific words.

00:06:26: The job demands resources model by Arnold Becker says roughly, Demands drain energy.

00:06:36: Resources give energy.

00:06:39: When demand stay high for a very long time and resources are low people burn out.

00:06:45: when resources are high People can handle it and they even become more engaged.

00:06:52: And one important point is about charging the battery.

00:06:56: A meta-analysis by Jan Wente in Andrea Luhmann Hesler, two scientists from Germany looked at more than eighty studies with over thirty eight thousand employees.

00:07:09: The question was what happens when people mentally switch off form work on their free time?

00:07:16: Researchers call it psychological detachment.

00:07:20: The result?

00:07:22: People who could switch off were clearly less exhausted and more satisfied with their lives, And what made switching of hard high job demands?

00:07:32: so recovery is not just a private matter.

00:07:35: it starts With work.

00:07:37: now you might say okay interesting but Is this really my job?

00:07:42: let me give you two reasons why it is.

00:07:45: the first reason is economic.

00:07:48: According to the WHO, so the World Health Organization around twelve billion working days are lost every year worldwide because of depression and anxiety.

00:08:03: That's about one trillion US dollars in lost productivity.

00:08:09: Unimaginable I think!

00:08:12: The second reason is about you personally.

00:08:15: A large meter analysis by Diana Montano and colleagues from the two thousand seventeen looked at how leadership relates to employees mental health.

00:08:24: The pattern is quite clear constructive leadership goes together with better mental health in the team.

00:08:31: destructive leadership like unfair treatment, humiliation or unpredictable behavior go's together with worse mental health.

00:08:41: In other words, you are part of your team's working conditions whether you like it or not.

00:08:48: You're either a charger... ...or a drain!

00:09:10: And the World Health Organization draws a clear conclusion in its guidelines on mental health at work.

00:09:17: It recommends starting with the organization Consider workload Flexibility Fair treatment and it recommends training managers to recognise distress and respond with good listening, opening communication.

00:09:36: Not to diagnose – it's about noticing and responding!

00:09:42: So how can we understand what is going on inside people like Anna in our case?

00:09:48: Let me use three lenses from coaching and psychology as I already mentioned.

00:09:54: The first lens is Transactional Analysis developed by Eric Byrne.

00:09:58: A concept I find extremely helpful at work is the idea of drivers.

00:10:05: The psychologist Thayy B. Karla described five inner messages that many of us have learned in early life, be perfect please others.

00:10:16: hurry up try hard and Be strong.

00:10:21: well these drivers per se are not bad.

00:10:24: they often made as being who we aren't becoming who we are and make us successful, at least parts of these.

00:10:30: But be strong probably helped Anna become a great team lead but at the same time under stress it becomes rigid.

00:10:40: because then Be Strong means never ask for help Never show that its too much!

00:10:47: BE PERFECT means nothing is ever good enough so the work actually never ends.

00:10:53: And can you see How that drains the battery?

00:10:57: Quietly, day after day.

00:11:01: In transactional analysis... ...the antidote to a driver is so-called permission and inner permission.

00:11:08: we have to give it ourselves For be strong of the permission you can open about your needs for Be perfect!

00:11:17: The antidote would be You're good enough as are And as a leader, you can give these permissions not as a therapy session but in ordinary sentences.

00:11:28: For example for this draft eighty percent is perfect Anna or I'd rather hear early when it's getting too much.

00:11:35: let me know that's professional That's Not Weak.

00:11:40: Another concept from transactual analysis Is the stroke concept.

00:11:45: Eric Byrne The founder of Transactual Analysis Byrnes said Let people need recognition just like they need food.

00:11:54: A stroke is any unit of recognition – a thank you, question or genuine look.

00:12:01: and people who get too few positive strokes will in a way take negative ones rather than none.

00:12:08: so honest specific recognition isn't soft extra.

00:12:14: it's basic psychological nutrient and costs nearly nothing.

00:12:21: The second lens is systemic thinking.

00:12:24: The core idea of systemic thinking, it's simple and powerful.

00:12:28: Behaviour... ...of somebody always makes sense in its very context.

00:12:34: So when someone is exhausted the systemic question isn't what's wrong with this person?

00:12:40: The question rather What in system?

00:12:43: make excelsion a logical result.

00:12:48: Look at Anna again.

00:12:49: She's always available.

00:12:50: Why?

00:12:51: Maybe because the system rewards her exactly that, her boss praises for solving every problem.

00:12:58: Her team has learned Anna will catch everything!

00:13:02: So the whole system is organised around Anna's Be Strong Driver and she paints the prize.

