Chapter 20
Bringing Positive Psychology to Organizational Psychology

SARAH LEWIS

In 2012, Burnes and Cooke questioned the relevance of organizational development (OD) and, by implication, much of organizational psychology, to organizations in the 21st century. In this chapter, I argue that expanding the field of organizational psychology to incorporate key aspects of positive psychology creates good grounds for suggesting that organizational psychology is still relevant to the big questions of organizations and the people within them.

To support my argument, I suggest that bringing positive psychology, with its emphasis on individual well-being as well as organizational flourishing, to the fore in organizational psychology may help us refute the accusation that OD is merely “a vehicle for managerialist co-optation” (Burnes & Cooke, 2012, p. 1416). I also suggest that it may help us rise to the challenge of addressing the big issues of human welfare through the medium of the working organization. In considering why OD may be under pressure and how positive psychology can help, I consider some of the current challenges experienced by organizations and identify how positive psychology, combined with the best of OD, offers a way forward relevant to these challenges.

Cheung-Judge and Holbeche suggest that “the main causes of change failure are usually found in the way the change process itself is managed” (2011, p. 199). In explaining the problems that change processes can cause, they make reference to the “scar tissue” that organizations can develop after repeated organizational change initiatives, becoming full of resentful, cynical, and disengaged survivors (Cheung-Judge & Holbeche, 2011). The cost of disengagement at work was calculated by Gallup to have been £64.7bn in the United Kingdom in 2008 (Cheung-Judge & Holbeche, 2011, p. 291), while failed change initiatives cost UK businesses £1.7bn (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2008). Organizational change is clearly an expensive business with no guarantee of success.

Appreciative inquiry (AI) is a whole-systems OD approach that works through the medium of conversation or dialogue to achieve system-wide motivation for positive change (Cooperrider & Whitney, 2001; Lewis, Passmore, & Cantore, 2007). It is often characterized as a strengths-based approach due to its focus on identifying the root causes of success from which, it is argued, further success can be built. This stands in contrast to most change approaches that focus on identifying the root causes of failure so they can be corrected or avoided. AI is a psychology-based approach that recognizes group diversity as a strength, emotional states as energizing, partial knowledge as a valuable contribution, dialogue as generative, and aspirations as motivating. It helps the group work together in a way that illuminates the roots of success, identifies areas of commonality, and creates shared aspirations for the future.

Seligman coined the term “positive psychology” in his inaugural address as president of the American Psychological Association in 1999. From the beginning, he suggested that it should be a field of study covering three areas: positive emotions, positive traits, and positive institutions (Seligman, 2003). Since then, interest in the field has grown, attracting scholars from related disciplines, including organizational psychology. It is to be hoped that the application of these approaches will reduce the amount of scar tissue created in organizations through change processes. In this chapter, I outline some of these challenges and consider what positive organizational psychology (POP) has to offer.

Positive Organizational Psychology

This section explores the relevance of positive psychology to some current organizational challenges.

The Challenge of Motivation and the Psychological State of Flow

Motivation is a recurring challenge in organizations, particularly during times of change and disruption. Deci and Ryan (1985) distinguished between self, or intrinsic, motivation and external, or extrinsic, motivation. People tend to find things that are intrinsically motivating more satisfying and therefore have less need for external monitoring or incentivizing to pursue them. In general terms, it is better, both from a personal and an organizational perspective, for people to work from a basis of self-motivation (see also Brown & Ryan, Chapter 9, this volume). Therefore, a challenge for organizations is to switch from providing external motivators to promoting internal motivation.

Csikszentmihalyi (2002) showed that people are likely to be self-motivated when they are in a “flow” state. They experience a flow state when they pitch their abilities against a challenge that interests them and the balance of skill and challenge is close to even. He discovered that people find the state of flow highly rewarding and will make considerable efforts to create opportunities to experience it. In this way it is self-motivating. People can experience flow states in their work as well as in leisure activities. It is an important possible source of motivation, one that draws energy, commitment, and investment out of people rather than trying to force it in. From this perspective, increasing workplace motivation is less about exhortation and incentives and more about creating inherently interesting and challenging work for people.

