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A Staircase of Individual and Organizational Health: Bringing the Biology of Business Performance to Life
By Jack Groppel, Ph.D. & Ben Wiegand, Ph.D.

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A Staircase of Individual and Organizational Health: Bringing the Biology of Business Performance to Life
Jack Groppel, Ph.D. Vice President of Applied Science & Performance Training, Wellness & Prevention, Inc. and Co-Founder of the Human Performance Institute Ben Wiegand, Ph.D. Vice President, Wellness & Prevention, Inc., and Disruptive Growth

2013 Wellness & Prevention, Inc.

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INTRODUCTION

THE STAIRCASE: A METAPHOR FOR ORGANIZATIONAL HEALTH

Several experts throughout the United States have proclaimed that the healthier one is, the better one might perform cognitively (Ratey, 2008; Levine, 2009, Ratey & Loehr, 2011; Groppel & Wiegand, 2012A). Yet, in the business world, employee health remains largely relegated to Human Resources departments as a way to save money, rather than a critical component of core business strategy. Indeed, evidence shows that physically active people have a 27% lower healthcare cost per year, averaging $4,240/year for active people and $5,783/year for inactive people [Anderson et al, (2005)]. But, is there more to wellness than just lower costs? Can health really drive business performance? And conversely, could unhealthy organizational habits lead to poorer individual and business health? Is there a pathway by which the effect of wellness can be better understood?
In an earlier 2012 paper, we proposed the idea of the Biology of Business Performance (Groppel & Wiegand, 2012A) to identify health as the ultimate enabler of human performance. Our goal in this paper is to broaden that thinking namely to say that business health and performance are analogous to a biological organisms health and performance, in that teams, leadership, and entire organizations are composed of biological and behavioral beings who must, on a daily basis, engage in healthy behaviors to be able to access all of their talent and skill to solve problems, innovate, lead others, sell, connect, serve customers, communicate, market, and manufacture.

Biology is dened in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as a branch of knowledge that deals with life organisms and life processes (Merriam Webster). Textbooks in biology will take us from the very basics of life to the complex integration of the organism in question. For human beings, as with all life forms, the basic structure and unit of life is the single cell. While incredibly complex in and of itself, the individual cell is where all life begins, and interestingly, where many diseases begin. Millions of cells combine to create tissue, which is further integrated to create organs. Then, the hierarchy goes to systems, and nally to the complete integration of the organism in this case, a human being (SEE FIGURE 1). There is, however, one more obvious step. A human being is a behavioral being, capable of cognition, free will, and emotions, which all result from a combination of genetics (cell make-up) and environment. Thus, a healthy individual is healthy in several dimensions: Physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual, and is aligned to a mission in life and work. (Loehr & Groppel, 2008). By comparison, lets examine a similar (and again simplied) hierarchy of a business enterprise. In a business, the simplest unit of integration is the individual employee. When employees unite, teams are formed. For all teams, there is designated leadership (often several layers deep ), which is ultimately (and hopefully) integrated and aligned to produce the desired outcomes of a protable enterprise (SEE FIGURE 2). Just as a person is more than just the sum of his or her cellular biology, an enterprises overall performance is more than just the total performance of each individual employee (Khair & Saeed, 2011).

Fig 1: A Simplied Perspective of Human Biology

Person

(-^)
Brain

(-^)
Nervous System

(-^)
Cell

Fig 2: A Simplied Perspective of Enterprise Organization

Enterprise

(-^)
Leadership

(-^)
Team

(-^)
Employee

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THE STAIRCASE: A METAPHOR FOR ORGANIZATIONAL HEALTH (CONTINUED)

THE STAIRCASE: A METAPHOR FOR ORGANIZATIONAL HEALTH (CONTINUED)

Now imagine, if you will, dual columns, side-by-side, depicting the hierarchical order of these two systems, progressing from the simple to the complex with each step. Lets equate the human cell with the employee (SEE FIGURE 4); the nervous system with the organizational team (SEE FIGURE 5); the brain with the leadership of the organization (SEE FIGURE 6); and the integrated biological person with the overall organization (SEE FIGURE 7). With this as a lens, it is easy to think of a business as a hybrid organism made up of biologic and organizational building blocks, which comprise a larger staircase.
Fig 3. A New Perspective of the Biology of an Enterprise, and why health in the entire spectrum is important

Whats most interesting in this metaphor is the pecking order. The absolute highest order of integration in the biological diagram is the human being, while this same human being, when put in the position of employee, is at the lowest level of integration in the overall enterprise (SEE FIGURE 3). This is telling of the current perception of employee health and the common oversight that the same mechanisms that must be used to keep a body healthy actually help keep businesses healthy as well: activity, good nutrition, emotional resilience, laser focus, engagement, etc.

Fig 4. Equating the human cell with the employee

Fig 5. Equating the nervous system with the team

The Person

The Organization

Fig 6. Equating the brain with the leadership

The Brain

The Leadership

The Nervous System

The Team

Fig 7. Equating the biologically integrated person with the overall organization

The Human Cell

The Employee

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THE STAIRCASE: A METAPHOR FOR ORGANIZATIONAL HEALTH (CONTINUED)

Just as cells are the building blocks of the body and the body encompasses the environment in which those cells exist people are the building blocks of an enterprise and the enterprise encompasses the environment in which those people exist. The body has evolved to be an optimized model of productivity and efciency. Its dynamic environment supports the health of the cells by supplying oxygen, blood, vital nutrients, feedback and feed-forward mechanisms, etc. Healthy cells, in turn, play vital roles toward the optimal function of the body. Similarly, the enterprise must supply an environment to support the (literal) health of its people. But is our business environment optimal in that goal? Are norms like sitting all day, multitasking,

a lack of organizational purpose, and norecovery cultures healthy or potentially toxic? Has the business environment sufciently evolved to optimize the health of its building blocks (its people)? Or did it evolve out of convenience, tradition, old business think? For people to achieve the absolute highest order of biological integration and perform at high levels, many things must fall into place, including good nutrition, physical activity, adequate sleep, and

purpose, or alignment to a mission, just to name a few. The key to remember is that high performance is more than just the sum of all the cells, tissues, organs, and systems functioning well. An individuals performance depends greatly on the environment and health of the staircase as well.

The Organization

The Leadership

The Team

The Person

The Employee

The Brain

THE ORGANIZATIONAL IMPACT OF BAD BEHAVIORS


The Nervous System

The Human Cell

The staircase metaphor is telling of the current perception and role of employees in todays corporate world. In 2010, Towers Watson reported that companies who are committed to health as a business imperative achieve signicantly better nancial outcomes and lower employee turnover (Towers Watson, 2009/2010). Gallup (2010) took this to another level and found that unhealthy employees are not engaged in their jobs, and that numerous chronic conditions existed (e.g., obesity, diabetes, etc.).

Disengaged employees are less likely to be productive than engaged workers (Gallup, 2011). When the majority of a workforce is disengaged, business productivity and prots often suffer. Additionally, employees under stress may exhibit survivalbased behaviors, such as impatience, uncooperativeness, defensiveness, frustration, hyper-criticality, and pessimism. All these emotions decrease their ability to perform effectively with their work teams. The cost of underutilized human assets can run from the tens into the hundreds of millions of dollars, depending on the size of the rm (Robison, 2010).

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THE ORGANIZATIONAL IMPACT OF BAD BEHAVIORS (CONTINUED)

THE STAIRCASE AS A CORPORATE CONSTRUCT

In the 2012 Towers Watson Staying @ Work Survey Report, it was said that, This years survey results show a strong link between highly effective health and productivity strategies and strong human capital and nancial results (Pathway to Health and Productivity, NBGH/Towers Watson 2011-2012 Staying @ Work Survey Report, 2012, p. 2). For example, nearly two-thirds of companies with highly effective health and productivity programs (66%) report they perform better than their top competitors. In 2008-2009, Right Management surveyed 28,800 representative employees across 10 sectors in 15 countries worldwide. They found that employees who responded favorably to the proposition that their organization actively promotes health and well-being were: 8x more likely to indicate that they were engaged 4x less likely to indicate that they planned to leave within the next year 3.5x more likely to identify their organization as encouraging innovation and creativity 3x more likely to assess their organizations as being productive To summarize our thinking, it seems that if an individual is healthy physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually a multitude of possibilities arise for an

enterprise. If an enterprise allows or even enables unhealthy behaviors (e.g., sitting in long meetings and on lengthy conference calls, lack of ability to develop or practice emotional skills, multitasking, lack of alignment to the organizational purpose, no recovery in between meetings, etc.), employees and teams may not live up to their potential, due to the habits/culture of the organization, leadership, and team leaders. Thus, human capital is not only harmed from a performance perspective, but healthcare costs could skyrocket, simply because of negative cultural habits being pushed down the staircase. Rath and Harter, authors of Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements, stated, in 2012, that Wellbeing affects the whole person. The whole person comes to work, not just the worker. So how you manage that person affects key outcomes like new disease burden, sick days, and obesity, which have direct implications on annual healthrelated costs. If companies take care of the whole person, they build more loyalty over time, and that affects their brand in many different ways (Gallup Business Journal, 2012). As simple as it seems, if a person (on the same level as the employee) performs at higher levels, you increase the chances for teams to perform better, and thus, the performance of the enterprise could improve as well. So why does employee health continue to ght for a seat at the strategy table?

The staircase construct can be used to illustrate and analyze the true impact of employee health on an organization and elevate the creation of a culture of health from a buzz word to a strategic business imperative that would emanate from the top down to the bottom up. For example, if employees engage in healthy behaviors, they likely bring their best energy and selves to their work and their teams, fueling the performance of the business. Similarly, if an organization promotes a culture of wellness and encourages employees to adopt healthy lifestyles and work styles, it helps fuel the performance of its employees, who in turn can ignite the business and illustrate a successful feedback and feed-forward staircase of organizational health. We believe that a healthy organization top to bottom and bottom to top could be the new Going Green (Groppel, 2010). 'Going Green' became the rage from a top-down (governmental legislation) and a bottom-up (children emphasizing to parents the importance of recycling) approach the perfect staircase phenomenon! In terms of the environment, the old story of society was one in which individuals behaved in thoughtless ways that were bad for the environment. At the beginning of the 20th century, foremost conservationists like John Muir and President Theodore Roosevelt fought to save millions of acres of land through the creation of national parks, forests, and animal reserves. The Environmental Protection Agency was created in 1970 and charged with protecting human health and the environment. However, in the

late 1970s, two colossal environmental disastersthe Three Mile Island nuclear core meltdown in Pennsylvania and the public health emergency created by 21,000 tons of chemical waste buried beneath the Love Canal neighborhood in New York brought the importance of environmental protection to the awareness of the general public. And, who over the age of 40 does not remember the simple advertisement that struck an emotional cord in our hearts, of an aging Native American with a tear rolling down his face because of the destruction of our natural habitat? Once evidence of the harmful effects of these behaviors began to accumulate and to be internalized, society as a whole realized that a change in story was not only necessary but of epic importance. Finally, the new story of environmental conservation mattered to the majority. And, so, we rewrote our story based on a mission that strives for a cleaner and more sustainable environment. An action plan, aligned with this new story, then followed, which induced society at large to change behaviors as necessary to achieve these goals. Children were taught about conservation in schools, and they brought this knowledge home to their parents (leaders) and their families (teams), who began adopting these practices. Today, recycling is becoming the norm, littering is not tolerated, and natural resources are better protected. This behavioral cascade from schools, to children, to homes, to society, and vice versa illustrates the staircase at work in a social context, further underscoring its potential use in the professional arena.

