Mental Health @Work

From the UK’s Time to Change is this 4 minute video sponsored by Comic Relief for Red Nose Day (13 March 2009).

In our first Shift Videocast, Paul talks about his diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the attitudes of the general public towards mental illness.

Shift Videocast 1 is this touching short video of Paul’s story:

Most interesting for me is that Paul says he didn’t get help from the street or from his co-workers but from the professional mental health community. What would it take to make us more empathetic in our workplaces?

In the last half of the 20th century in Canada it was mostly assumed that as an adult you had a driver’s licence and that you most likely owned or had access to a car. I know, I didn’t get my licence until I was 26 and that made me a very rare specimen indeed. Our cities and especially our rural areas are designed for motor vehicles. Malls are still being built that do not have any designated pedestrian or bicycle lanes. It’s assumed that everyone moves around by automobile.

Well it’s now the end of the first decade of the 21st century and the Web is over 15 years old and e-mail much older than that. However, my generation (the boomers) are living much of their lives as if the Internet is an interesting thing to have around or “surf” but not really essential, like a car is. However, things are changing and ever quicker as we see most younger people own a mobile device and manage several networks on the Web – Facebook, YouTube, StumbleUpon, Digg, etc. For them, a car may be optional but a mobile Web device is essential.

Look at this from the perspective of a not for profit organization trying to get its message across. Sure, money can be spent on a marketing campaign or a training program, but is anybody going to pay attention? A recent video by Canada’s Sons of Maxwell shows how a message can go viral on YouTube, much to the chagrin of United Airlines:

This video has got the attention of over 2.5 million people in less than a week. That is also the kind of message that we are competing with. On the Net, people are only one click away from leaving. This MHCC video is very informative and professionally done, but will it attract 2.5 million visits or go viral?

On the Net, everyone is competing for attention, so we either need to talk to people on their terms or make our media exceptionally  appealing, like the Sons of Maxwell video. Communicating with people on the Internet means engaging in meaningful conversations, usually one at a time. As the Cluetrain Manifesto informed us 10 years ago:

1. Markets are conversations.
2. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.
3. Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.
4. Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived.
5. People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice.
6. The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.
7. Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.
8. In both internetworked markets and among intranetworked employees, people are speaking to each other in a powerful new way.
9. These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.

This website has been set up to connect with others who share some of our interest around mental health in the workplace, particularly in Canada, but the Net doesn’t really understand geographical limitations anyway. So far, we’ve found out some interesting things and bookmarked them (on right). We’ve also started to connect with some Canadians who use Twitter (on left) and discuss related issues, such as:

Madalyn Marcus (@MadPsych) Mental Health Advocate, PhD Candidate, Researcher, Clinician

K. Kalia (@NurseKama) Psych/Mental Health Nurse, finishing a Masters degree at University of Western Ontario

Isabella Mori (@moritherapy) the blogging psychotherapist

CMHA Vancouver/Burnaby (@CMHA_VB) Dedicated to promoting mental health, encouraging resilience and recovery, and beating stigma

This list will change over time as finding interesting people is easy with Twitter’s search function.

Understanding the Web today is like driving a car 20 years ago. You need it to get around, work and be social. It’s as important for non-profits as it is for corporations. A Web strategy cannot be left to a few specialists to “do that Web thing”. We all need to get involved and learn by doing. You can’t become a driver without practice and the same goes for the Web. I would suggest that anyone who doesn’t have a learner’s Web permit had better get one soon. That’s especially true for my fellow baby boomers. Perhaps a comment from mental health professionals on this blog will show that there is a community willing to carry on a conversation or two online? Maybe even engage some of these interesting and knowledgeable folks on Twitter?

Michael Kirby, head of the Mental Health Commission of Canada, says that Canada’s lack of mental health care is embarrassing.

Kirby hopes the day will come when all Canadians understand that a mental disorder is an illness just like cancer or diabetes.

“You shouldn’t think any differently about somebody simply because their illness is above the neck rather than below the neck,” he says. “There’s huge hope of recovery for people with a mental illness. What I mean by recovery is they’re able to lead a pretty normal and productive life consistent with the limitations of their illness just as a diabetic is able to lead a pretty normal life subject to their illness, which may mean taking insulin. For the vast majority of people with a mental illness, they can recover within that definition of recovery.”

He says the only way to keep mental illness out of the shadows forever is to create a national social movement.

I’ve emphasized the last line as this is what we’re concentrating on for this website. We’re using social media to connect people who are concerned about mental health in the Canadian workplace. Look on the left side of this page and you will see bookmarks from a variety of sources and below that are people on twitter who talk about mental health. Check them out and connect to the conversations that interest you.

In the book, Management Rewired: Why feedback doesn’t work and other surprising lessons from the latest brain science, Charles Jacobs shows that logic and reason are not effective in changing behaviour. So what makes us think that providing data, information and research findings are going to change the way we view mental health in the workplace? It’s not. What Jacobs says about changing employee behaviour is also true about changing manager/leader behaviour:

The traditional role of a manager is Aristotelian, but it needs to become Socratic. Rather than tell employees what to do and create all of the negative relationship dynamics, the manager needs to ask. Rather than hand objectives to the employee, the manager should ask the employee to set them. Rather than give employees feedback on their performance, the manager should ask them how they think they’re doing. Rather than tell the employees how to fix a problem, the manager should ask them what they think they should do to fix it. This is, of course, counterintuitive, for it turns the relationship upside down. As the prime mover of the organization, the employee now calls the shots and the manager is in a supportive role.

If we can get the attention of business leaders, the first thing we should do is ask, “How are you doing? What do you need? How can we help you?”

Not a Difficult Value Proposition

The topic of this blog is mental health at work and my (our) objective is to see if we can use social media (blogs, twitter, etc.) to connect to people who are interested in this issue and are active on the Web.

In the short period that I’ve looked at mental health in the workplace, I’ve come to see it as the 21st century version of physical safety, that was a major issue fought by concerned people and trade unions to create safer workplaces. Our mines, factories and work sites are now much safer in this country than they were 50 years ago. My step-father died several years ago from emphysema which was partially due to time working in the silver mines of BC without any respiratory filters. Most workplaces today have good policies and practices on workplace safety.

In this century we are moving to a post-industrial economy and many, if not most, of our products and services are intangibles. Also, most of the work that we do is knowledge work, requiring more brain than brawn. Even farmers need knowledge on a wide spectrum of disciplines (weather, markets, genetics, financing) in order to run a successful operation.

Our brain is our primary means of making a living and keeping a healthy mental state just makes sense. The concept of work/life balance is not just a feel good strategy but is essential for any knowledge-intensive workplace. So, do we really need all the numbers to justify a mental health policy for the workplace? All of the data, such as the Facts section on this website, really should not be necessary to “convince” any executive of the importance of mental health.

Instead, I would ask:

Can you say that good mental health is NOT necessary in your workplace?

Then I would quickly move on to the real question that anyone in a position of responsibility should be asking: What can I do about it?

Peer Support & Input

My recommendation, based on what I’ve observed so far, would be to start with something that does not cost any money. Reduce the barriers in seeking and getting help by increasing access to information and knowledgeable people. That’s a role that this website is attempting to fill – connecting. I also think that a critical way of enabling change is through peers. Studies show that when we have a problem in the workplace we first turn to our peers, not our bosses. To reduce barriers to communication, or in seeking help, people at all levels need to have a trusted peer who they can contact. So find people who are already motivated about promoting good mental health, help them get access to information and resources and then let others know that they are available. With motivated peers, you will have an excellent source of expertise to develop policies that work for your organization.