Flourishing in an

agile world

Science and practice of

leveraging human resources
in a digitized world

Module DO2 - LOD / MsC Digital Business.

Prof. Dr. A.W.Hunziker
Prof. P. Dey
These slides are free for personal
use to all participants.
No publication.
Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
aim of this module

▶ Experience behavior and habits of positivity.

▶ Become a better version of yourself.
▶ Create psychologically safe spaces where teams can attain
their full potential.
▶ Understand, how to manage the human side of
digitization.
▶ Build a workplace where work is successful and fulfilling.

▶ Become a better leader.

Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Human Resources in a digital world

«Inner work» is
reliable & innovative decisive
High quality and reliability (McAvoy/Nagle/Sammon 2012)
High resilience (Breidenbach/Rollow 2019)
High readiness to change (Hunziker/Steiner 2022)

Readyness Customer orientation

Low absenteeism / presentism / turnover High job satisfaction
Low burnout risk High customer loyalty
Employer attractiveness for skilled workes High customer satisfaction

Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
How digitzation reduces human performance

▶ Pressure for Performance

▶ Stress of permanent monitoring

▶ Information overflow
▶ More to be known
▶ Multi Channel
▶ What is relevant? - VUCA

▶ Availability
▶ 24/7 mentality, always on

▶ Distraction
▶ Technologies designed to grab attention
▶ Mulit-Taskers are particularly *bad* in switching tasks because they can
be quickly distracted by irrelevant information
(Ophir et al. 2015)

Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences 4
Positive Psychology
(Happiness Research)

Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
"Positive" is not new - the perspective is new
And it leads to new insights.

Flourishing

Mental health
Mental health
(not ill, not flourishing)

Mental
illness

Optimal human functioning has different criteria than illness.

Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences Seligman (2011)
Westerhof/Keyes (2010)
Measuring "life satisfaction"

Respond openly and honestly:

1. In most ways my life is close to my ideal.

2. My conditions of life are excellent.
3. I am satisfied with my life.
4. So far I have gotten the important things I want in life.
5. If I could live my life over, I would change almost
nothing

1: Strongly disagree … 7: Strongly agree

Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences Diener et. al. (1985)
5 sources of wellbeing: P-E-R-M-A

Flourishing

Positive Engagement Relation- Meaning Accom-

Emotions - Flow ships plishment

Character Strengths

Criteria: persued for their own sake, measurable and effective

Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Quelle: Seligman (2011)
24 Character Strengths – a map of what’s best in humans

Wisdom & Transcen-

Courage Humanity Justice Moderation
Knowledge dence

Curiosity Enthusiasm Love Team work Forgiveness Apprecia-

tion …
Love of Authenticity Friendlyness Fairness Self- Gratitude
learning regulation

Judgement Bravery Social Leadership Modesty Hope

intelligence

Creativity Endurance Caution Humor

Perspective Spirituality

Peterson/Seligman (2004)
All Character strengths are trainable.
Only your «signature strengths» give you energy.
Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Happier people perform better

▶ Resilience: healthy even under stress

(doctor visits, sick days, immune system, burnout, ...)
better deal with change
Markland, Pressman, Cohen (2006)

▶ Performance: quantity
Oswald/Proto/Sgroi (2014)

▶ Creativity: are more creative problem solvers

Sousa et al. (2011)

▶ «Climate»: contagious
Hasim/Wok/Ghazali (2008); Fowler/Chrstakis (2008)

▶ Positive Leadership practices lead to success

Cameron/Bright/Caza (2004), zit. n. Cameron (2013:11)

Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences 12
Happier people perform better

▶ Close relationships at work 

Patient satisfaction
▶ Better: Job satisfaction, teamwork
▶ Less: Absenteeism, emotional exhaustion
▶ Patients: Satisfied, quality of life, fewer emergencies
Longitudinal study (16 months)
Barsade/O’Neill (2014)

Quote from a person with MS diagnosis:

“My coworkers showed me more love and compassion than I
would ever have imagined. Do I wish that I didn’t have MS?
Of course. But would I give up the opportunity to witness
and receive so much love? No way!“
Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences 13
Lilius et al., 2003: 23
Think of your superior …

Skala: 1 «strongly disagree» … 7 «strongly agree» .

Wert

I feel invigorated when I interact with this person.

After interacting with this person, I have more energy

to do my work.

I feel increased vitality when I interact with this person.

