One of the most detrimental beliefs in today’s business world is that a stress-free work environment will result in a happy and energized workplace. But is that true? In fact, is that even realistic?
The global pandemic changed employment patterns in all developed countries forever. The demands to perform at a continuously high level of excellence amid the pressures of increased complexity, ambiguity, change, and rate of speed, is the new norm for organizations world-wide. That being said, the odds that work environments of the future will become less stressful is highly unlikely.
The good news is however, studies and research coming from the neurosciences is proving that happy and energized workplaces have something in common — people with the ability for positive thinking – also referred to as Positive Intelligence. Positive Intelligence is a skill, and like any other skill, it must be learned and practiced.
This skill can be more clearly described as the skill of Positive Presence™ — the skill of adjusting and creating a positive and energized mindset within our self through conscious thought processes. As this skill is developed, so too is our capacity for achieving peak performance, for building and maintaining good relationships, and for experiencing good health.
For Success, along with positive thinking you need positive action … So the next step in creating a successfully energized workplace is to implement a program grounded in collaboration and accountability – a systematic program that initiates conversation around leadership, cognitive strengthening, and behaviour skills. The program also requires educating leaders about the research coming from the field of the neurosciences and cognitive behaviour. And finally the program must be supported through the organization’s Quality Management Plan.
In the “State of the Global Workplace 2022 Report” by Gallup it was revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic era put a halt to a long period of gradual but general improvement in engagement among the world’s workers. This matters for global economic dynamism. Gallup estimates that low engagement costs the global economy US$7.8 trillion and accounts for 11% of GDP globally. Gallup’s analysis of 112, 312 business units in 96 countries found a strong link between engagement and performance outcomes, such as retention, productivity, safety and profitability.
The ultimate goal of human existence is to live a joyful and abundant life. Everyone strives for that existence – whether they know it or not. When we consider that we spend a great part of our waking hours at work, then the optimum work environment should be one that strengthens and supports our quest for joy and abundance as well. 
We live in a time of great excitement as we watch the world we grew up in literally changing before our eyes. This is the first time in history that we are able to watch the evolution of society as it moves through the technological age, through the knowledge age, and into what some are calling the Age of Connectivity … and even beyond to Artificial Intelligence. Every profession on earth is being challenged to lose the beliefs of the past in favour of new and emerging paradigms – or be left behind. 
The only way to confront the ongoing time deficit and overcome the seemingly constant demand on our time is to develop a self-awareness of how we are focusing our attention. Identifying our focus as a ‘mental muscle’ is helpful when we want investigate, what is for many, a constant state of time deficit. Furthermore, we must recognize that our attention has become a highly valuable commodity, our ability to focus becomes a highly valuable skill – and if we don’t use it, like any skill, we will lose it.
In to today’s era of ‘Connection’ time management ideas and skills of the past are obsolete. 
The ground-breaking revelations coming from brain science and neuroscience are emphasizing the impact of human energy on, not only organizational culture, but also on the health and productivity of our workforce. These findings cannot be ignore, and in fact, in today’s complex, ambiguous and organic organizational systems these revelations are more important than any other time in modern history. The studies show that positive human energy is necessary for achieving peak performance, for building and maintaining good relationships, and for experiencing good health. 
The greatest single threat to the future of organizations as we know them today is the inability of leadership to engage its workforce for sustainable satisfaction and engagement. In the recent State Of The Global Workplace Report, Gallup concludes that “85% of employees are not actively engaged or (are) actively disengaged at work.” This means that only 15% of employees are actively engaged. The financial cost of this is staggering. 
Stress is a relational transaction between our self and our environment during which we perceive and appraise events as threatening — in that they are over-taxing to us in some way. As leaders we must learn how to change the way we see our self in relationship to these stress-triggering events, and then help those we lead do the same. And because we don’t know what we don’t know, it becomes an organizational responsibility to provide leaders with the tools and knowledge necessary to ‘reframe’ how they see themselves in today’s workplace. 
The global workforce has changed employment patterns in all developed countries forever. Gone are the days of the industrial and technological revolution – where productivity and efficiency was almost totally dependent on process efficiencies of getting the job done. In today’s connected society, organizations are more and more made up primarily of ‘knowledge workers’ (people whose jobs require formal and/or advanced education and are considered people who “think for a living.”). Today’s employees are often highly educated professionals and technicians who must bring their specialisms together for a common purpose. That being said, processing efficiencies (i.e. production capacity) takes place within the mind of each and every one of our people — right down on our front lines. This is exists in all complex, ambiguous and interdependent organizational systems, but is especially true in the health industry, where front line service providers are highly trained doctors, nurses, and technicians.