The Challenge of Performance and the Contribution of Strengths

Ensuring maximal individual contribution is a perennial organizational challenge. Positive psychology has identified personal strengths as a source of performance excellence from the very beginning (Seligman, 2003). The field has generated a lot of interest and there continues to be academic debate about the exact nature of strengths. In essence, strengths are a product of genes and experience that mean for each individual some abilities or human capacities are inherently easy and enjoyable to exercise. In this sense, they are distinct from skills (which may be well-honed but not actually enjoyable to use) and personality, which is a more holistic concept than strengths.

From an organizational perspective, strengths are key to productivity. Helping people identify and utilize their strengths can act both to increase production and to reduce cost (Stairs & Gilpin, 2010). There are various ways individuals and organizations can identify their unique and particular strengths (Lewis, 2012). For individuals they range from questions such as “What energizes me?” to sophisticated psychometric measures such as Strengthscope and Strengthsfinder. Appreciative inquiry offers organizations a strengths-based approach to organizational change and development that identifies strengths at the organizational level.

Several studies have shown that facilitating employee strengths produces benefits in terms of reduced turnover and increased productivity. Working with a hospital with a high turnover rate of 35%, Black (2001) showed that introducing a strengths-based development process that used structured talent inventory interviews and built teams using this data reduced turnover by 50%. In another study, Connelly (2002) found that strengths-based team interventions increased the per person productivity rates by up to 9%. Similar results have been reported by others (Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, 2002). These strengths-based interventions appear to have produced additional benefits. For example, in the Black (2001) study, it is noted that there was a positive and recordable impact on employee engagement over a 2-year period as the organization moved up the Gallup ratings on their measure of employee strengths from the bottom to the top quartile. Similar benefits of introducing strengths-based interventions were reported by Clifton and Harter (2003), who found improved employee engagement across 65 organizations, and by Ko and Donaldson (2011) who report benefits in terms of increased hope, subjective well-being, and self-efficacy.

The Challenge of Performance and the Benefits of Positivity

Positivity as a term is shorthand for the ratio of positive to negative emotions experienced in a particular situation. An increasing body of work suggests that a positive mood state aids performance in many different domains (Achor, 2011). Research suggests that a positivity ratio of 3:1 or higher is required for the benefits to become evident, either for individuals or for groups (Gottman, 1994; Losada & Heaphy, 2004). Recently, however, the statistical analysis on which this assertion is made has been questioned (Brown, Sokal, & Friedman, 2013), and the debate rages as to the status of the finding. Fortunately, there is other research that demonstrates that, when in positive mood states we are more likely to seek out others, be able to deal with complexity, grasp new concepts, and be innovative (Isen, 2005). It is also becoming increasingly evident that positive mood states positively affect well-being (Hefferon, 2013; Lewis, 2014). Feeling good, in other words, is good for us and in many contexts will also aid performance.

Organizational Resilience and the Benefits of Virtuous Behavior

Organizational resilience is a topic of increasing interest as organizations are buffeted by turbulent economic times. Some fascinating research undertaken by Gittell, Cameron, and Lim (2006) on the effects on the aircraft industry of the assault on the Twin Towers in New York in 2001, throws some interesting light on the relation between individual airlines' responses to the immediate negative impact on their cash flow and the speed of their financial recovery.

An immediate consequence of this tragedy was that all planes were grounded for a period after the event. A longer-term effect for the airlines was that even once flights were resumed, traffic dropped below the level necessary for profitability, from 97% occupancy to near 80%. They became unprofitable and their share price dropped. The airlines took immediate action, slashing staff numbers by 16% on average; cutting flights by 20% on average; and introducing new working practices.

