This presentation covers the most pertinent research from the field of positive psychology related to both being successful and happy in the workplace. It highlights the positive organizational culture that LinkedIn embodies and offers ways for individuals to further elevate their daily work lives. It includes an overview of the field, summarizes meaningful research studies, and offers interventions that an individual can use in their daily working lives. Questions? Feedback? Please don't hesitate to reach out on LinkedIn!

1. The science of positive psychology
… and how it can be applied in your work life
Stephanie Harrison
Master of Applied Positive Psychology
University of Pennsylvania

2. Questions we will be exploring
What is
positive
psychology?
What can
positive
psychology
teach me about
thriving at
work?
What can I do
differently
today to help
me to thrive at
work?

3. What is happiness or well-being?
How is it defined and measured?
What does it mean to live a good life?
Can I improve my own well-being?
Can organizations and societies enable well-being?

4. 4
My Research Focus
Individual
cultivates
well-being
Organization
enables
well-being
Positive change in the world

5. 5
Individual
cultivates
well-being
Organization
enables
well-being

6. 6
One Theory of Well Being
P: Positive emotions
E: Engagement
R: Positive relationships
M: Meaning
A: Achievement
P
E
R
M
A
(Seligman, 2011)

7. 7
Individual
cultivates
well-being
Organization
enables
well-being

8. 8
Can organizations enable individual well-being?

9. 9
Let’s remember how lucky we are
Having a harsh boss is linked to heart problems in employees
Disengaged workers have 37% higher absenteeism, 49% more accidents, and 60% more errors and
defects
In organizations with low employee engagement scores, they experienced 18% lower productivity,
16% lower profitability, 37% lower job growth, and 65% lower share price over time.
Three quarters of the global workforce are not engaged at work
Workplace stress leads to an increase of almost 50% in voluntary turnover – and the turnover costs
associated with recruiting, training, lowered productivity, lost expertise, etc. are estimated to be 20% of
an employee’s salary

10. 10
• If you believe you have emotional support in the workplace, you are 2.4 times
more likely to live (over a 20 year period) than people who do not have
emotional support
• Impact of lack of social integration on health is as significant a risk factor as
smoking, excessive alcohol and lack of physical activity
(Shirom, Toker, Alkalay, Jacobsen and Balicer, 2011)
(Holt-Lupstad. Smith and Layton, 2010)

11. 11
What do positive organizations look like?
Positive
Organizations
Kindness
Trust
Respect
Inspiration

12. 12
Individual
cultivates
well-being
Organization
enables
well-being

13. 13

14. Success Happiness

15. SuccessHappiness

16. 16
What does the intersection look like?
More satisfied with their jobs
Greater autonomy
Better performance on
assigned and objective tasks
Likely to take on extra-role
tasks
Receive more social support
More invested and involved
in their jobs
Describe their jobs as
meaningful
Physically healthier
(Boehm & Lyubomirsky, 2008)

17. 17
What can you do to live at the intersection?
Positive organizational culture has six core characteristics:
• Caring for, being interested in, and maintaining responsibility for colleagues as friends.
#relationshipsmatter
• Providing support for one another, including offering kindness and compassion when
others are struggling. #compassionateleadership
• Avoiding blame and forgive mistakes. #consciousbusiness
• Inspiring one another at work. #demandexcellence
• Emphasizing the meaningfulness of the work. #economicgraph
• Treating one another with respect, gratitude, trust, and integrity. #integrity
Who is someone in your work life who embodies one of these characteristics?
How might you be this person for someone else?
(Cameron, Mora, Leutscher, & Calarco, 2011)

18. 18
How can you handle tough external situations at work?
Sense of meaning or purpose
Personal connection
Competence and autonomy
Impact
Self-
empowerment
Which one of these comes naturally to you?
What specific area might you focus on to further empower
yourself?
(Spreitzer, 1995)

19. Daily Interventions
19
Empower yourself through meaning or purpose
Sense of meaning or purpose
• Every night or every week, write down three things that went well and why they
happened. This exercise has been shown to increase positive emotion and sense of
meaning
• Consider your purpose, or mission in life. What unique strengths, values, passions and
talents do you offer to positively influence others and the world at large? Consider
these criteria below. Then, write your mission in 10 words or less.
• A purpose provides "an ultimate aim toward which one can make progress.“
• Your purpose is meaningful to you; in other words, you are the driving force behind your purpose, not your friends or
parents or teachers.
• Your purpose is also meaningful to others; it is different from other kinds of meaning in that it seeks to benefit not just
you but others as well.
(Seligman, 2011)