00:13:10: Systemic coaching uses questions to make such patterns visible – like circular.

00:13:18: What would your team do differently if you were not available on Friday afternoons, Anna?

00:13:24: Or... Anna.

00:13:26: Who'd notice first that he took a real break and how they react?

00:13:32: You know with these questions I don't blame anybody And Anna wouldn't If she just considers and answers them.

00:13:37: They show the pattern.

00:13:39: Once it's visible you can change context.

00:13:43: It is always about not changing person.

00:13:47: The third lens I would like to invite you into looking through is the hypnosis-temic approach developed by the German psychiatrist and therapist Gunther Schmidt.

00:13:59: One of his central ideas, that our experience strongly depends on where we direct our attention.

00:14:07: He talks about problem trance and solution trance.

00:14:13: Let me make it a bit clearer.

00:14:15: Problem-trans, is that state we all know?

00:14:18: You think about the difficult project.

00:14:21: Your shoulders go up your breathing gets shallow and suddenly everything feels heavy.

00:14:27: you haven't changed anything about a project... ...you've just focused your attention in a certain way And your body followed automatically.

00:14:36: The good news is that attention can be guided not with positive thinking but with good questions.

00:14:43: for example When was the last time this project felt a bit easier?

00:14:48: What was different then?

00:14:49: or you can work with scaling on a scale from one to ten.

00:14:53: How full is your battery today?

00:14:55: and then The important follow-up would be what would make the Scale One point higher.

00:15:02: It's not about reaching ten it's but one single point.

00:15:06: by This mentally he creates something that I would call a difference.

00:15:12: so Schmidt also stresses that inner resistance and ambivalence are not enemies.

00:15:18: You know, when part of Anna perhaps wants to slow down… And there's another part in Anna who says I can't let my team down!

00:15:27: Both parts have a good reason – A good leader doesn't argue with one part.

00:15:31: they acknowledge both.

00:15:33: Like she could say …I see how much you care about your team want you to be able do this job for the next ten years, so also mind yourself.

00:15:46: Take care of yourselves and that's not egoistic!

00:15:50: That is superhuman.

00:16:13: So let me bring these together into five concrete things YOU can do.

00:16:18: Number one Track your batteries Not the diagnosis In your once-to-ones or your one on ones with team members.

00:16:27: ask a scaling question How follows your battery from one to ten?

00:16:30: and then what would make it at point higher?

00:16:33: And, What can I do

00:16:34: help?".

00:16:35: It's simple.

00:16:37: It is respectful... ...and doesn't push anybody into a label.

00:16:42: My second tip No people normal.

00:16:47: So regular conversations helps you know whats normal for each person in the team.

00:16:52: Then you notice real changes like Anna missing laughter instead of guessing.

00:17:01: Number three, give permissions yourself and to others.

00:17:06: Listen for drivers in your team.

00:17:08: And in yourselves Say the sentences that release pressure like good enough is good enough here or It's okay to say no To this meeting now.

00:17:22: asking for help is part of the job.

00:17:25: number four Protect an inshore recovery.

00:17:29: if you send emails At eleven at night, your team learns that switching off is not really allowed.

00:17:36: So agree on clear rules for availability and follow them through yourself!

00:17:43: People can only charge their battery if they're allowed to unplug.

00:17:48: And finally number five know the limits of your role.

00:17:52: If you notice someone who's struggling a longer time don't try be therapist show care Stay in contact and point clearly to professional support like a company Support perhaps with the works council.

00:18:09: Perhaps within external coach.

00:18:11: That's not passing on responsibility that's taking it seriously.

00:18:17: Let's go back to Anna one last time.

00:18:19: What would help her?

00:18:21: Probably, Not another webinar on stress management.

00:18:25: what would help is a boss who notices The change and asks, how far does your battery Anna?

00:18:33: A boss who says you don't have to catch everything.

00:18:36: Let's look at what the team can cover And take time out for yourself!

00:18:42: Maybe a team that learns to solve some problems without Anna.

00:18:48: That is not only good for Anna It´s good For whole system.

00:18:53: So let me sum up this episode Mental health.

00:18:57: more than not being ill, it's about coping growing and contributing.

00:19:04: Between ill and flourishing there is a big quiet zone called languishing And that where leaders can make the biggest difference Our inner drivers The systems so organizations or teams we work in as chargers or as drains.

00:19:32: No, that's it for today!

00:19:33: Thanks for listening.

00:19:34: I'm Kai Kochmann looking forward to having you back here on my podcast.