Developing Better Stronger Healthier
Beyond Just Wishful Thinking or Another New Program!
By: John R. Robertson.
ICISF Approved Instructor and Member
Have you ever noticed how many times, programs and training frequently end with the ‘now what?” question? Basically, we get training in this area and then are informed that there is more training we should get in that area of the 1st training.
When it comes to Developing Better Stronger Healthier, Beyond Just Wishful Thinking or another new Program, you know that it requires leadership support and buy-in. The bottom line is there needs to be some ROI or at least a process to implement which can be seen, tracked, and measured. Obviously, lots of us love to do events, conferences, or perhaps it is being the one speaking, or training. Either way, the key question is always, “what about the change? What about the difference?”
Basically, if it was selling autos, we would say it feels like we are constantly being upsold!
In a tragic irony, the process is actually quite normal, in fact to use part of the expression ‘it is normal people doing normal things in an abnormal educational context’
There are 3 things that I consistently notice with this programmatic approach to building peer support and wellness in the workplace.
- The event is never the real crisis
- How leadership handles the change/crisis/storm tilts the workplace and workforce towards healthy or unhealthy. It will never leave it neutral.
- Lastly, the wrong person doing an intervention, providing support, can frequently be worse than the event? Whether he or she is an internal peer or external MH person is secondary as the ripple from this wrong person will challenge ‘getting back to a new norm’ in ways that most leadership and peers had not thought of.
Bottom line there is no psychological health and safety, peer support, resilience [never mind thriving] if there is no social safety. This can happen with the trainer doing the training as well– they get the content but do not ‘get it’!
I was called into a situation where this very thing happened. The difference was that there were two people, one as the EAP MH and the other as the team member. It was a first responder culture, so they already had their own ethos when it came to being “FINE” or “GOOD”.
The brief overview of this tragic situation was a young emergency personnel had ended his shift and got to the parking lot and dropped. While their colleagues worked on the person, there was nothing that worked. The short version was this 30 something-year-old had an aneurysm and died. He had a two-month-old baby at home. Added to that, one of their colleagues had been killed in a home mechanics shop tragedy 2 days earlier.
I received a phone call from the EAP to ask if I would be willing to go on site and address some of the fall-out. It was rippling into other areas, including the support staff, and things had escalated.
I arrived on scene, was escorted into the area where the first responders work. I was greeted at the door by the most senior rank officer and greeted with the words, [corrected for G-rating] “what the heck do you think you are doing here? We do not need anyone else from the stupid EAP or internal experts.”
I call it the hot water-tea bag principle as values always leak out in hot water [like a tea bag]. Tragically leadership and organizations spend thousands on training, courses, and other great things however what will leak out in hot water is not getting resolved. If there is a desire to grow a workplace where people want to work, and the kind peer support leadership people trust and respect then it is an inside out approach to allow it to thrive.
To be better, stronger, healthier!
4 assets must be in play, with their respective facets requires a rethink of the traditional reactive, whack-a-mole approach of supporting persons into a developmental, or intentional, approach.
- First Asset is a strong core. This asset has five facets. First, leadership must have the physical health to be able to follow it through. Leadership must have the emotional well being to be able to address these concerns. The third facet is trust, trust for one another, trust for the leadership, trust for the organization, trust for the plan. Another facet is ensuring that the right people are in the right places and for the right reasons. And the final facet is a true ownership and buy-in to the values
- Second Asset is aligned motivation. This is the foundation to ensure that the plan works, not a series of checklists of to-dos, it has four facets. The first facet is the motivation – it must be pure, not about compliance, but about health, and well-being. It must be values-anchored, so it is about alignment, engagement, and respect. The next facet is the leadership must have a trust building communication style. The style that allows leaders to deal with difficult people to deal with conflict to invite, engage, and ensure compliance when it is needed. Another facet is collective accountability. This means expressions like not my job, I’m too busy, are not heard
- Third Asset is a targeted strategy. This is the fertile soil where growth happens. If this targeted strategy is not established, the new norm seldom results in being positive or healthy. The facets include a leadership who understands that normal people have normal reactions to abnormal situations. Leadership must understand that this is a reaction to a crisis or change and not a performance issue. Second facet is that leadership must provide tactical support. Another facet is leadership must work with other leadership and the team afterwards to address, heal, or follow through on some of the gaps that happened. And the final facet is leadership must model well-being. They must be willing to normalize their reactions to abnormal events. If these facets are not in place the 4th Asset will not happen
- The final Asset is defining a refinable new norm. One of the realities is beliefs, values, and a variety of other elements have been impacted through crisis/change. People may question their roles, people may be questioning the leadership, or what the real values are of the organization. People may be looking at leaving, new personnel required, or maybe some of the roles need to change for the organization to grow forward. The four facets involved in DRNN is first the new norm needs to be defined. This means leadership needs to meet to define and clarify what the new norm looks like; meet with others to clarify some of the things that have changed, what needs to be clarified to move forward in health. The second facet is there needs to be a launch plan. People need to be reminded that this plan is refinable but there has to be a sense of a plan. The third facet is the new plan must be faith focused, not fear focused. It has to have a positive orientation in its ethos around what leadership and the organization stands for. The final facet is leadership needs to be able to rally buy-in
Transforming the traditional crisis response, beyond just a CISM intervention, an EAP call, with some organizational personnel, so your organization, leadership and personnel thrive afterwards.
However, let me be crystal clear – this is not another layer of responsibilities, or even more “to do’s” on a leader’s already overcrowded plate.
I know that leadership holds the reins for many things, in fact they can result in steering a workplace completely off the trail and into a ditch. I am not pretending that this does not happen. However, look at the ever-increasing demands that are being added to leaders’ plates when it comes to the wellbeing of people.
Ask almost any leader ‘did you get into leadership to focus on these concerns for the wellbeing and workforce wellness, pressures for culture, recruitment/retention, and the obvious productivity?”
Workplace wellness is not a 1 size fits all, but it requires these 4 assets [and their facets] to come though crisis/change and thrive. it can never be a program, or training, that one does and it all works.
It requires a consistent effort in a steady direction to be
Better Stronger Healthier – Beyond Just Wishful Thinking or another new Program!
It requires the willingness to Run Toward the Roar to thrive!
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