Positive Intelligence: what could this mean for you and your team’s mental fitness?

Saboteurs in the workplace

Mental fitness is a term that’s often heard amongst high-performing teams. It differs slightly from general mental health and wellbeing, although it bolsters both of these attributes if nurtured correctly.

Much like a team of athletes must ensure that their bodies are kept in good shape for a competition, high performing teams must ensure that the vital tools they work with are supported and cared for in the most appropriate manner to allow them to operate at their best. Scaling businesses will understand that the rapid pace of work during a period of growth can represent a considerable strain on the mental fitness of their teams. Often, the biggest obstacles in the way are not tangible events or physical actions, but the mental roadblocks that can stifle an individual’s ability to focus on the tasks at hand.

These obstacles are referred to as saboteurs. As the name suggests, these often manifest as internal voices that generate negative emotions and stress to sabotage our productivity. This process is actually believed to be a defensive mechanism, designed to protect us from the perceived threat of failure. If left unchecked, they can cause considerable damage to our self-esteem and general well-being.

How can we combat these saboteurs?

To begin to combat these saboteurs, we must understand how they operate. Our brains are wired to follow the most habitual paths in our neurological makeup. This means that as we age, much of our reactions to outward stimuli become automatic. If we’re used to letting the saboteurs in, they will continue to do so without any assistance from our conscious mind.

This is how positive intelligence can help to eliminate the stresses of our internal saboteurs. By training the core ‘mental fitness muscles’ that are affected, these thoughts take a different path towards positivity and confidence. Companies that have introduced positive intelligence programs into their teams have seen measurable results with regards to wellbeing and productivity. 98% of participants have seen some degree of growth in emotional intelligence and 92% have seen measurable improvements in teamwork and collaboration.

High performing teams rely on communication and community to best achieve their goals. By introducing positive intelligence practices into the workplace, employees are able to support each other through the often stressful environment of a scaling business. When deadlines must be met and new contracts are growing exponentially, many opportunities arise for saboteurs to derail an individual's focus and negatively impact their productivity. But, if an entire workforce is equipped with the tools to combat these thoughts, suddenly high performing teams are able to support each other and positively affect their workplace environment.

Much of modern productivity relies on the mental wellbeing of our teams. As companies begin to scale and grow, our workforces are met with the most challenging period of their tenure. Feather Grey Consulting is retained by many growth focused businesses to build high performing teams. Please contact us to discuss how we can help you.