No, it’s not a typo – that’s the vowel we meant to use. It’s Mental Health Week from 15th to 21st May in the UK, which serves as an opportunity to have some open and transparent conversations about, unsurprisingly, all things mental health. There’s a day, a week a month for almost everything these days, ranging from Soufflé to Sunscreen and there’s always a danger that posting about said week, at best, could be seen as just jumping on the bandwagon. At worst, could be seen as virtue signalling – especially if it’s a company or organisation doing the posting.
We don’t want to come across that way and we certainly don’t want to just rehash someone else’s top 5 tips for managing mental health issues. But we do want to use this as an opportunity to share some thoughts on the subject.
So back to the title, it feels like whenever the term mental health appears or is used, it’s in a negative context, of suffering, struggling, of not being strong… essentially being weak. But why? Plenty of people have strong mental health. They have high levels of empowerment, confidence, positivity, resilience…. That’s because health, whether physical or mental is a scale – a spectrum. And we can be at varying points on that scale at varying times. And of course, the two can be linked. For example, if we were to be suffering from terrible back pain, our physical health may feel a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10. Unsurprisingly, chronic back pain can also get you down, as our activity is restricted, meaning we may also be at the lower end of the mental health scale. But everyone has mental health and everyone is 100% somewhere on that mental health scale. Being a lower number doesn’t make a person weak.
We also all have physical health, that’s a given. Everyone accepts that, but no one ever says, “Oh, he’s struggling with his physical health.” Or “she’s had an awful time this year with her physical health” because it’s too broad a term. We talk in specifics when it comes to physical health: a broken arm, breast cancer, pneumonia, a heart attack… We don’t do that with mental health. Partly – possibly – because we don’t have the vocabulary, but primarily because the cause of the low score on the mental health scale isn’t always obvious or known. Even to the person suffering. But the suffering is as real as all of the above physical examples of health issues. It’s just that it all gets lumped into the general term of mental health, and mental health as a term, has for too long carried the stigma of weakness. It isn’t. If anything, it takes great strength to be willing to talk about our own mental health, particularly when we’re bobbing around at the lower end of the scale.
This isn’t a ‘what to do if you’re suffering’ type of article. But when it comes to the world of work, we believe there’s one key, very general thing that can be done to help promote a positive environment for mental health and reduce the likelihood of challenges becoming major issues. And contrary to what Google and Facebook may have you believe, it’s not about having slides installed, a pop-up retro sweet shop in reception or snooze rooms on every floor.
Very simply, it’s to encourage psychological safety in the workplace. People should feel able to share their anxieties, struggles and concerns, whether seemingly initiated at work or not. Everyone at C&C is first, a human being – a person, managing life’s great mix of challenges – and we all know how the dial can sometimes get turned up, through no fault of our own. So, if there is something causing anxiety outside of work, it’s not always easy or even possible to leave that anxiety at the office door. Especially in this new hybrid world we live in, where it’s sometimes not especially obvious, where the office door is!
But how do you get to the point where people feel their work environment is a psychologically safe space? In short, the answer is by witnessing other people sharing, particularly managers and leaders being authentic about how they feel. To see that it’s OK to not have all the answers, all the time. That it’s OK for people in leadership roles to sometimes say, ‘I’m not sure on this, what are everyone’s thoughts?’; to show and share vulnerability, and to not be the constant rock, or the font of all knowledge, on every occasion. Likewise, people should feel comfortable in the knowledge that they can offer ideas and share suggestions, without fear of ridicule or being judged.
Approaching business challenges is a form of problem-solving; problem-solving requires creativity and creativity isn’t restricted to a department or management level. Showing this openness to conversation is liberating for everyone.
A huge amount of content posted this week about mental health focuses on those suffering – encouraging them to talk about it; that people shouldn’t suffer in silence; about things to look out for in others and the things to say to them, which is all valuable advice. But perhaps if as a society, we talked more authentically and openly and were prepared to be a little more vulnerable in sharing with others, we may be able to avert some of the mental health issues that are on the rise, in this post-Covid working environment we all find ourselves learning how to navigate.