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A STAIRCASE SUCCESS STORY

SUMMARIZING THE STAIRCASE

Blair (2009) has stated that physical inactivity is the biggest healthcare concern of the 21st Century. Likewise, Healy, et al (2011) have found that sitting too long increases the likelihood for disease. Furthermore, in July 2012, the journal Lancet proclaimed that in view of the prevalence, global reach, and health effect of physical activity, the issue should be appropriately described as pandemic, with far-reaching health, economic, environmental, and social consequences. It is interesting to note the potential effect of the brains involvement in motion, and the effect of motion on the brain. The brain is the control center for motor control and coordination of movement. According to Dr. John Ratey, Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard and the author of Spark: the Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, when the body starts moving, the brain lights up in almost all areas, and the result is improved cognition, creativity, and problem-solving (Ratey, 2008). In an effort to apply these neuroscientic implications to the corporate framework, we developed the Organization in MOTION program to study the impact that small and frequent amounts of movement can have on individual energy levels, cognition, creativity, and problem-solving throughout the day. The objective of the initiative was to test the theory that increasing movement would increase self-reported energy, engagement, and focus levels in employees. To do this, we administered the program to New Balance, the athletic shoe company, based in Boston, MA.

The leadership at New Balance realized that although they are an athletic company, their human capital was doing business the same way most businesses do sitting in long meetings or on long conference calls, grounded in an inactive business culture. While their employees were likely tter than employees at other businesses, workplace inactivity was keeping them from being their best, and quite possibly, preventing them from keeping up with their ever-increasing business demands. With the launch of the Organization in MOTION program, New Balance participants reported that the more they moved, the more energy they had, the more engaged they were, and the more focused and intrinsically motivated they became. Throughout the 90-day study, several factors played out to create a successful program that demonstrates the staircase in action: 1. CEO and C-Suite ownership 2. Leadership buy-in and role modeling 3. Permission from leadership at every level of the enterprise 4. Champions at every level to stimulate and sustain the program 5. Buy-in at every employee level 6. Bi-directional enthusiasm, encouragement, and support 7. Establishment of a culture of movement

Although it is often neglected, employee health is a critical strategy for business success. CEOs and other leaders can use the staircase as a construct to demonstrate the impact that employee health or the lack thereof can have on organizational performance. Using this tool, leaders may nally have the evidence they need within their own cultures to change the legacies for their organizations from wellness as parity to wellness as a business engine. The ability of the staircase progression to maximize the health of your organization in both directions and optimize the

development and growth of employees, teams, and leaders, can help improve the overall performance of an organization. In studying the staircase, it is clear that organizational success is more than just executing business objectives. It stems from creating an effective and functional biological environment where employees, teams, and leadership can thrive. When one takes the time to dissect the organizations culture of health from the employee to the enterprise one can enable a business to grow in an exponential way while supporting and improving the health of its people.

REFERENCES

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REFERENCES

REFERENCES (CONTINUED)

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29. Taube, W., Leukel, C. & Gollhofer, . How neurons make us jump: The neural control of stretch-shortening cycle movements. Exercise & Sport Science Reviews, 40:2, 106-115, April, 2012 30. Towers Watson/National Business Group on Health. Purchasing value in healthcare. Selected Findings from the Annual NBGH Conference, 2010. 31. Towers Watson, Staying@Work Report, 2009-2010. 32. Wang, Y. & Beydoun, M. The obesity epidemic in the United States Gender, Age, Socioeconomic, Racial/ Ethnic & Geographic Characteristics: A systematic review & meta-regression analysis. Epidemiology Reviews, 29: 6-28, 2007. 33. Wellness & Prevention, Inc. Landmark Study, 2009. 34. Yancey, T. Instant Recess. LA: University of California Press, 2010. 35. http://www.merriam-webster.com/ dictionary/biology) found at http:// www.right.com/thought-leadership/ research/employee-engagement--maximizing-organizationalperformance.pdf

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