As a leader, I hope that you are asking the question, “What does it mean for our people to be happy and thrive?”
The question is really, “How do people flourish?”
Many leaders think it’s as simple as giving good benefits, being nice, and throwing an occasional work party.
Those things are fantastic (keep doing them!) but they don’t necessarily equate to human flourishing.
Dr. Martin Seligman, a thoughtful psychologist and researcher from the University of Pennsylvania, has researched this topic probably more than anyone else on Earth right now.
In his research, he has consistently found five building blocks that enable happiness and flourishing. They are:
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Positive Emotions
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Engagement
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Relationships
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Meaning
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Accomplishment
This is known as the “PERMA” model.
PERMA applies beautifully to teams, groups, organizations, communities, and even nations.
I like it because it’s based on a holistic view of humaneness, taking into account meaning/purpose as well as relationships.
After all, when we or our people show up to work we bring our whole selves with us.
Without a more robust view of flourishing, we’ll be left with “business as usual” and that typically means burnout, boredom, mediocre engagement, high turnover, high levels of stress/anxiety, and many other maladies (some not-so-obvious as well).
It doesn’t have to be that way though. We can design organizations of flourishing.
Now, each of the five building blocks warrants some unpacking since they aren’t exactly obvious at first blush. You can read more in the book Flourish by Seligman, or here’s a helpful article as well if you’re interested in learning more.
If you’d like to explore the well-being of yourself, your team, or your organization further, there are helpful assessments to see how your organization is doing, as well as ways of developing organizations built on PERMA.
–Chris Cloud and the CloudNINE Team
