Apparently, it takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds to refocus after an interruption. At least, that’s the rule according to wellbeing programmes, slide decks I’ve seen, the occasional HR newsletter and, perhaps, presentations you’ve sat through yourself. Fast Company ran the 23 minute version in 2013. The Washington Post covered…
What happens to decisions under sustained stress?
I was working with a group of Public Information Managers recently who are in the emergency response space, What a great group of people from across the Canterbury region, and across a range of organisations. Completely dedicated to their work. In brief, I was talking about how cognitive performance degrades…
Mental Health First Aid is not a psychosocial risk strategy
Training mental health first aiders might tick a box intended to sit in a different column, but will not change workload, rosters, communication, role clarity, management styles, leadership, or other factors that we might roll into psychosocial risk. ‘Number of people who attended MHFA’, or ‘20% completed, 35% scheduled within…
The difference between a speak-up channel and a speak-up climate
Having a speak up channel is important organisational infrastructure. It’s different from the organisational climate, which is what people feel when they consider using it. I’d posit that many organisations have a channel, but most have never measured either. Infrastructure, like a physical structure, is easy to point to. We…
When your policies and practice don’t match
When your policies and practice don’t match, or when what you say doesn’t align with what you do. I wrote the other day about Psychological Safety, following the FMA media pieces. Here’s the thing. If I ask you, as an organisation, to show your commitment to a healthy, psychologically safe…
The regulator that reviewed everyone else’s culture
New Zealand’s Financial Markets Authority exists to hold financial firms to account for their conduct and culture. In 2018 it co-wrote, with the Reserve Bank, the reviews that told our banks and life insurers their cultures needed work. Right now its own board is urgently assessing cultural concerns raised by…
How to manage the problem of The Daily Grind
I love coffee. And I love research into stress. I also love wordplay. ‘The daily grind’ ticks all those boxes. I’ve been around the wellbeing space long enough to hear various perspectives on what’s ‘normal’. What ‘really’ constitutes stress. What should or shouldn’t affect people. There’s a comforting story that…
Two wrong things people mean by ‘Psychological Safety’
Psychological Safety has become one of those phrases that is being used constantly but seemingly understood loosely. (I write this from Aotearoa New Zealand, but see it in social media content from across the world.) Since I started training and working with it as a concept prior to Covid I’ve…
The tired brain that thinks it’s “fine”
There’s a certain kind of person you’ll recognise in organisations under pressure. It may or may not be you. They’re often there first and last to leave, they’ve stopped taking decent breaks, and they’re running on adrenaline, coffee, energy drinks and the occasional sugary snack. And if you suggest they…
Power, psychological safety, and pulling the cord
Workplace power dynamics directly affect Psychological Safety, for both good and bad.