The CPC team often debates and discusses the current mental health landscape in the UK. After one of our discussion groups, our chief course content developer, Mary Haley, linkedin.com/in/mary-haley-32292122, a professional psychotherapist with over 30 years of experience, produced this blog. We hope you find this enlightening.
Question
How can Cerebral Power Conditioning help your organisation grow using resources you already have?
Answer
It can help you unlock the codes to your staff teams’ fullest potential – ethically, effortlessly (yes, really!) and even harmoniously
How?
In business today, one of the challenges can come from within the organisation. The workforce – i.e. the players on our own team. Why is this?
In the past, society generally tried to avoid the arena of mental health problems. People either pretended they felt ok and covered up problems sometimes by using alcohol or medication (secretly) to help. Alternatively, they were stigmatized and felt outcast from others. This exacerbated the problems as good mental health is always accompanied by good social and familial connections.
This was bad news for many people as it meant they couldn’t be themselves. Fortunately, things have changed a lot since then, and it is now not only ok to acknowledge mental health problems but also to talk about them in some depth. From schools to the boardroom, the phrase “My mental health” can be heard liberally.
Whilst this is a great step forward from the old, stigmatised way of living, the pace of this revolution has been so rapid that it is difficult to ensure that we have the tools in place to manage how we work with the emergence of our newly acknowledged mental health concerns.
Instead, we have many people talking freely about their mental health problems but demonstrating no thoughts on how to tackle these. Ironically, we often find ourselves seeming to almost protect these problems rather than tackle them sufficiently. Some people can even find themselves displaying what looks like an entitlement to having mental health problems rather than approaching them as something that can hinder achieving personal growth.
Paradoxically, the freedom and ability to name and accept our problems can almost make them seem precious to us. This is because they give a label and perhaps meaning to what used to be seen as personal shortcomings. For some people, this may even lead to a sense of futility in trying to make improvements.
The over-arching view can become “It’s not my fault; society has to either fix or accommodate me.” Again, healthier than pretence, but far from the desired situation. Learnt helplessness is a frequent side effect of a limiting situation. When this happens, instead of looking towards our strengths, we lean towards protecting our weaknesses.
We have gained acceptance of mental health issues, but there are strong indications that we often stick at that point instead of moving to the next stage – dealing with them. In the business context, this can mean the organisation is required not only to accept their employees’ mental health issues, but also to offer solutions and support. Again, this is a much improved step from denial and lack of care, but it can be counterproductive.
Current methods of tackling mental health problems
Across many organisations, there are attempts to deal with these issues, but they often fall short of what is needed and may sometimes have the unwanted consequence of increasing ‘learnt helplessness’ as employees come to rely on the providers because they can’t see a situation where they can cope on their own. The two main ones currently are:
Online platforms which are ubiquitous and affordable. Although helpful, they cannot offer the positive, individual connection that is a major contributor to alleviating mental stress.
EAP-type counselling sessions are better as they do offer a human connection. Where they can have problems is that they are often short-lived, and it can be difficult to offer the follow-up needed to support and maintain recovery.
The problem both solutions share is that the issue of learnt helplessness can remain because, despite them being able to work on this issue, their very format of a digital platform or a counsellor providing short-term advice can only go so far in helping people build their own resilience.
CPC has the answer
Cerebral Power Conditioning facilitates Senior Leaders, Middle Managers and Staff Teams to harness the brain’s ability to adapt and develop by challenging the omnipresent view of learnt helplessness and lean towards empowerment and growth. It can do this because it works with the whole organisation to maintain a system wherein support, advice-giving and general psycho-education is provided in-house rather than by external parties/programmes
CPC can enable your Middle Managers to be the ones to unlock the potential in staff teams and so be in a position to offer both personal connection and – uniquely – continued progress.
Senior Leaders in business thrive not only on the growth of their enterprises but also on igniting the potential of others.
One way of achieving this in a way that reaches the individual problems and potential of each employee (as opposed to a generalised approach) as well as generate employee potency is to help Middle Managers become the ‘codebreakers’ to unlock this potential!
The Safe Analogy
We can think of the potential in our staff teams as treasures locked in a safe. These treasures are certainly safe and secure, but somewhat useless as their sparkle and light can’t be accessed. Instead, they are kept in the darkness of the safe, not only not accessible but also a potential liability!
CPC can help your Middle Managers become the codebreakers for the safes your teams have used to protect their mental health problems. Not only that, their sustained relationships with their team members can allow the staff members to learn how to do this for themselves.
No longer will they need to hold on to the ‘preciousness’ of their mental health problem, as they can replace this with their newly found strength and resilience.
By giving Middle Managers the information and skills they need to bring out the best in their teams CPC will support your whole organisation to reach its overarching goal… GROWTH. On the way, it will empower and enable managers and staff to get the best from their own personal and professional lives.
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• Psycho-education and
• Ongoing support for all levels: Senior Leaders, Middle Managers and Staff
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