1. Psychosocial health in organisations A question of perspective

2. How to study this issue Be integrative Use exemplars in you thinking and writing Build your own matrix of knowledge based around reading and thinking Practice answer in the sample questions on the next slide

3. Questions What is psychosocial health in organisations? Do organisational models and theories help improve the performance of organisations? What is the difference between mental health and mental illness? Do we find psychopathology in the workplace Can we re-conceptualise organisations in terms of the quality of interpersonal interactions and the impact it has on behaviour and perceptions? Does this enable us to look at process rather than outcomes?

4. What is psychosocial health in an organisational setting Contrast between ‘Mental Health’ and ‘Mental illness’ Metaphors and models in organisations Contact and the interpretation of people behaviour

5. Psychosocial health and how we might run organisations. There is no such thing as normal. Diversity is an asset Emotional security is a key feature of psychological comfort and so of personal productivity A different type of intervention ‘affords’ itself with a psychosocial health metaphor

6. Psychosocial health and practicing manager? –What is a manager? Is it a redundant term? –Are there generic management skills? –Management as ‘organisational facilitation’ –Managers the bottom level of the organisation.

7. How does all this differ from the notion of organisational culture? Ideally the same Notion of organisational culture has become corrupted by western consultancy practice. Conventional Organisational perspectives are vapid and empty

8. What about the notion of management style and leadership? Management of expectations within and between people The question of cognitive style Theories of leadership What makes a good manager?

9. Impact on training and development Very bad to concentrate on ‘form’ or ‘style’ at the expense of content This is what happens with theory driven views of organisations and management that think management is like engineering, in that you can converge to an ‘answer’

10. Really developing organisations A challenge To behave convergent and divergently at the same time Have plans but accept their epehemrmnealnature Concentrate on the quality of the organisational process.

11. Recognising what is really important in a job KSATs are not the only fruit How do we assess: –IP skills –Empathy –Listening –Thinking Or should we not assess In which case what should we do

12. One answer lies in mental health model of organisational development Provides a radically different approach Much simpler and more honest Cheaper More effective More enabling, eclectic and democratic

13. Radically different From conventional Organisational approaches Where we concentrate on form rather than content

14. Simpler Possible to develop simple approaches and methods

15. Cheaper Should be

16. Effective? Time will tell