However, there were variations within this overall action: One of the 10 airlines studied cut their staff by 24%, while two made no layoffs at all. Of those that did lay off staff, some did so with a distinct lack of good faith: They invoked “force majeure” or “act of god” exemption clauses that allowed them to make workers redundant without regard to any severance pay. They enthusiastically seized the opportunity to push through unpopular changes to working practice. Some airlines still laid people off but with an expressed reluctance, and they honored severance and layoff agreements, even though to do so caused them to make late payments to bond holders (i.e., clearly caused them financial pain).

At the other extreme, a few airlines chose to absorb the shock and the cost, at least in the short term, and worked to find other solutions to the challenge. As others cut their routes, these airlines benefited by maintaining a presence and indeed expanding their services. This was only possible because they took the counterintuitive decision to not lay off staff. One might think that the quickest recovery would accrue to the airlines that took the quickest and most draconian measures to return to profitability. However Gittell et al.'s (2006) analysis shows that the airlines that suffered the least damage to their share price, and whose share price recovered most quickly, were those that made every effort to keep their people despite hemorrhaging money. They also were the quickest to return to profitability.

The recovery of the stock price was significantly and negatively related to the extent of the layoffs at the time of the crisis, the strength of the relationship averaging R = –0.688 for the 4-year period of 2001–2004 where the closer R is to –1, the more heavily the stock price appears to be influenced by the extent of the layoffs. The researchers are clear that the mediating factor between response and recovery is the effect of the behavior on what they call relational reserves, by which they mean the goodwill of the company toward its owners. They note that “layoffs deplete relational reserves, and relational reserves allow firms to bounce back from crises, maintain desirable functions, and adjust positively to unexpected aberrations” (Gittell et al., 2006, p. 17). This research acts as a support to Cameron and Mora's research (2008) on flourishing organizations.

Cameron and Mora (2008) were interested to discover what distinguishes the best organizations (as in those that are a great place to work and doing well financially) from the rest. They found that the best organizations exhibit three key features. First, they demonstrate an affirmative bias, meaning they look for things to appreciate, praise, and affirm. Second, they demonstrate an unusual or exceptional interest in positive deviance, that is, in understanding why things sometimes turn out exceptionally well or exceptionally badly. And finally, they are exceptionally nice places to work because there is an abundance of virtuous practices. By this term, Cameron and Mora mean such things as helpfulness, patience, support, encouragement, forgiveness, and humility. Gittell and colleagues (2006) also identify the practices of the fastest recovering airlines as virtuous practices. They note that the way staff were treated seems to relate directly to how quickly the organization could “bounce back” from the setback of 9/11—in other words, how resilient they were.

The Challenge of Fast, Effective Local Decision Making and Relationships

As the world gets faster and faster, the advantages that accrue to organizations that can make quick, effective, low-level adjustment and readjustment to changing circumstances becomes more apparent. There is a growing interest in how the quality of connection and relationship makes a difference in organizational performance. Sometimes in organizations, people have long-term ongoing relationships with their colleagues. Sometimes they may only have to interact with someone very occasionally or even once. The quality of both of these types of interaction can make a difference. Baker and Dutton (2009) characterize high-quality connections as those that add value to organizations, suggesting that even short interactions can add to organizational capacity and capability by effectively solving problems or generating new ideas and creative energy in a very short time frame. Such interactions may be short but they are highly life-affirming and energizing, with both parties coming away infused with hope and possibility.

In addition, an organization may have some more durable positive energy networks. These are networks of people that create a mutually reinforcing experience of motivating and energized interactions. Typically there are some individuals who are particularly likely to be at the center of any such network. Positive individuals have the effect of giving almost everyone they meet a sense of lift. People come away from an interaction with them feeling better than when they arrived: more energized, generating ideas, or relieved of a burden. What has recently become apparent, particularly in more straitened times, is the value they add to organizations as magnets who draw together diverse groups of people who may not have a natural affinity for working together. Given that performance in organizations is increasingly about diversely talented individuals finding ways of cooperating to solve problems and generate new profitable initiatives, this is an invaluable organizational asset or talent that is not always recognized in its own right (Baker, Cross, & Wooton, 2003).