I would go to this person when I needed to be “pepped

up”.
After an exchange with this person, I feel more stamina
to do my work.

Summe
Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences

Cameron (2013:55)
Behavior, Thought Patterns, and Values
Leaders with high scores Managers with low scores

• Help others flourish. • Think of their own problems.

• Are trustworthy, integer and • Sometimes they are a bit
reliable. opportunistic.
• Are committed to their task. • Just do their job.
• Often express gratitude and • Rarely express gratitude and
humility. humility.
• Seeing opportunities rather than • Seeing problems rather than
problems opportunities
• Use positive, appreciative • Use negative, offensive
formulations. formulations.
• Are ready to keep tensions in • Generally prefer quick solutions.
order to realize a sustainable
solution.

Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Cameron (2013:57) and more
6 way to wellbeing

Happiness/Flourishing

Stress / Strenthen
Greatfuln Live in Set Goals Take care
Dealing Social
ess / the here and of Body &
with relations
Optimism an now persue Soul
Conflics
them

Criterion: What specific action can you take that is effective?

Lyubomirsky (2008)
All ofFachhochschule
Berner these ways are connected
| Haute to meditation
école spécialisée bernoiseand mindfulness.
| Bern University of Applied Sciences
Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Mindfulness works… … is a leadership skill

▶ Blood pressure ▶ Perception capacity, non-verbal ▶ Negotiation skill (Aiwa 2013)

▶ Stress hormone, (Carlson et. al. ▶ Concentration, flexibility (Moore ▶ Creativity, solution orientedness
2007) Malinowski 2009) (Langer 2005, Greenberg et al 2012)
▶ Immune system (Davidson et al ▶ Resilience (Burnout-Prevention) ▶ Prosocial behavior (Davidson/Mc
2003; Vitek-Janusek et al 2008) ▶ Life satisfaction (Davidson et al. Ewans 2012, Reb/Narayanan/Ho
▶ Brain struktures (Hölzl et. al. 2011) 2003) 2015)
Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences 18
Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Mindfulness works: research

Meta analyse Workplace:

▶ Stress, Burnout, health and performance (Lomas et al. 2016)

▶ lasting effects (Jayawardene et al. 2017)
▶ Effect stronger when combined with positive psycholgy
(Pang/Ruch 2017) (Ivtzan et al. 2018)

Further studies:
▶ Creativity, Solution orientation (Langer 2005, Greenberg et al 2012)
▶ Life satisfaction, «happiness» (Davidson et al. 2003)
▶ Bargaining power (Aiwa 2013)
▶ Prosocial behaviour (Reb/Narayanan/Ho 2015, Hafenbrack et al. 2020)
▶ Non-discriminatory behaviour (Luecke& Gibson 2016)
▶ Constructive conflict resolution (Kay/Skarlicki 2020)
▶ Better listening (Anderson 2012-2013, Taraban et al. 2017)

Mindfulness is highly relevant from a business point of view!20

Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
See alos Keng et al. (2011)
New Leadership Training

▶ Positive Psychology: powerful tools for increasing happiness and

performance in a digitized world.

▶ “New Leadership” exercises every week for It is challenging

next 9 weeks. – and rewarding.
▶ Journaling
Strategies from last
year available.
▶ Sharing in forum
▶ Part of graded paper

▶ apply and reflect in the “New Leadership” experiments in LC 5.

There is a lot of empirical evidence to support that this will make you a more effective leader.

“Mindfulness Training” under construction.

Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Organizing the Exercizes

▶ Every week from now until end of LC4

▶ different types
▶ One shot vs. several small steps
▶ Independent vs. involving people

▶ exercises are interconnected

▶ Some with separate instructions

Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Previewing Assignment of Experiments (LC5)

▶ How can you use the insights from the module to positively
influence other peoples’ behavior?
▶ … using techniques, you haven’t tried before
▶ … using techniques that are based in «Positive Psychology»

Pick a real challenge – maybe something like his:

▶ My boss is a micromanager.
▶ In our team we are all afraid of making mistakes, nobody dares speak
about it.
▶ In our coffee breaks we have a habit of brining ourselves down by sharing
bad news and by complaining.
▶ Nobody is satisfied with our meetings. We only listen for ques to react on,
we don’t really listen to each other.

Develop a suitable intervention, apply it and reflect.

Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences
Thanks.

Berner Fachhochschule | Haute école spécialisée bernoise | Bern University of Applied Sciences