Managing Change Through Human Flourishing: The Importance of Employee Mindset

Change is inevitable. Mergers and acquisitions, technology, altered teams, additional competition, are among a multitude of factors that can inject change into your work.

As a business leader or an individual tasked with the objective of implementing change, how can you align your organization for success?

A promising practice for successful change at the organizational level could be through strong organizational health.

Organizational Health — the ability of your organization to align, execute, and renew itself faster than your competitors can. Healthy organizations get things done quicker, better, and with more impact than unhealthy ones. Organizations that learn, healthy organizations, are able to keep finding new sources of value and capturing them more quickly and effectively than their peers, creating the ultimate competitive advantage. The inverse, poor organizational health or unhealthy organizations, are characteristic of slow decision-making, lack of talent, weak performance ethic, poor morale, and confusion over roles and responsibilities. “The real problem was never in the process, system, or structure, it was in employee behaviour” (sourced from Beyond Performance: How Great Organizations Build Ultimate Competitive Advantage, 2011).

That said by Keller and Price, employee mindset is a variable you cannot afford to neglect. Peter Drucker was known to say “culture [a by-product of employee mindset] eats strategy for breakfast.” At the same time, as a proverb suggests, the best time to paint the roof is when the sun is shining, not when the monsoon comes.

Taken together, what can you do now to prepare your human capital (employee mindset) to be welcoming and adaptable towards soon-to-be [inevitable] change? The answer could lie in employee well-being. The image below shares the additional nature of employee well-being versus employee wellness (image sourced from Knoll, 2014). It is when employee well-being can be achieved, employees [and their mindsets] can go from surviving to flourishing.

When employees are flourishing, ‘me’ becomes ‘we’, challenges become opportunities, and isolation becomes collaboration.

Think to yourself, would having employees adjust their habits, work with new employees, or value new key performance indicators (all possible happenings associated with change) lean more towards success if employees scored higher than usual in the human flourishing questions shown below and sourced from Harvard University’s Dr. Tyler J. Vanderweele. It is the assumption of this article that human flourishing and employee mindset have a positive correlation.

Domain 1: Happiness and Life Satisfaction.
Overall, how satisfied are you with life as a whole these days? 0 = Not Satisfied at All, 10 = Completely Satisfied
In general, how happy or unhappy do you usually feel? 0 = Extremely Unhappy, 10 = Extremely Happy

Domain 2: Mental and Physical Health.
In general, how would you rate your physical health? 0 = Poor, 10 = Excellent
How would you rate your overall mental health? 0 = Poor, 10 = Excellent

Domain 3: Meaning and Purpose.
Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile? 0 = Not at All Worthwhile, 10 = Completely Worthwhile
I understand my purpose in life. 0 = Strongly Disagree, 10 = Strongly Agree

Domain 4: Character and Virtue.
I always act to promote good in all circumstances, even in difficult and challenging situations. 0 = Not True of Me, 10 = Completely True of Me
I am always able to give up some happiness now for greater happiness later. 0 = Not True of Me, 10 = Completely True of Me

Domain 5: Close Social Relationships.
I am content with my friendships and relationships. 0 = Strongly Disagree, 10 = Strongly Agree
My relationships are as satisfying as I would want them to be. 0 = Strongly Disagree, 10 = Strongly Agree

Domain 6: Financial and Material Stability.
How often do you worry about being able to meet normal monthly living expenses? 0 = Worry All of the Time, 10 = Do Not Ever Worry
How often do you worry about safety, food, or housing? 0 = Worry All of the Time, 10 = Do Not Ever Worry

As a business leader or an individual tasked with the objective of implementing change, who now understands the possible connection of human flourishing and your change management efforts, because of the correlation between human flourishing and employee mindset, you can implement the below practical actions.

- Provide the power of choice and autonomy
- Embrace a higher purpose (incorporate social good in the organization’s mission)
- Endorse transparency
- Provide opportunities for personal growth
- Make it easy for employees to connect with each other
- Promote a healthy lifestyle (i.e. wellness)
- Reduce work-life conflict
(Sourced from Knoll, 2014)

Then, when the change arrives, the below tips can help ensure that any additional stress placed upon employees due to change is mitigated and psychological health is not compromised.

- Celebrate or recognize the good work that was done under the old system
- For every change, create an honest, positive, accessible and compelling vision of the intended outcome
- Be specific about why and how the change will be implemented
- Openly discuss potential pros and cons of the proposed changes
- Link the change to previous, similar, positive changes
- Break the change up into small, incremental steps
(Sourced from Workplace Strategies for Mental Health, 2019)

Lastly, let’s also remember that your employees are not the only workplace stakeholders going through change, you are too. Therefore, controlling or managing your emotions is of utmost importance. The ability to control or manage your emotions manifests as emotional self-awareness. To develop emotional self-awareness in yourself, attend to your emotions by listening to your body (particularly physical sensations), and notice patterns of thought. Ask yourself:

- What is my breath like?
- How do my muscles feel?
- How does my face look?
- How am I expressing my voice?
- What am I thinking about?
- What actions do I feel drawn to take?
(Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, 2018)

That said, when employee mindsets have been cultivated through human flourishing practices and your emotions are kept in-check, employee understanding of change (through the open-mindedness and cooperation of an employee mindset) can be fulfilled so that the emotional engagement of employees is achieved.

(Image sourced from Advanced Workplace Associates Ltd., 2019)

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Nathan Kolar, www.reachworldwide.ca