Kara Johnston

It’s time to move beyond the myth of resilience as an individual, heroic trait, to appreciating that resilient, healthy organizations bring people together for mutual support and joint action. Self-help strategies can help but they aren’t enough. Resilience happens in interconnected layers: individual, group, organizational, societal, and as is becoming more apparent, even global.

Higher rates of absenteeism, burnout and turnover are forcing organizations to recognize that they must play a key role in supporting their staff’s emotional and mental wellbeing. This topic acknowledges that we are living through challenging times and that climate change is having an impact on mental health and workplace behaviours. To completely suppress our deep feelings about our world while at work would be to miss a powerful opportunity: the physical or virtual workplace is an ideal place to build individual and organizational resilience, in addition to promoting creative, breakthrough solutions for all.

This session will help you to:

• strengthen courage for individual and organizational resilience;
• appreciate the growing impact of eco-anxiety in the workplace;
• practice a simple yet powerful guided process that helps people move through stuckness, despair, or resignation into strengthening their ability to bring about positive change.

Psychological protection is foundational to high performing teams and resilient organizations. A sense of psychological protection allows employees to voice their ideas, seek assistance, and even challenge leadership without fear of judgement from peers or senior management. Employees in workplaces with high psychological protection feel more engaged and are more likely to innovate. This atmosphere of openness and honesty has proven to promote appreciation for the contributions of others, greater inclusion for all, and importantly, reduce errors.

There is no exact recipe for psychological protection at work; it emerges out of the relationships within groups. However, certain behaviours and skills have proven to be key ingredients. Let’s take some time today to reflect on the role each of you can play in cultivating psychological protection in your workplace.

The objectives for this topic are:

• Deepen your understanding of the concept of psychological protection;
• Reflect on the crucial role of psychological protection for team effectiveness;
• Explore your unique contribution to fostering psychological protection in the workplace.