Building a Mentally Healthy Workplace - Pillar 6: Understanding Complexity

People are complex. Mental health is complex. It's not black and white. When faced with mental health issues in the workplace or an individual within the team, there's not a once-size-fits-all solution.

We are surrounded by unstructured situations. It’s called life. John Lennon once said that ‘Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans’. We can expect things not to go exactly to plan. And when things don’t go to plan, managers like to have a process for figuring out what’s wrong and how to fix it. That’s smart! Unfortunately, people are incredibly complex. They have different goals and values. Different work styles and preferences. Different belief structures. And events affect them differently. There is no manual for ‘fixing’ a mental health problem – only a range of approaches you can try, some of which seem to work better than others. Would you believe the professionals still disagree about what mental illness even is? They argue amongst themselves and they write long, impressive papers about it, but in the end, there isn’t a consensus.

The point here is that, for a manager, there isn’t much to be gained by being able to diagnose a mental illness and prescribe a treatment plan. It’s not your job to do so. But by recognizing that people and situations are complex, taking a step back, and coming at the problem with an enquiring mind, and an intention to help the individual, you can achieve a lot.

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PS. If you want more information about the course Alison is facilitating here please visit https://www.thewmhi.com/leaders-masterclass/

Read about the 7 Pillars of Building a Mentally Healthy Workplace in the book - Mental Wealth: An Essential Guide to Workplace Mental Health and Wellbeing by Peter Diaz and Emi Golding
https://www.amazon.com/Mental-Wealth-Managers-Workplace-Wellbeing/dp/1642793663
Now also available in audio format: https://www.audible.com/pd/Mental-Wealth-Audiobook/B09YFKG7H7

*More Workplace Mental Health Videos*

Exploring The Psychology of Difficult People and How To Deal with Them
►https://youtu.be/5oGq3gFKnr8

What is the difference between normal stress and abnormal stress?
►https://youtu.be/pBdimStH1S0

Why are People Addicted to Negativity?
►https://youtu.be/F_e-gpXQP20

From Mental Health to Mental Wealth (Book Review by Jeff Fallon)
►https://youtu.be/HtpY8yHxQlk

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