(uplifting music)
Hi everyone and welcome to this week's episode of the Performance Cafe
where you find me feeling slightly, what's the word, bleh...
So, we're about...
In South Africa, we're about three weeks away from hitting our peak
of our third wave of COVID,
and everyone out of a sense of sensibility and responsibility has started self-isolating,
you know where we can even though,
it's not really mandated by government because of the impact it has on the economy.
And so we're seeing other people as much,
it's back to that very weird time when we all go into,
into our little holes and hide away for a bit.
And so this has really gotten to me.
I think firstly because I enjoy being around people,
so I do miss that.
But also I think it's just, it sort of dims down,
it feels like you're walking,
I don't know if you've noticed but when it's snowing, everything gets extra quiet,
and I find that when we go through these phases with COVID,
sometimes, the same happens.
And so today I wanted to talk a little bit, I know, I think I've spoken about,
you know, that when COVID does this to us,
we're actually going through a process of grief.
But I found a beautiful tool to deal with this earlier this year,
and that was of course when I was doing my Gallup studies.
Now Gallup has just released a new book called,
Wellbeing at Work, How to Build Resilient and Thriving Teams..
What I thought was really interesting about this is
that they made a clear distinction between thriving and surviving.
And I think when we go into this
COVID kind of situation where we all go into voluntary lockdown.
You know we're just surviving.
We're doing without just to be safe and to stay home
and just get through the next wave.
And what I really love is the use of the word
"Thriving", and how they link that to resilience,
because when I'm feeling like I'm winning the fight.
When I feel that I'm engaged, I'm actually participating and contributing,
it's a very different feeling than simply just sitting here
and surviving and hoping to get through this.
Now to give you a bit more background on this,
Gallup has got five essential elements of wellbeing,
and that's what the book is about,
it's about their research into, and their take out,
and thoughts on, "How do we secure well-being?"
Now the first thing that we want to notice here is,
they're not talking about wellness,
they're not talking about necessarily just mental wellness,
they're talking about the whole concept of well-being,
which is mental, physical, spiritual, every angle of it,
and so they break it down into five areas,
and I really love this from the perspective of, one would think that a company
that takes a look at, "How to get employees to thrive at work?"
Would focus about just what's going on at work.
But hear me out,
I want to read you their five elements,
just to show you how robust they've made this model.
So the first element is that of career well-being,
and that is about how you occupy your time,
or simply, whether you like what you do every single day.
So, if you're gonna spend hours working,
are you enjoying it?
Are you getting something from it?
Is it a source of purpose for you?
The second is social well-being,
and social well-being is about having strong relationships
and loving your life, and support, someone who's really there for you.
And I think that is so important, and I think
one of their questions, I think it was in their...
Gallups Q12, it actually says, if you have a best friend at work.
And I think it's a kind of element.
Is there someone at work, at home,
in all the aspects of your life, all the places you go,
that you have a real connection with,
and someone you're there for and who is there for you?
Thirdly, they've got the financial well-being,
where they're taking a look at effectively managing your economic life.
Right? Are you making sure that you're making enough finances?
Or if you have to cut back because of COVID,
Are you sure that you're spreading those finances, as well as, as you can?
And if you don't have the finances to think, are you reaching out?
Are you saying to people, either, "I need to loan money."
And so you're dealing with it that way,
or are you at least making arrangements to say,
"I can't pay now, but this is what I will do in order to pay this off over a period of time."
The fourth element is about physical well-being.
Now, this is about having good health, having enough energy,
you know, life can be tough enough, even when we're not facing a pandemic.
And one of the most important things is waking up in the morning
and feeling, "I've got the energy,
I've got the resilience to tackle this, to all this take it on."
And therefore that is such an important question,
The fifth element is about the sense of engagement you have
with the area where you live,
and that is community wellbeing, and I really love that,
because, you know, very often we see people as just one piece of a very large puzzle,
but we never look at the rest of the puzzle.
I really love that this model takes career, social,
financial, physical, and community well-being,
and wraps it all into this puzzle,
and of course, emotional well-being is going to be part of it,
but I think it's going to be found littered throughout all of these,
it's not just about whether someone is depressed or not.
It's about all of these elements that come together to make it happen.
So now you might ask me, "Well Innocente, how do we even make this work for us?
What does this mean for us as managers in organizations,
or as employees in organizations?"
What I think the most important thing, and we've said it before,
we treat people as whole beings.
And that when we ask them, "How you are today?"
We don't just expect an answer about how things are at the office, or, you know,
one particular project, we must understand that people are whole beings,
and that their personal life does influence their work-life, and take it from there.
And yes, I know that we've not always been taught to do that,
but I think in a couple of past instances, in our past videos, I've spoken about,
"How do we take on that challenge of being more personally connected with people
in the organization's right now?"
Because it surely is needed more than ever.
So as always, I'm here to help,
I have that little Gallup badge, so I am allowed to help you with well-being,
strengths coaching, and to get through difficult times, like we are in right now,
so feel free to reach out,
and if you don't, well then I will see you on Friday,
when we have our next episode of Coffee Companions,
And if we don't meet then, then I will see you next week for our solo on Wednesday.
Until then, if you've enjoyed this video,
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I look forward to seeing you on Friday at the Performance Cafe.
(uplifting music)