So what happens when you bring these elements together? What does positive organizational psychology look like in practice? The following two case examples illustrate POP and show how leaders make a difference. In the first example, the leader takes an appreciative inquiry–informed approach to rebuilding an organization devastated by tragic events, and the second looks at how hope and improvement can be built by focusing on what does work in situations of hopelessness. Be warned, the first case study contains some distressing information.

Childcare in New Jersey

In 2003, a child living in the city of Newark, New Jersey, in the United States, was found dead and stuffed in a trunk in a locked room in the basement of his aunt's home. In the same locked room, under a cot, his brother was found severely malnourished, traumatized, and just barely alive. Later that same year, five brothers from Collingswood, New Jersey, were found in a severely emaciated state. Early in 2004, Jim Davy stepped into the role of Commissioner for the New Jersey Department of Human Services. Shortly after assuming leadership of the department, Davy attended a meeting that the director of the Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS) had called with 40 of his district office managers. The director's purpose was to conduct an in-depth review of five cases identified as the most extreme examples of “horrendous” casework, including the Newark and Collingswood cases. For nearly 2 hours, the director stood before the 40 managers, who were seated in classroom-style rows, and “picked apart” each case. He exposed what the caseworkers, casework supervisors, and district office managers had done wrong. It was a brutal meeting—the director magnified every weakness, gap, problem, and deficit in the five cases. Davy sat and observed for the full 2 hours and felt drained just listening to the all of the negativity. At the end of his 2-hour case review, the director looked up at his audience and asked for suggestions about how to “fix things.” No one offered any suggestions. As Davy reflected on this meeting, he realized that everyone learned about the deficits and problems, but that there was not one iota of conversation about the kind of casework that there should be.

This is not an uncommon consequence of the standard “fix the problem” approach. Although clearly the situation needed to improve, such an exclusive concentration on what had gone wrong induced low mood states and raised defensive barriers. In a negative mood state, people are less likely to want to help others (or, in this case, offer suggestions to the director) or to be at their most creative. And as Davy observed, a lot might be learned about what went wrong in the past, but little is learned about what there is to build on to improve things.

Jim decided that a more appreciative approach might help with improving things in the future. He began visiting all of the local DYFS offices around the state. At each office he met with all of the DYFS workers and answered their questions about the child welfare reform planning effort that was underway. No topic was off limits. This is a good example of authentic and positive leadership, showing clearly that taking a positive approach is different from “positive thinking” where difficult things can't be discussed. Davy stayed for as long as it took to answer all their questions. In addition to the Q&A, Davy asked the people in the room to share with him a story about a time when they provided “wow” type case work—a time when they served a child and/or family in a significant, meaningful, and perhaps life-changing way. So while Davy was very willing to engage with uncertainty and concerns about plans for the future, he also created opportunities to talk about the good and about what was working. The stories began to flow like the bursting of a dam. Incredible stories emerged about unbelievable and courageous casework. Rowland and Higgs's (2008) research into successful change revealed the importance of leaders delivering the difficult messages while also creating a “magnetic pull” toward the future. This is the behavior we see demonstrated in this case study.

What Davy noticed immediately was a change in energy. Whereas the people in the director's meeting were exhausted and drained from his deficit-based case review, the caseworkers in Davy's meetings were energized by his “wow” question and electrified in sharing stories of successful case practice. He also found that the stories were often told by caseworkers about other caseworkers. Even in an environment characterized by tragedy and failure, people noticed and were affected by stories of overwhelming dedication, caring, promise, and positive impact.

