Harvard Business Review FINAL Post:: ROI on Fitness

“What’s the Hard Return on Employee Wellness Programs?” (by Leonard Berry, Ann Mirabito, and William Baun, p. 104). Employee wellness programs have been around for decades. I actually wrote one for the FBI. These programs aim to change employee habits to reduce health risks and to adopt a lifestyle that will improve the quality of life. Now we have some hard data: a 6 to 1 return on investment. Such wellness programs are no longer merely nice to have (a kind of cosmetic sales benefit for working at the company), rather a solid return on investment—prevention oriented. The authors list six pillars of such programs. Read the article to find out what they are and how they could apply to your company. Are you getting a 6:1 ROI somewhere else in your company?

Harvard Business Review Post # 8: Communication

Defend Your Research… “I Can Make Your Brain Look Like Mine” (by Uri Hasson, p. 32). Hasson, a professor at Princeton, studied how brains couple—when one person speaks what happens to the listener. In highly resonant (my word) or attuned communication, the brain activity of both speaker and listener are eerily in sync. In fact, in highly resonant conversations where active listening is afoot, the listener’s brain activity actually anticipates what the speaker will say next. If you’ve ever finished a colleague’s or a mate’s sentence, you’ve experienced this.

Harvard Business Review Post # 7: Professional Boards

“The Case for Professional Boards” (by Robert Pozen, p.51). Pozen, a senior lecturer at Harvard’s Business School, argues that despite having star-studded board members for oversight, many financial institutions went down the chute in 2008-9 and had to be rescued from insolvency. He advocates for professional board members who do board governance for a living. He argues for a typical board size to be 7 directors and wants members to have real-world expertise in the company’s business space. Finally, he strongly contends that all boards meet regularly in executive session without management present. In such meetings, board members tend to talk more candidly about what bothers them. This is critical for the organization whether a for-profit or non-profit.