The heart of our work
We connect human strength with living system science to support wellbeing and success.
At Canon Collaborative, our mission is to revolutionize experience at work to support human and planetary health and wellbeing.
Our framework bridges physics with positive psychology — connecting human strength with natural intelligence in the workplace and beyond. With work claiming so much of our lives, we believe it’s the best place to transform our experience in ways that matter to our happiness, fulfillment, and survival.
This article shares the heart and science behind our approach.
The heart of our work: investing in the innate power of the human spirit
Our Context
State of mental health and the human spirit
The state of mental health is an ever growing concern on our planet. Mental health disorders diminish the wildly inventive human spirit needed to solve our planet’s greatest challenges. From our perspective, serious problems arise from operating in ways that are not natural or conducive to our expansive human nature.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health encompasses an individual’s ability to cope with stress, realize and engage their abilities, and contribute to their community. In 2019, almost a billion people were living with a known mental health disorder [1]. Note that these figures were presented before the Covid-19 pandemic and do not account for unknown conditions. This true number is likely much higher as people often deny when they are struggling, choosing to treat themselves like a machine for as long as possible.
These mental health disorders exist alongside the increasing prevalence of burnout, which is not categorized as a mental health disorder. Burnout is a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed [1]. However, stress management is a significant aspect of mental health. In 2024, many estimates show a minimum of half of the global workforce is at risk of burnout.
Mental health is closely linked with productivity [2] and an estimated 12 billion working days are lost every year due to depression and anxiety alone, which costs an estimated 1 Trillion U.S. dollars in lost productivity. These mental health disorders and burnout impair the human spirit that drives innovation and economic energy [3].
Overcoming mechanistic management
With ever increasing complexity affecting the landscape of life and business, a proportional increase in the human capacity to navigate volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous situations and environments is required. However, this is a big leap from principles of scientific management that have dominated western economies for over a hundred years.
The ways that humans operate evolved rapidly during the Industrial Revolution and the innovations are widely appreciated: instant access to water, food, and power to name a few luxuries. Scientific Management was officially introduced during this world-changing era and was instrumental in building human connection or relationship to our new machine extensions [4]. This new management strategy created standards of performance and thoughtfully designed workflows to promote success in a world full of exciting human ingenuity.
This mechanistic revolution positively transformed our human experience and arrived with consequences. The standards and operational structures imposed by engineers and upper level management became the most important perspectives to understand and mimic. In other words, command and control became a widely accepted management practice because of course the creators of the operation know it best.
At scale, workers began to naturally view themselves as components of a larger, complex process and disconnect personal awareness from agency. The systematic self-treatment and management of humans as a part of a machine became the norm, instead of machines being an extension of human capacity.
With both complexity and technology on the rise, it is important we return to the spirit of ingenuity that created these wonders in the first place. Managing systems, machines, and humans has only grown more complex, and now includes the new variable of artificial intelligence (Ai). With multiple advanced global crises at our doorstep, it has never been more important to remind humanity that we are uniquely empowered to create and innovate.
Our Resources
Universal principles of flow and living system science
Freedom is the most fundamental property of nature [5]. Humans are not separate from nature, we are a manifestation of it — the same branching architecture that we see in river systems, tree structures, and lightning bolts moves through our bodies, minds, and consciousness [6]. We are therefore empowered by gaining understanding of how our personal experience is connected to natural intelligence via living system science.
The Constructal Law of physics is a universal principle observing that living systems evolve to find greater access to the currents that move through them [6]. The essence of the law is about finding and expanding access to flow – or in our case, expanding access to currents of strength moving through every human being. This must first happen through an individual’s self-trust – believing in the innate, creative, and emergent power of their own spirit. Next, expanding trust toward interpersonal relationships allows for exchanges of power and genius, just like strategies modeled in nature in the way of symbiotic or life-exchanging partnerships.
The word Constructal can be thought of as nature’s way of constructing or building – and it’s found everywhere in nature (and the engineered world) and occurs at multiple scales. Similar concepts include the golden ratio, fibonacci sequence, and fractal patterns in nature. The word fractal is rooted in the word fracture, which means to break. However, these evolving patterns is the strategy through which nature builds or constructs [6]. Adrian Bejan, the discoverer of the Constructal Law, hopes that his work would promote the idea of empowering people more uniformly [7].
In our view, expanding access to the flow of individual and collective strength will lead to a flourishing ecosystem of human ingenuity.
