1. Positive Psychology in
Application
Sukhvinder Pabial

2. An Introduction to
Positive Psychology
A Pecha Kucha presentation

3. Pecha Kucha
• Insight into Positive Psychology
• Give basis for some discussion later

4. Sukh Pabial
• Learning and Development professional of ten
years
• Use a range of tools and techniques
• Growing appreciation of Positive Psychology
and using it at work and in personal life

5. My history with Psychology
• Studied at ‘A’ Level
• Then at under-graduate
• Post-graduate in Occupational Psychology
• Personal reading into the field

6. Martin Seligman
• Started this field of thought more than ten
years ago
• Psychotherapist
• Suffers bi-polar depression
• Helped many clients suffering mental illness

7. Traditional Therapy
• Helping people diagnosed with mental illness
• Moving them from -5 to 0
• Giving them interventions to deal with their
illness

8. State of Vibrancy
• Don’t focus enough on strengths and things
going well in our lives
• Intended for everyone, not just those with
illnesses
• Move from 0 to +5

9. Positive Thinking
• Difficult not to confuse the two
• This is just about a mindset you have
• E.G. ‘bad commute into work’ > ‘at least I got
to read my book’

10. Positive Psychology
• Concerned with the study of behaviours that
help create lasting effects of feeling positive
• ‘Authentic Happiness’

11. Positive Living
• Look at different activities we get involved
with on day to day basis
• Seligman identifies three ways we can lead
positive lives
• Not doing activities that are harmful

12. Emotions
• Instant gratification
• E.G. Enjoy food, have a good meal; enjoy
exercise, go for a run

13. Flow
• Where we learn how to mix different aspects
of life
• Enjoyment created with work, family, friends

14. Meaning
• Start to move beyond the today
• Doing things that create better interactions
• Identifying signature strengths
• Helping others through community/society

15. It’s about the mix
• It’s about how you find the blend of all three
which is important
• Doing them in isolation will feel fragmented
and incongruous

16. Positive Language
• Important part of interactions we have
• Using ‘and’ in place of ‘but’

17. Conversations
• Core to the way we interact with others
• Positive Psychology is all about encouraging
better conversations

18. Your Third Place
• Work and Home are your first and second
place you occupy
• Your third place is where you can be your best
self free of judgement and pressure

19. Your Third Place cont’d
• Can be any form of activity – reading, exercise,
writing, physical
• Where you can play to your inner strength and
feel great

20. #3GoodThings
• Daily task done at the end of the day
• Take the time to reflect on what’s been
important for you that day

21. #3GoodThings cont’d
• The challenge is to think about what was
important that day
• And to remember to do it daily

22. Summary
• Brief history and insight into key techniques
from Positive Psychology
• Things to remember:
– Positive Thinking different to Positive Psychology
– Have better conversations
– Third place
– #3GoodThings

23. Q&A

24. Open Space
• What was important from that pecha kucha
for you?
• What does it start to unlock for you and get
you thinking about?
• Write on the flipchart anything you think you
want to capture

25. Positive Psychology Interventions

26. The Gratitude Visit
• One of the most powerful interventions in
Positive Pscyhology
• Hardest part is to think about one person who
made a positive different in your life
• Articulate and write it down
• Feelings of positivity months after the fact for
both parties

27. Signature Strengths
• Once you identify it, becomes your defining
feature
• You use the strength in the work you do, the
way you live and the way you are

28. Positive Institutions
“Understanding positive institutions entails the
study of meaning and purpose as well as the
strengths that foster better communities, such
as justice, responsibility, civility, parenting,
nurturance, work ethic, leadership, teamwork,
purpose, and tolerance.”
http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/

29. Positive Institutions
• Your home
• Your friends
• Your education
• Your work
• Your community
• Your society
• Your ethics

30. Positive Deviance
“Positive Deviance is based on the observation
that in every community there are certain
individuals or groups whose uncommon
behaviours and strategies enable them to find
better solutions to problems than their peers,
while having access to the same resources and
facing similar or worse challenges.”
http://www.positivedeviance.org/

31. Positive Deviance
• For finding behavioural solutions not technical
solutions
• Trusting the people to find a way that works
for them
• They’re the ones who live and breathe it
• It must create sustainable action
• Responsibility for success is with everyone

32. Positive Energy Networks
• Those who create natural energy
• They do all the good things just by being in
tune with their surroundings
• The kind of person who naturally draws others
to them

33. High Quality Connections
• Recognising that we all have moments to
make a difference to others
• Making things happen for other people just by
the virtue of being you
• An experience that makes a difference to you
no matter how small or significant the act

34. Bad Things Happen
• Sad fact of life
• Can’t always ‘positively think your way out of
it’
• Accept and get back on track later

35. Social Connectivity
• Giving people ways to connect
• Work parties, etc, are good fun but not for
everyone
• A place for the inner geek to be unleashed and
indulged with others

36. Stop, Reflection Time
• What are you thinking about?
• Which intervention(s) so far resonates with
you?
• What are you motivated to do?

37. Turning theory into practise

38. Appreciative Inquiry
• Focuses on the strength of actions and
outcomes
• Gets people to consider a complete lifecycle of
an event and have robust discussion
• Outcome is to create automatic buy-in from
the people involved

39. Health and Well-being
• Natural domino effect
• Focus on one part of life influences other
areas too

40. Employee Engagement
• Using techniques such as AI or Open Space
• Not just about being consultative
• Creates true discussion and engagement
• Power of the voice is with the people

41. Innovation
• Good ideas can come from anywhere
• Internal communities of practise
• Social clubs
• Collaborative atmosphere

42. Redundancies
• ‘Bad Things Happen’
• Opportunities for engagement despite the
reality
• Not just “Here’s an outreach programme”
• Internal groups for collective thought/support
• Informal mentoring/coaching from those left
in the business about what’s next

43. Company Processes
• As companies grow and become larger,
process becomes core part of efficiency
• Efficiency starts to equal process
• We create efficiencies that neglect the human
touch – we factor out the human touch

44. Open Space part 2
• What has been interesting to learn about?
• What are you thinking you can do differently?
• What burning desire (if any) is rushing through
your body?
• Same process as before

45. Is the grass greener?
• All or none of these may work for you
• They are very adaptable, and you have to find
what works for you
• Not everyone will be responsive to these
interventions

46. What do the experts say?
• Sarah Lewis
• Henry Stewart (Happy Ltd)
• Tony Hsieh (Zappos)
• Ricardo Semler (Semco)

47. Positive Life
• Ultimately it’s about creating greater sense of
fulfilment and engagement in your life
• That’s always a continuing journey
• This is only to raise awareness

48. Good luck!
Sukhvinder Pabial
spabial@sky.com
@sukhpabial