One story was told by a colleague of caseworker named Evelyn. The coworker related how Evelyn, a petite 5-foot Latina, walked into a dangerous crack house to remove two boys, ages 2 and 3, for whom she had case responsibility. Evelyn had spent days searching for them after their aunt, who had been fostering them, died unexpectedly. Evelyn found them with a cousin who was living in a crack house in a crime-ridden part of the city. Without thinking about the danger to herself, and amid taunts and threats from the people inside, Evelyn went into the house, scooped up the two boys, and left. Davy turned to her upon hearing the story and said, “You must have been frightened out of your mind.” Evelyn responded: “Commissioner, I wasn't frightened; I was just doing my job.” Then she paused a moment and said, “No, it was not my job. It's my calling.” Almost without fail, appreciative inquiry positive-discovery processes produce powerful stories that have an immediate impact on the group dynamic, usually boosting motivation, morale, pride, and a sense of hope.

What Davy realized was that these child-welfare workers, who had been demonized by politicians, the press, and child-welfare advocates, were really people who cared deeply about the important work they performed on behalf of children and families. What appreciative inquiry enabled him to do was create a safe environment for the caseworkers to speak freely and openly about the incredibly demanding work they performed and to celebrate their success stories.

There were direct impacts from the appreciative leadership Davy demonstrated in DYFS. From the child-welfare meetings he convened and the stories he heard about highly successful casework, Davy began to note patterns in key elements that contributed to the successes. In this way, he was analyzing the root causes of success. He used those ideas in the system-reform process to inform the development of a new case practice model based on best practices and success. This story illustrates the use of an appreciative approach to solving a problem. By focusing on strengths, recognizing achievements, creating a positive environment, and picking up on stories of positive deviance, Jim Davy was able to transform a poor-performing organization into a strengths-based one (Davy & Weiss, 2011).

Farmers in Malwa, India

Another example, also illustrating the power of focusing on the positive exceptions to the norm (positive deviance), but this time on a community scale, is some work undertaken with the cotton farmers of the Malwa belt of the Punjab. Prior to 2003, the cotton yield in this area was extremely low. Suicide among farmers was increasing; businesses were becoming nonviable. There was a danger the farmers would shift to rice cultivation that would be environmentally depleting for the area. The incidence of cancer was rising due to heavy use of pesticides, and the social fabric of the area was under threat.

Whereas most experts were investigating the problem, Shri Paul Oswal, chairman of Vardhman Textiles, took a different approach. He asked about any farmers who, in the midst of mass crop failure, were still reporting decent yields; that is, he sought out examples of positive deviance, where people in the same situation as everyone else had found a way to be successful. He found a few success stories and used them to help reframe the situation from a “problem” situation into one of promise and possibility. Positive deviance is about seeking out, amplifying, and broadcasting stories of “people like you”—that is, not “experts”—who are achieving exceptional results. This can be very inspiring. In his attempt to improve the situation, he was always asking, “So what are we doing right and what can be done better?”

However, it is how the answers are heard, in what context, and by whom, that is at the heart of the change potential they contain. This is not about outside experts taking the stories, tidying them up, and presenting the findings. Rather, the stories need to be told by their owners. Oswal understood this and set up farmers' field schools in villages where his local role models shared their success stories, showing that profitable and sustainable cotton farming was possible. He also imparted scientific knowledge about crop growth and management. The power lies in the combination. Scientific knowledge alone can easily be dismissed as “won't work here.”

The stories from local people of how they engaged with this and received benefit helps create the link between the “knowledge” and the motivation to try something new. Oswal brought in many other local partnership agencies, such as local universities and schools. This is an example of actively connecting different areas of strength. It started with just one village and 121 farmers, and by 2008–2009, having touched 23,000 farmers in 251 villages, it had helped create economic and social stability in the area (Verma, 2011). This is an example of actively seeking out “what works” even in a “failing situation” and using local people with contextualized knowledge of what works to inspire others to believe in the possibility of success and to be motivated to make the changes to achieve it.