Empowered strength, language, and perspective
We know that the human mind has an instinctive urge to recognize and understand the configuration required to promote ease, fulfillment, and happiness [8] – an instinctive desire for congruence or harmony of our experience and surroundings.
The CliftonStrengths assessment (previously known as StrengthsFinder 2.0) identifies and ranks 34 possible strengths into a sequence [9] according to their prevalence within an individual’s natural mode of operation. For individuals, the top or dominant currents of strength are dynamically interconnected and an extremely rare subset often first appearing in childhood. The language associated with each strength, which can be likened to an energy or instinct, is expressed in very relatable language for immediate utilization in any environment combined with knowledge of what fuels its movement or enables its contribution. All 34 strengths can be consciously and distinctly engaged and therefore productively called upon or utilized.
We know that “language speeds and strengthens connections in the brain when we are processing sensory information” [10] and that better utilizing language advances innovation and adaptation [11]. Our approach to strength empowerment illuminates significant aspects of an individual’s tacit knowledge, which is understood as knowledge embedded in the human mind through subjective experience that is often very difficult to put into words, including personal wisdom, insight, and intuition. An individual may not be consciously aware of this embodied knowledge, yet it influences how we each perceive and interact with the world [12].
When understood, this embodied strength and tacit knowledge illuminates the path to individual genius – supporting an individual’s ability to create situations and opportunities to release their strength with greater self-trust and confidence. Claiming this agency, we can map our instincts beyond survival and bring forth innovations that our mind, and only our mind, could create.
Our embodied strength naturally meets resistance in abundant and highly unique-to-us forms. This resistance or stress is often associated with work or the required activities that support the structure of our lives and niche environments. Gaining clarity of our highly unique environmental stressors, we can lead ourselves to success through the path of least resistance – with conscious awareness, claimed agency, and methodical self-directed movement.
The Hungarian-American Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi introduced the concept of a psychological flow state as empowered concentration on a consciously chosen goal and worthy challenge [13]. In Csikszentmihalyi’s view, these flow states arise when we claim control of our inner state of energy and experience, which can not only lead to success, but is also the closest that anyone can come to creating happiness in life [13]. As Mihaly states, “The steps we take to improve the quality of experience are very important to culture as a whole.”
CliftonStrengths was built upon principles of positive psychology and designed for the workplace. Its development was inspired by a research study that discovered learning increased exponentially when existing talent was supported through training and investment [9]. Positive psychology seeks to nurture an individual’s genius versus focusing on areas of weakness or shortcomings, which can naturally be mitigated through greater awareness of strength. Note the contrast to classic psychology, which seeks to focus on and remedy what may be wrong with an individual.
With greater strength awareness, individuals can design for success, support their wellbeing, and be more confident in their quest for harmony and happiness in life. From this place of embracing our strength and leaning into the strength of genius around us, we have the opportunity to cultivate world-changing interdependence.
Our Evolution
Revolutionize experience beginning at work
Management approaches that choose to empower people will naturally open pathways that greatly liberate the human spirit — spurring creativity, innovation, and mental wellbeing.
According to Gallup, wellbeing can be understood and measured within five interconnected domains [3]. With work claiming 20-50% of our waking hours, experience in the career domain or ‘liking what we do everyday’ is heavily weighted in connection with our holistic wellbeing and can be a tremendous stabilizing force in an individual’s life [3]. Jim Harter, Chief Scientist at Gallup shares that the combination of strengths and wellbeing at work is “potentially the most transformational treatment yet” in the pursuit of mental health [3].
Through embracing a shared language, an organization can utilize strengths to connect on issues that greatly matter to the work – bolstering collaboration, innovation, and adaptation. Through this connection, leaders and managers can gain truly invaluable insight into what fuels their team to intrinsically pursue shared goals and collaborate toward realizing vision. Freedom to operate in strength at work is directly correlated with workplace engagement, which brings tremendous organizational benefits such as decreased safety incidents, lower turnover, higher productivity, and more [14].
Organizations as living organisms
Organizational structures have evolved with the human species, as outlined by Frederic Laloux in his work “Reinventing Organizations” [15]. As our society grows more complex, so does our need for more complex structures to support our movement and empowerment. Today, Laloux believes organizations should be viewed as a living organism that would best flourish under holistic management practices that center higher purpose, distributed decision making, and self-management [15].
