Mental Health Awareness Week – How To Create A Well-Balanced And Happier Team
It’s fantastic that we can talk more openly about mental health these days.
There’s a long way to go, of course. Many people are still reluctant to come forward to talk about their struggles with mental health issues for fear of being stigmatised.
But the more we share our experiences and work towards a collective understanding of how to help one another, the healthier society – and workplaces – will become.
Mental Health Awareness Week is designed to encourage people to join in with the conversation around mental health. And so we thought we’d ask the Tribe team a few questions about how the HPTM (High Performing Teams) approach can help improve mental wellbeing in the workplace.
What advice would you give to businesses about shaping a good approach to mental health in the workplace?
Oliver Randall: Balance is critical.
Any time that we don’t have balance in our lives, there is inevitably fallout. As with physics, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. This may be in ourselves, it may be in others.
As teams, we need to recognise when our teammates might be struggling to achieve balance and help them pick up and manage the things they might be struggling with.
It might be that their workload has become too daunting; or it could be that issues outside work might be impacting on their performance.
Either way, it’s vital that we encourage team members to share and work together to help one another keep our balance or re-find it. The more we commit to keeping that balance, the more likely teams are to continually perform to high levels.
Dan Webber: Connection is one of the key areas we focus on. Understanding that we all have to find the connection to what we are doing, why we are doing it and how we are doing it as a group is vital.
The first steps towards understanding this connection is simply to keep asking if everyone is ‘OK’. Making an effort to understand our environment and the people within it plays a vital role in connecting us back to each other and ensuring there is simplicity in everything we do.
What models would you recommend to help teams and individuals retain balance?
HPTM is our framework for bringing and maintaining balance to teams. And that framework is built around four key principles: Committed; Directed; Selfless; and Operational Honesty.
- Committed is the passion
- Directed is the way forward
- Selfless is the focus on ourselves and each other
- Operational Honesty is the way we feel about how things are going at work – and whether factors outside are impacting our performance or focus
When we talk about ‘Committed, Directed, Selfless and Operational Honesty’ as part of HPTM, we always stress how important it is to focus on all these principles in equal measure at all times.
All of these things must be constantly in focus if teams are truly to find balance.
Who or what inspires you when it comes to balance and mental health?
Oliver:
This video is a reading by Michael Caine of Rudyard Kipling’s If.
Sure, If is too often used in unsuitable contexts but is actually very poignant in relation to the question of balance.
It shows us why it’s important to avoid extremities of emotion and not to believe in success or failure – but to instead to think of us being journeys and must strive to achieve with balance.
The late-Prince Philip was undoubtedly something of a marmite character. He certainly rubbed some people up the wrong way.
But he was certainly a strong character, and one that truly recognised the importance of people focusing on their passions and beliefs rather than trying to conform to what other people want you to be. In that way, he can be said to be a champion for valuing the individual and their wellbeing. He focuses on this aspect in the above video from 3.41 onwards.
Thank you for reading our thoughts on mental health in the workplace and our advice on how to improve it. If you’re interested in learning more about how we can help you create a happier and more productive workplace, please call our experts on +44 (0) 1325 734 846 or email team@tribe365.co
Interested in finding out more?
Book a meeting in with the Tribe team
today on +44 (0) 1913 080 356 or at
team@tribe365.co
Written By Oliver Randall
Oliver is one of the Tribe365 ® founding members and has forged a career on finding passion in everything he does. Until the work with Tribe365 ® he never really understood it, and has found his real passion is unlocking the true passion and enjoyment in everyone around him.
