Positive Psychology at Work:

What is a Positive Workplace?

What is a positive organization? Is it possible for an organization to be run and managed in such a way that it is good for people and good for business? What are the secrets of positive workplaces?

When Martin Seligman first coined the term ‘positive psychology’ in 1999 he suggested that this new domain would have three key areas of study: positive emotions, positive traits and positive institutions, the third being those where people flourish. At the time he identified as positive institutions democracy, strong families and free inquiry, which suggests he was thinking more of societal institutions than commercial organizations. However, a growing field of research known as positive organizational scholarship is developing which integrates positive psychology and organizational research. The particular quest of this field of research is to understand better the characteristics of the most positive workplaces. The key question they are investigating is: How does an organization within which people are able to flourish differ from those in which they merely survive, or indeed languish?

The best workplaces are defined as those that achieve exceptional organizational performance, that is, where outcomes dramatically exceed common or expected performance. In particular the researchers have studied organizations that recover exceptionally quickly from downsizing, or indeed escape altogether the negative consequences, outlined in Supplement 2.1. Gittell, ...