#82: How to Talk About Mental Health at Work with Melissa Doman

Lead the People

Melissa Doman, MA is an Organizational Psychologist, Former Clinical Mental Health Therapist, & Author of Yes, You Can Talk About Mental Health at Work (Here’s Why And How To Do It Really Well). Melissa works with companies across industries around the globe – including clients like Google, Dow Jones, the Orlando City Soccer Club, Microsoft, Salesforce, Siemens, Estée Lauder, & Janssen. She’s spoken at SXSW and has been featured as a subject matter expert in CNN, Vogue, NPR, the BBC, CNBC, Inc., and in LinkedIn’s 2022 Top 10 Voices on Mental Health. Having lived abroad in South Korea, England, Australia and traveled to 45+ countries, Melissa calls upon her global experiences to inform how she works with companies around the world. She has one core goal: to equip companies, individuals, and leaders to have constructive conversations about mental health, team dynamics, and communication in the workplace. Her work and book aim to accomplish just that. To learn more about Melissa, her work, or the book - please visit www.melissadoman.com.

Top 3 Takeaways

1. Build the foundation. There are few workplace topics more important than mental health yet for a variety of reasons, we often shy away from having them. We can start making progress by developing a strong foundation of education and understanding.
2. Have the conversation. Mental well-being is a dynamic and complex topic. This means we need to get comfortable engaging with others to disclose our information, discover theirs, and thoughtfully and effectively support one another.
3. Get real. Feeling pressure to feel okay all the time is not a proper definition of wellness. It’s natural to not feel okay all the time. If we’re in too much of a rush to brush aside negativity, we may inadvertently create a bigger challenge.

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From the Source

“We're not trying to create an open playing field or an iron wall. We're trying to create a fence. You decide what you let through. You decide what you don't let through.”

“I didn't see anything out there and I was like, people need a guidebook. They need a playbook on how to do this, what to do if it doesn't go well, how to develop the language, the conversational literacy just like a literacy for any, any other skill.”

“It is really tough in here. It's really tough out there. And that's not going to change. I'm not trying to be negative. I'm trying to be realistic.”

“When you think about intergenerational conversations about mental health at work—that's a doozy—I think that finger pointing is just so unhelpful. And that's what people tend to do really easily because it's, it's easy and it's patterned and that's what different generations do.”

“Even though there are more resources than ever and more people are getting help than ever, our global mental health and rates of mental illness are worse than ever.”

“When you feel like you have some semblance of control over something, or you have the ability or the self efficacy to be able to develop the skills to be able to handle that, in an uncertain and chaotic world, that should feel like a nice cozy blanket.”

Connect with Melissa

Website: http://www.melissadoman.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissadoman1

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewanderingmel