We’re social animals, it’s time bosses learned how to protect their flock

Support for our mental wellbeing tends to focus on the individual, but that approach goes against our true nature and has led to an increase in loneliness and isolation, and a fall in productivity. Zoe Finch Totten explains why a different approach is needed.

A disabled goose lives in the pond behind my house. Geese, are instinctively primed to live in flocks. Because she cannot fly, this goose was left behind by her parents and six siblings last autumn when she was five months old. Observing how she has had to adapt to survive, not only from predators but as a goose without other geese as role models, is a constant reminder of why we humans are struggling right now :a singular life is an anxious life.

This goose has worked hard to befriend other creatures living nearby: from mallard ducks to wild turkeys to me, she greets us all with exuberant honks and rushes to meet us because she needs us to help her learn about her world. So powerful is her need for conditioning,…