What Gets in the Way of Improving Performance and Wellbeing at Work?

There are always external barriers, of course, but these are often out of our control.  So the answer, to a large extent, is internal barriers.  That is those thoughts, emotions and internal experiences which have the capacity to interfere with our actions and ‘hook’ us away from our goals.

So how can we deal with these difficult thoughts and emotions most effectively?

The Existing Approach

Most current approaches to performance improvement focus on helping people to change their thoughts and feelings.  We are taught that in order to perform better we first need to feel confident and get into the right mindset.

Unfortunately, this approach has some problems associated with it.  Evidence suggests that trying to change thoughts and emotions is highly unreliable and often counterproductive[1].  It also takes energy and attention away from the task at hand, which can dramatically impair performance.

An alternative approach is to become more skilful at focusing on the task even when our thoughts and emotions are disruptive.  This skill is known as psychological flexibility.

The concept of psychological flexibility is based on a very clear theory of human cognition.  This means – and evidence is supportive – that it is a highly effective means of improving human functioning and performance in virtually any context, including the workplace.

Why is Psychological Flexibility Important in the Workplace?

In recent research, psychological flexibility has been shown to:

1. Improve business performance and mental health and wellbeing[2].
2. Predict business outcomes more effectively than emotional intelligence, locus of control and the Big 5 personality traits[3].
3. Enhance other organisation-level interventions (i.e. as part of leadership programmes).

In addition, psychological flexibility rests on a clear theory of human language and cognition.  This means we are able to understand not just that it works but why it works.  This enables training to be better targeted, shorter and more effective.

What is Psychological Flexibility?

There are three main skills within Psychological Flexibility:

• Increase awareness of the present moment – by increasing one’s sensitivity to what is happening in the present moment we can discriminate between what we observe with our 5 senses and what our sometimes unreliable (or autopilot) minds tell us is happening.
• Cognitive defusion – this means developing the ability to watch thoughts come and go, and then choosing which thoughts to act on, rather than getting ‘hooked’ by difficult or disruptive thoughts.  It is not about changing thoughts, but changing one’s relationship to them.
• Values-based action – psychological flexibility is ultimately about focusing attention on what it is we really want to achieve.  Increasing awareness of an individual’s values helps build motivation and enables people to take positive and sustained action, even when doing so is challenging.

These 3 skills help counter a problem that is central to most forms of poor performance: experiential avoidance.  Experiential avoidance occurs when someone tries to avoid unpleasant thoughts and feelings by changing what they actually do in their life.  A large body of research shows that higher experiential avoidance is associated with lower wellbeing, work performance and quality of life.

In a nutshell, psychological flexibility enables people to engage fully in what they are doing rather than getting pushed around by their thoughts and feelings.

Psychological Flexibility in Action

Sports psychologists emphasise the role of the ‘right mindset’ to athletes, telling them to clear their mind, be calm and confident, and to remember their successes.  But the reality is that performers are just as filled with doubt, worry and negativity, as the rest of us, even at the elite level.  Focusing on getting rid of those thoughts can:

• Be counterproductive – if the athlete tries to get rid of negative thoughts, research shows that  thoughts can become more influential, not less, leading to even greater entanglement.
• Detract focus from the present moment –if the athlete starts saying ‘It’s OK, I’m a good kicker, take a deep breath, relax’, then they are not actually focusing on the kick, but on their thoughts.

Over time, if negative thoughts become evaluated as ‘bad’ (i.e. synonymous with ‘lack of confidence’), or the ‘wrong mindset’, then we come to fear our own natural response to new experiences.  This increases our tendency towards experiential avoidance[4].

The alternative – learning to be present and accepting thoughts – allows us to see negative experiences as normal, whilst being able to refocus our attention on our chosen behaviour.

In summary, by using the skills of psychological flexibility in the pursuit of values-directed behaviour, people experience higher levels of motivation, task-focus, wellbeing and performance.