These case examples illustrate how positive psychology has great potential for organizations and communities. Positive psychology can be applied in both step-change and transformational ways.

Applying Positive Psychology to Organizations

Various organizations are applying positive psychology in a step-change way. For example, many individual leaders or managers within organizations have embraced the concepts of strengths and are working to improve their performance and appraisal processes by including best-self feedback and feed-forward interviews (Bouskila-Yam & Kluger, 2011) or strengths psychometrics (Brewerton & Brook, 2010). Some organizations are adopting a positive-based approach to audit and evaluation work (Dinsen, 2009; Van de Wetering, 2010). They are redesigning the process to incorporate a greater emphasis on identifying the current strengths of the process and the people as a basis for changes to improve performance. In addition, this process builds motivation to make changes and a commitment to excellence. In other places, managers are working to increase the positivity ratio in their organizations, making concerted efforts to identify, broadcast, and celebrate success. One example is adopting the practice of instituting “good news” rounds at the start of difficult meetings. Some people, however, are taking the possibilities even further. Although there are benefits to taking a step-change approach, it is the transformational potential that is really exciting.

Around 2005, the company leader of Cougar Automations in the United Kingdom, C. H., stumbled upon First Break All the Rules (Buckingham & Coffman, 2001), a book about strengths. He followed his nose introducing the book, ideas, and concepts into the organization and seeing where it took them. Five years on, the company was transformed. The amount of cost that can be taken out when people are working toward shared goals and playing to their strengths in a highly self-organizing way and in a high-trust environment is truly transforming. The boost to motivation and the high levels of trust mean that less management energy has to go into “getting work done” and many costly “checking” processes can be removed. Last time I heard the company leader talk about his organization, he explained how expenses claims were taken on trust and people worked together to set salaries for themselves and their managers from an understood central pot of money in any local office. Productivity and profitability have taken off exponentially.

A few principles have emerged through trial and error. Some key learning has been to recruit for strengths, attitude, and general ethos fit. Skills can be taught but attitude and strengths can't, and they make a huge difference. Another has been to give people the tools to be positive. For example, C. H. introduced the concept of “diamond feedback” to help managers feel comfortable giving positive feedback. These days, an understanding of strengths and positivity permeates all aspects of the organization's life.

Cougar Automation has transformed itself from a conventional organization where the owner-director was working himself into an early grave to one that almost runs itself—the cost base is much reduced and the profits much increased. It is a small company, only about 80 people. The big question is how transferable this experience is to larger organizations. One way to approach this challenge would be to make the mental shift from thinking of our organizations as a set of roles and responsibilities to understanding them as an economy of strengths (Cooperrider, 2008).

Organizations as Economies of Strengths

How would we organize ourselves differently if we understood the organization to be a place where the values lie in the strengths of individuals and how they were combined? How might we barter and bargain internally and externally to produce the most value? How can the modern phenomena of instant interconnectivity extend our individual resourcefulness by the factor of our network? A model of the organization as an economy of strengths may offer a better fit with the 21st century organizational context than that of the organizations as role-bound bureaucracies. Bringing organizational psychology and positive psychology together maybe a way to actively engage with these questions and to deliver the implied benefits. However, we need to be aware of the many dangers that exist between aspiration and application if we are to ensure a successful, fruitful liaison.

There is a danger at the heart of the promise of positive psychology, which is that doing more with less becomes getting more from less. Doing more with less is about people spending less time doing what they don't like doing and do badly and spending more time doing what they like doing and do well. It's about the natural incidental benefits that flow from people using their strengths, feeling engaged, and experiencing flow. It is about positive environments being more productive, with people taking less marginal sick leave and contributing value-adding citizen behaviors. In essence, doing more with less is about helping people use their strengths and creating positive environments. An organization that can offer both of these things is likely to be experienced as personally beneficial and empowering. Productivity is likely to improve as capability is enhanced and capacity increases, without additional headcount.

