Positive Psychology In Psychology
1792 Words
8 Pages
Review of Positive Organizational Psychology Over Recent History Over the past decade, positive psychology has established itself as a sub-discipline of psychology due to its popularity among the common people. The founder, Martin Seligman, describes positive psychology as a science of positive experience, traits, and intuitions that promises to improve the quality of life and prevent the pathologies that occur when life is meaningless. What separates positive psychology with other disciplines of psychology is that it focuses on the positives of life such as things that offer hope, wisdom, creativity, courage, and spirituality. Seligman believes that with a solid foundation, positive psychology can make the world more perfect. One important
…show more content…
According to Clifton and Harter, strength is defined as “the ability to provide consistent near-perfect performance in a given activity” (Donaldson 140). Some basic assumptions of the strength-based approach are that all people have strengths and organizations’ roles must play to these strengths. Psychologists believe that it is critical that organizations needs to focus on the employee’s strengths and foster their talents in order to help the organization achieve the highest excellence and success. For example, when an employee identifies his or her talents, it is critical for the supervisor to give the employee adequate opportunities to develop this talent into a strength. Oftentimes, the supervisors are trained as strength coaches so they can be better at developing the strengths of employee. There are four steps in the process of developing employees’ talents. Firstly, employees must first identify from whom they want to receive feedback and then ask for feedback from them. Once they received their feedbacks from various sources, they can recognize common patterns and make conclusions about their strengths. Then, the employees can compose self-portraits of themselves by organizing and writing a description from the accumulated information. Finally, employers can use this information to redesign the jobs for the employees so they can excel at what they are excellent at. Many empirical studies shows that strength-based development lead to “positive business outcomes (i.e., increase in profitability, safety, and satisfaction, decrease in turnover), an increase in employee engagement, and an increase in other positive experiences in the workplace” (Donaldson 141). In terms of positive business outcomes, for instance, in an average American hospital, the annual turnover rate, which was initially 35%, declined by 50% after the hospital implemented talent inventory interviews and constructed teams that
According to Clifton and Harter, strength is defined as “the ability to provide consistent near-perfect performance in a given activity” (Donaldson 140). Some basic assumptions of the strength-based approach are that all people have strengths and organizations’ roles must play to these strengths. Psychologists believe that it is critical that organizations needs to focus on the employee’s strengths and foster their talents in order to help the organization achieve the highest excellence and success. For example, when an employee identifies his or her talents, it is critical for the supervisor to give the employee adequate opportunities to develop this talent into a strength. Oftentimes, the supervisors are trained as strength coaches so they can be better at developing the strengths of employee. There are four steps in the process of developing employees’ talents. Firstly, employees must first identify from whom they want to receive feedback and then ask for feedback from them. Once they received their feedbacks from various sources, they can recognize common patterns and make conclusions about their strengths. Then, the employees can compose self-portraits of themselves by organizing and writing a description from the accumulated information. Finally, employers can use this information to redesign the jobs for the employees so they can excel at what they are excellent at. Many empirical studies shows that strength-based development lead to “positive business outcomes (i.e., increase in profitability, safety, and satisfaction, decrease in turnover), an increase in employee engagement, and an increase in other positive experiences in the workplace” (Donaldson 141). In terms of positive business outcomes, for instance, in an average American hospital, the annual turnover rate, which was initially 35%, declined by 50% after the hospital implemented talent inventory interviews and constructed teams that