Through viewing an organization as a living organism, we can gain powerful insight into pathways that can liberate human strength and ingenuity. This perspective not only gives us insight into individual pathways to flourishing, but also how the whole may be nourished through cultural practices and structures. Viewing an organization’s ecosystem of living human strength, we can analyze its design to understand dominant pathways to productivity, mitigate unique environmental stressors, and leverage outlying strength that might otherwise be overpowered.
With greater knowledge of individual and collective strengths – we can gain insight into design that can facilitate greater freedom for the whole.
What now?
If you are reading this as an individual, we invite you to revolutionize your own experience at work, which is possible whether or not your team or boss approves. You have the opportunity to harness your natural strength to power the flow of life within, through, and around you – and need no one’s permission but your own. We call you to liberate your inner genius and release the flow of your strength and joy in the world. The best place to begin is our Grounding Journey, or you can dip your toes in with the First Step. Be sure to check out our various pathways to access our services.
If you are a leader, we especially call you to be part of a movement to revolutionize experience at work. The science of management should rapidly evolve to provide greater access to human strength for the sole purpose of benefiting global wellbeing – innovation and profit will naturally follow, which is why 90% of Fortune 500 companies have implemented a strength-based approach [16]. “The onus is on citizens, schools, businesses, and government to speed the process of creating designs to better serve society — more effectively, and with much greater confidence [7].” Be a part of a movement to create happiness in the world while simultaneously boosting creativity and innovation in your organization. Learn more and reach out to begin your organization’s partnership with Canon Collaborative.
Wellbeing and agency are critical components for an inclusive and sustainable path to global development [17]. We can all learn to generate congruence in our lives by embracing our most natural energy and absorbing the timeless wisdom of the natural world – in pursuit of balance and harmony that “form the golden thread of life [17].”
It is our great hope and belief that honoring the nature within us can be a pathway to honoring the nature that surrounds us: people and the planet. The onus is on every one of us – we are empowered and it’s time to revolutionize the way we work.
Sources
[1] World Health Organization (WHO). World Health Organization. <www.who.int/health-topics/mental-health>
[2] Psychology Today. Mental Health and Productivity. <https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/productivity/mental-health-and-productivity>
[3] J. Clifton, J. Harter, Wellbeing at Work: How to Build Resilient and Thriving Teams, 2021.
[4] Jameslopresti. “Scientific Management Theory: Definition, History, Principles, Goals.” Villanova University, 28 June 2022, www.villanovau.com/articles/leadership/scientific-management-theory-explained/.
[5] Bejan, A., Freedom and Evolution, Springer Nature: New York, USA, 2020.
[6] Bejan, A., Zane, J.P., Design in Nature: How the Constructal Law Governs Evolution in Biology, Physics, Technology, and Social Organization, Doubleday: New York, USA, 2012.
[7] American Institute of Physics (AIP). "Physics can predict wealth inequality." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 28 March 2017. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170328120613.htm>.
[8] Bejan, A., Time and Beauty: Why Time Flies and Beauty Never Dies, World Scientific: Singapore, 2023.
[9] “Science of CliftonStrengths.” The Gallup Organization, 5 Aug. 2024, www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/253790/science-of-cliftonstrengths.aspx#
[10] Brown, Brené. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience. First edition. New York, Random House, 2021.
[11] Bejan, A., The Physics of Life: The Evolution of Everything, St. Martin’s Press: New York, USA, 2016.
[12] Key Concepts in Information and Knowledge Management. Tacit and Explicit Knowledge. www.tlu.ee/~sirvir/Information%20and%20Knowledge%20Management/Key_Concepts_of_IKM/tacit_and_explicit_knowledge.html. Accessed 18 Nov. 2024.
[13] Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The classic work on how to achieve happiness. Rider, Random House, 2002.
[14] “The Benefits of Employee Engagement.” The Gallup Organization, 5 Aug. 2024. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236927/employee-engagement-drives-growth.aspx
[15] Laloux, F. Reinventing organizations: A guide to creating organizations inspired by the next stage of human consciousness. Nelson Parker: Brussels, Belgium, 2014.
[16] CliftonStrengths for Organizations. The Gallup Organization. https://www.gallup.com/cliftonstrengths/en/253808/cliftonstrengths-for-organizations.aspx. Accessed 29 May 2024.
[17] Global Wellbeing Initiative. Wellbeing for All: Incorporating Harmonic Principles of Wellbeing in Subjective Wellbeing Research and Policymaking, 2023.
[18] Gallup Employee Engagement Indicator. The Gallup Organization. https://www.gallup.com/394373/indicator-employee-engagement.aspx. Accessed 29 May 2024.