20. Daily Interventions
20
Empower yourself through meaning or purpose
• Stressed about something? Quick – find the nearest person who needs help and offer
it to them. Giving to others helps you to cope with your mental stress and boost your
positive emotions
• Be present in conversations with others. The mere presence of a cell phone in an
interaction can lessen the quality of an in-person conversation – even if you’re not
using it.
• Make time for your relationships, just as you would make time for exercise or for work.
Consider how you might make that time more valuable – such as by expressing
gratitude or appreciation, capitalizing on their good news, and hug each other a lot!
Personal connection
(Lyubomirsky, 2007)

21. Daily Interventions
21
Empower yourself through meaning or purpose
Competence and autonomy
• Choose, define and commit to your important goals. Keep them SMART: Specific,
Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time bound. Research has shown that when
major change is broken down into goals or sub-goals that are specific and difficult (but
still attainable), the highest results are achieved. In addition, you are more likely to
succeed if you publicly commit to goals (such as telling your manager or coworker that
you will do something).
• What are you absolutely best at? Find and uncover your signature strengths. In a
longitudinal study, strengths use was found to be an important predictor of well-being
and led to less stress and increased positive affect, vitality, and self-esteem at 3-month
and 6-month follow-up (Wood et al., 2011). You can take the “VIA Survey of Character
Strengths” here: https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/
(Locke, 1996)

22. Daily Interventions
22
Empower yourself through meaning or purpose
Competence and autonomy
(Peterson & Seligman, 2004)

23. Daily Interventions
23
Empower yourself through meaning or purpose
Impact
• Envision your future best self. Choose a period of time in the future and
imagine that at that point in time, you are expressing your best possible
self strongly. Imagine it in close detail. What will this look like at work? In
other domains of your life? Write down the details. Afterwards, you can
look at ways of starting to move towards this vision.
(Lyubomirsky, 2007)

24. 24
Back To Our Theory of Well Being
P: Positive emotions
E: Engagement
R: Positive relationships
M: Meaning
A: Achievement
P
E
R
M
A
(Seligman, 2011)

25. 25
Positive Emotions
• Negative emotions narrow our action urges and
positive emotions broaden them
• Positive emotions ---> broaden awareness --->
build resources --> some of the resources that
are built come back and yield/amplify positive
emotions
• What are some ways you might cultivate
positive emotion?
P
E
R
M
A
(Fredrickson, 2009)

26. 26
Engagement
• We create engagement when we are fully
present, mindful and creating opportunities for
flow
• Be present in the moment: mindfulness,
savoring, experiencing awe
• Lose yourself: use your signature strengths to
enter into flow
• When was the last time that you felt the
sensation of flow?
P
E
R
M
A
(Csikszentmihalyi, 2009)
(Brown & Ryan, 2003)
(Bryant et. al, 2005)

27. 27
Relationships
• Positive social connections, promoting social
integration and social support, have been
linked to positive health behaviors and positive
emotional states like feelings of belonging and
purpose.
• How do you currently build positive
relationships?
P
E
R
M
A
(Seligman, 2011)

28. 28
Meaning
• “The purpose of life is a life of purpose.” – Robert
Byrne
• It is possible to craft your job into a calling by
leveraging your strengths, values and goals
P
E
R
M
A
(Wrzesniewski, McCauley, Rozin, Schwartz, 1997)

29. 29
Achievement
• Many of us strive to better ourselves in some way,
whether we're seeking to master a skill, achieve a
valuable goal, or win in some competitive event
• Set goals that are challenging but achievable
• Savor your successes!
• Be compassionate towards yourself when you
experience setbacks through 1) self-kindness, 2)
sense of common humanity, and 3) mindfulness
P
E
R
M
A
(Seligman, 2011)
(Locke, 1996)
(Neff, 2011)

30. 30
Individual
cultivates
well-being
Organization
enables
well-being

31. People’s happiness depends on the happiness of others with whom they are connected.
In LinkedIn terms: Your happiness influences your third-degree connection’s happiness.
(Christakis & Fowler, 2008)

32. 32
Core messages of today’s presentation
• Your environment matters… but your own actions matter too
• Pursuing your own happiness is a smart career move, an act of service
to those around you, and a way to drive meaningful change within our
organization and the world
• Thriving at work is absolutely, positively possible!
Any other takeaways you’d like to share?