Stop Fixing People, Start Fixing Systems: Reflections from ECPP 2026 (and links with Luxembourg)

By psychologist Dana Brandes

One of the first workshops at the European Conference of Positive Psychology (ECPP) 2026 in Dublin immediately captured the spirit of the conference theme: Body Meets Mind. Dr. Jonathan Fisher, cardiologist and organisational well-being leader, invited us to look at something we often speak about metaphorically but rarely examine seriously in organisations: the heart.

One of his messages that stood with me:

"Tending your own heart is the first act of leading."

It was a powerful reminder that organisations have the tendency of isolating systems labelled "performance& retention," "health," or "emotional health and wellbeing". But human beings work in these organizations, and we experience physical, emotional, relational and existential realities simultaneously. We cannot separate them simply because our organisational processes do.

The organisational heart

Dr. Fisher described the heart as having four interconnected dimensions, each reflected in organisational life.

The physical heart concerns workload, pace and recovery. It asks whether people have the capacity to sustain their work without chronic exhaustion.

The emotional heart is reflected in psychological safety, dignity, stress levels and how people experience their daily work.

The social heart lives in trust, belonging, collaboration and the way conflicts are managed rather than avoided.

Finally, the spiritual heart concerns meaning, purpose and values—the reasons people choose to invest their energy in something larger than themselves.

These dimensions rarely operate independently. High workload eventually affects emotions. Poor psychological safety erodes trust. Lack of belonging weakens purpose. Meaningless work drains physical energy. Human beings experience all these systems together.

Perhaps this is why many organisational interventions fail. We continue to address isolated symptoms while the organisation experiences them as one interconnected organism.

This systemic perspective becomes particularly relevant when looking at Luxembourg. The latest Quality of Work Index Luxembourg 2025, based on more than 3,100 employees from both the private and public sectors, paints a worrying picture. The overall quality of work (QoW) has reached its lowest level since measurements began in 2014, suggesting that despite growing awareness of well-being, employees perceive their daily work experience as steadily deteriorating.

What breaks the organisational heart?

Dr. Fisher also spoke about the "heart breakers" of organisations.

Stress. Hostility. Loneliness. Anxiety. Depression. Grief. Anger. Meaninglessness. Discrimination.

None of these are merely individual experiences. They spread through teams and cultures. They become organisational phenomena.

Equally important were the "heart wakers":

Gratitude. Optimism. Kindness. Generosity. Joy. Purpose. Compassion. Love.

These are often dismissed as "soft" concepts despite growing evidence that they influence engagement, collaboration, innovation, resilience and even physical health.

Perhaps the real question is no longer whether organisations should care about these qualities, but whether they can afford not to.

Our biology is activated by different types of leadership

Professor Michael West expanded this perspective through his keynote on compassionate leadership.

His argument resonated strongly with Dr. Fisher's vision.

Much of modern leadership still activates what evolution designed for emergencies: our threat system.

When employees constantly experience uncertainty, excessive pressure, blame or competition, leadership repeatedly triggers biological responses dominated by cortisol and adrenaline. While highly adaptive for short-term survival, they become deeply destructive when activated every day.

The result is increasingly familiar:

• burnout,

• anxiety,

• depression,

• emotional exhaustion,

• disengagement.

What many organisations mistakenly call "high performance" often becomes little more than sustained activation of survival mechanisms.

West proposed shifting leadership towards two other fundamental motivational systems.

The first is the incentive and resource finding, associated with curiosity, learning and satisfaction, accomplishment, largely supported by dopamine.

The second is the care and affiliation system, centred on safety, relationships, compassion and belonging, strongly linked with oxytocin.

Compassionate leadership intentonally activates these systems instead of relying almost exclusively on fear and urgency.

This is not about becoming "nice." It is about understanding human biology.

When people feel psychologically safe, they learn faster.

When mistakes become opportunities for repair and learning instead of punishment, innovation increases.

When inclusion replaces fear, feedback becomes an act of collective learning rather than political survival.

When leaders practice self-compassion, they become more capable of remaining present with uncertainty, conflict, imperfection and suffering instead of reacting defensively.

Compassion, therefore, is not the opposite of accountability.

It is what makes accountability sustainable.

The Luxembourg QoW data show that the very organisational resources that protect people's motivation are slowly eroding. Employees report fewer opportunities to participate in decisions, declining feelings of job security and stagnating opportunities for professional development. At the same time, emotional demands continue to rise. This is exactly the type of environment that repeatedly activates the human threat system instead of the systems associated with learning, trust and connection.

Systemic/organisational vs. individual

One idea repeatedly emerged throughout the conference.

We continue to treat different societal issues as individual problems/weaknesses. 

Individuals attend resilience workshops. They learn mindfulness. They receive coaching. They are encouraged to improve work-life balance. As positive psychology practitioner we give them positive psychology interventions to integrate in their routine. 

While all these interventions have value, they often leave untouched the very conditions that produced them in the first place.