However, the moment this is framed as getting more from less, it starts to connect with a power-based management agenda that is less about empowerment of and benefit to the individual, and more about the power of and benefit to the shareholders. The distinction is subtle but highly significant and is easily and quickly detected by people as they try to make sense of organizational changes. When new initiatives are introduced into an organization, people try to make sense of why this is happening. If they believe that it is being done as a part of a “getting more from less of us” agenda, then the initiatives will be interpreted as exploitative not empowering. Such beliefs lead to first skepticism, then cynicism. And the growth of cynicism in an organization can undermine almost any improvement initiative.

Leadership and Ethics

Positive psychology interventions lie in an ethical and moral space. They are not “quick fix” tools that can be applied in any situation to get the same results. Their effectiveness is context-bound, history-influenced, and sense-making dependent. The quality of the human relations in an organization is at the heart of positive psychology practice. As we have seen, Cameron and colleagues (Cameron, Bright, & Caza, 2004) refer to relational reserves and social capital when considering why some organizations are more resilient to shocks, such as redundancies, than others. Similarly, his work on flourishing organizations highlighted the importance of virtuous practices to productive organizational behavior (Cameron & Mora, 2008). Common to both of these areas of research are the concepts of trust and authenticity, both of which are understood to develop over time through a history of interactions. Both are strongly influenced by leadership behavior.

In the wake of various institutional scandals in which the moral compasses of individuals or a group of individuals seem to have been misplaced, questions have been asked about how such things can happen. Although answers offered may veer from the few bad apples school of thought to that of the rotten system, at some point the question of leadership is raised. Did the leaders know what was going on? Did they condone it, or just turn a convenient blind eye? Did they positively encourage such behavior, guided by the light of money? Each time one of these disasters unfolds, adversely affecting both individuals and the fabric of society, the world pays the price for the hubris of such leaders. At such times, the value of leaders with clear ethical and moral frameworks who can see beyond the profit principle becomes apparent. Offering authentic leadership with integrity is not easy because different currents and incentives pull leaders in different directions, but it is possible, and we know what makes it so.

Avolio, Griffith, Wernsing, and Walumbwa (2010) investigated the nature of authentic leadership, and leadership in general. They found that most people can learn to become good leaders. They found that valued and trusted leaders displayed four characteristics: They had a clear moral compass; they took a balanced approach to processing information, for instance taking long-term as well as short-term effects into account; they were authentic as people; and they were good at learning productively from experience. With such leaders, and with the insights offered by positive psychology to inspire the workhorse of organizational psychology, what can we not achieve in our organizations for the good of people, planet, and profit?

Conclusion

Positive psychology offers organizational approaches and processes for building positive, productive, and sustainable organizational environments. It offers guidance on how to bring out the best in people in a way that will benefit them and the organization. Positive psychology has the research, the theory, and the tools to support those who want to create workplaces where people thrive. Combined with the practical experience embodied in organizational psychology, a new strand of practice may emerge that is better-suited to the work conditions of the 21st century: a potentially fruitful liaison indeed.

Summary Points

  • The relevance of organizational psychology and its practical application through organizational development to organizations in the 21st century has recently been called into question.
  • Positive psychology, with its emphasis on human and organizational flourishing, may offer a way to increase the relevance of organizational psychology to the challenges of today.
  • Many key positive psychology concepts, such as flow, strengths, positivity, and high-quality relationships, offer new approaches to organizational challenges such as motivation, performance, and decision making.
  • Many positive organizational psychology resources now exist, such as appreciative inquiry and strengths psychometrics.
  • Thinking of organizations more as economies of strengths and less as fixed-role hierarchies may help us release the potential of positive psychology in organizations.
  • Leadership is an activity that takes place in a moral and ethical space and therefore must be given special attention if the true potential of positive psychology for the workplace is to be realized.

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