Creating Healthy Organizations.

Good health is good leadership

There's a growing malaise in executive circles that high performance isn't all that it claims to be. Witness the high performing teams that burn out, or the stellar companies receiving "Best Managed" or "Malcolm Baldridge" awards, which fizzle.

We are on the cusp of a new paradigm for leadership excellence: sustainable high performance. It no longer suffices to merely dazzle customers. We must also delight employees if they are to invest their knowledge, skills, and innovation in the organization's continued success. The trick is to climb both ladders simultaneously.

Impressing employees is easy for leaders in the information technology field, where "human capital" and "the bottom line" are uttered in the same breath. The laggards in this industry are paying a heavy price for their inattention, as are other industries that see employees as a cost, rather than a sustainable source of wealth. Winners, such as those profiled in the "100 Best Places to Work," make this connection intuitively, and are reaping the benefits of enthusiastic and committed employees. They recognize that total compensation must include inspired leadership and a healthy organizational culture.

Many organizations, however, falter when it comes to creating a healthy culture. The disciples of servant leadership open the Pandora's Box of employee health, safety, and wellbeing by asking, "how can I help you do your job better?" They fall headlong into the futile debate over, "whose responsibility is employee wellbeing?" This debate is terminated in world-class organizations with a "do what works" attitude. The discovery that superior outcomes in health, safety, and employee wellbeing have everything to do with management rigor and leadership excellence is exciting. Simply put, "good health is good leadership."

There is a growing mountain of evidence that the incidence of employee stress, illness, and injury can be slashed. The world's healthiest and safest organizations are not characterized by the presence of health/safety/lifestyle policies and programs, but by the following cultural traits:

* Outstanding 360[degrees] communication

* Meaningful and focused empowerment

* Balance between work and personal life

Sound familiar? We are reminded that programs and policies do not replace "felt leadership" and that doing does not equal being. Fortunately, organizational culture - like Emotional Intelligence (EQ) - can be turned around.

Surprisingly, these cultural traits mirror the widely researched profile of the high performing organization, which suggests that the easily attained in employee wellbeing does not necessarily involve incremental cost. Investment in interpersonal relations, team development, leadership excellence, and a flexible workplace might rightly be considered a normal cost of doing business.

Organizations that embrace their role in employee well-being are able to reject the energy-sapping debate over responsibility in favour of a collaborative partnership. They shift their investment emphasis from one of failure costs, to one of detection and prevention costs. These organizations judiciously and effectively invest in high-impact cultural transformation. They embody the premise that if quality can be free, health can be, too.

Pursuing the path of excellence in employee wellbeing does, however, require the same rigor and commitment that we invest in service/quality improvement. If you get what you measure, here are some diagnostic favourites. They fall into the categories of awareness, rationale, actions, efficacy, and outcomes:

1. How aware is your executive team of the improvement potential and its vital role in employee wellbeing?

2. Does your business case (for employee wellbeing) focus only on direct costs, or does it also measure opportunity costs, human capital variables, and non-incremental cost opportunities?

3. Are your people accountable and equipped to deliver superior outcomes?

4. What does your investment profile look like for employee wellbeing? (Cost-of-quality categories of detection, prevention, and failure costs.)

5. How aggressively do you measure "felt healthy leadership," and event rates for stress/illness/injury?

In short, what kind of results are you getting?

As the saying goes, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating."

Danielle Pratt is president of Healthy Business Inc., and an associate executive consultant with The CLEMMER Group, a North American network of organization, team, and personal improvement experts.