I attended the workshop facilitated by Krumma Jonsdottir where we discussed and debated whether prevention of burnout is a societal duty or an individual responsibility. 

Of course, we know we do not need to face adversity in order to become resilient. And no amount of individual resilience can compensate indefinitely for chronic organisational dysfunction.

If workloads remain unrealistic, if psychological safety is absent, if leaders reward constant availability, if people experience discrimination or lack of meaning in their work, then burnout is not a personal weakness. It is an organisational outcome.

The Luxembourg QoW data seem to support this conclusion. Burnout risk continues to increase, now affecting more than one in three workers. Emotional well-being has declined substantially over the last decade, while the proportion of employees at high risk of depression has multiplied. Perhaps even more concerning is that physical health indicators are deteriorating at the same time: sleep problems, back pain, headaches and musculoskeletal complaints are all becoming more frequent. This reinforces the central message of ECPP2026: that body and mind cannot be separated. Chronic organisational stress eventually manifests physically as well as psychologically.

We asked ourselves what is entirely under the individual control: workload, control, reward, community, fairness or values? 

We also discussed whether we are driven by the right motives as professionals. When recovery is a product (coaching, counselling, training, pills, self help books etc)- prevention becomes a threat to revenue...

So, I invite everyone to consider: rather than asking, "

How can we make individuals more resilient?", perhaps :

"What kind of organisations make resilience possible?"

Positive psychology research offers some answers (not easy and complete solutions). We know when people feel cared for, they create great outcomes. A caring climate at work shows: at least 32% lower likelihood of depression symptoms; better mental & physical health; more social behaviour...

The difficulty is to understand what "cared for "means as we are all different. A basket of fruit in the morning, a sports facility in the building, an organised party with the team or the entire organisation, open spaces for collaboration, nap spaces for recovery ...

All of the above can mean nothing for some, can be completely inappropriate for others (fruit is not good for diabetes or people with fructose intolerance, most spaces for sport, relaxation etc remain empty as employees do not have the time to use them or are criticised when using them, open spaces are breakers of flow and source of endless interruptions, the parties are too loud and not adapted for discussion that may lead to real connection etc. In my experience it is enough to listen, and employees or team members will reveal what it means for them "to be cared for". 

Interestingly, the Luxembourg QoW study suggests that what employees value most is not necessarily another well-being initiative but the quality of everyday work itself: participation in decisions, opportunities to develop, meaningful learning, security and supportive leadership. These are not isolated HR benefits; they are characteristics of organisational culture. 

Where does coaching fit? And what is its present and future? 

As a coaching psychologist, this question stayed with me throughout the conference.

It started on the first day with a panel A Defining Moment for Positive Psychology Coaching with Suzy Green, Aylin Dulagil and Christian van Nieuwerburgh. Christian also closed the conference with his keynote speech on presence. 

Coaching has traditionally focused on helping individuals increase awareness, clarify goals, regulate emotions and develop new behaviours. Its base lies in AGENCY. But agency is shared between people, infrastructures, contexts and ecological landscapes and is not only internal within the individual. 

Suggested developments and directions for positive psychology coaching were:

• to integrate Adult Development Theories and create developmental shifts like concentrating how the objectives of one client in coaching serve also the collective from which (s)he is part of...

• a change in mindsets of clients but also of coaches: less neutral more activism (for health, science and wellbeing); considering technological advancements (and their pros & cons…not just jumping on every trend without considering for example the climate change)

• be aware how positive psychology and coaching in general addresses a privileged population and can sometime even in this population enhance loneliness and the obsession with growth. 

• remember that positive psychology is about acknowledging and making things better and include here the culture and the collective (so no more one size fits all)

• and least but not last: ethics. Stop validating harming behaviour for the client and for the collective. 

Coaching occupies a unique position between the individual and the system. How can we influence the system? How can we change the system? 

This question feels particularly relevant in Luxembourg. As organisations struggle with labour shortages, increasing psychosocial risks and declining quality of work, coaching may have an opportunity—and perhaps a responsibility—to move beyond supporting individual adaptation.

The challenge is no longer only to help people cope with unhealthy systems but to accompany leaders and organisations in redesigning those systems. 

Towards regenerative organisations

Several speakers throughout ECPP 2026 challenged positive psychology to move beyond the individual towards organisations, communities and systems.

The discussions on leadership, organisational well-being and burnout all pointed in the same direction.

Well-being cannot be sustainably achieved one employee at a time while organisational cultures continue to activate chronic threat, disconnection and meaninglessness.

If organisations have a heart, then leadership determines how that heart beats.

And perhaps the future of coaching is not simply developing better leaders...we tried our best (?) for so many years. 

It is helping organisations become places where people do not have to choose between performance and humanity.

Because, as Dr. Jonathan Fisher reminded us, tending our own heart may indeed be the first act of leading.

Perhaps tending the organisational heart is the next.