Addressing Holistic Health at Work with Ashish Kothari and Barbara Jeffery

If you're thinking about becoming more effective, self effective, more adaptable, that's only really possible if you're in a good place, right? You can't do that if you're in a really bad place.

Welcome to the Happiness Squad Podcast. Your weekly dose of practical tips and inspirations to help you operate at your fullest potential by integrating the science of flourishing into how you live, work and lead. In each episode we will share insights, tips and stories from leading experts, company executives and flourishing solution providers that you can implement right away to make happiness your competitive edge and find more success, joy, health, love and meaning in everything you do. Hello friends. Welcome to the Happiness Squad Podcast where we share practical tips to make flourishing your competitive edge and help you achieve stellar performance powered by well being and not at its expense. I'm Ashish Kothari and I'm on a mission to help a billion people not just experience happiness as an emotion, but really use it as a tool to unlock their fullest potential. If you're interested in learning how to make happiness your competitive edge, please make sure to follow me on LinkedIn and subscribe to our newsletter@happinesssquad.com Today we are thrilled to bring back an inspiring conversation with Barbara Jeffrey, a partner at McKinsey Co. In their London office who focuses and has a deep passion for creating healthier workplaces. Barbara is one of the leaders of the McKinsey Health Institute where she focuses on cutting edge research on employee health and well being. I particularly love this episode as it cuts to the heart of the challenge behind why organizations and leaders are failing to move the needle significantly on stress, anxiety, engagement and overall well being at work despite significant increase in wellness initiatives. We jointly discuss the four dimensions of holistic health as well as the need to take interventions at all four levels individual, team, job and organization to address the demands and enablers that are at the heart of this crisis of well being that we are experiencing. Stay tuned till the end when Barbara shares her daily and weekly practices for filling her own cup and taking care of her well being. Hi Barbara, it is so lovely to have you on our podcast. My dear friend Ashish.

I'm delighted to be here. Always lovely to talk to you, you.

Know, on our listeners a little backstory. Barbara and I met in the midst of one of the most contentious client studies that we could have ever had and I think to some extent we were almost pitted as adversaries. Not really, but two completely different points of view. You know, in that context with two different clients, with two different competing perspectives on what the right answer was. And it's important to remember the word perspectives because there are no rights and wrongs definitively in life. Most of things are, you know, in the gray zone. I just absolutely had fallen in love with Barbara in terms of how she was able to kind of truly be the peacemaker and truly be able to kind of counsel the client. And none of that would have been possible without kind of her own mastery of personal resilience in terms of how she navigates adversity, how she navigates difficult situations. And so we're going to be diving a lot into that today. But first and foremost, Barbara, I am just blown away from the time we worked together to over the last four years, what you have built, what you're a part of with the McKinsey Health Institute. And I love the tagline, right? Adding years to life and life two years. Who doesn't want that? Adding the years to life and life to years. So share with our listeners. We're going to get right into it some of the amazing work that you're spearheading in this whole domain of holistic wellbeing.

So thank you, Ashish. That's too kind. And even in adverse circumstances, I always loved working with you. So that says a lot about your personal qualities as well. But I am delighted and very privileged to be able to work as part of McKinsey Health Institute on top of my client work as well. And within mhi, we were founded, I think, with just an unbelievable mission, as you said, which is really over the next decade, how do we add 45 billion years of extra, higher quality life? So as you said, it's not just adding the year's life, it's adding the life to years. And I feel incredibly privileged to be able to work on that. And specifically a topic that's very close to my heart and that I've had the opportunity to work on is particularly around employee health and well being. And that's a core part of our healthy living and it's one of our core planks of mhi. So we work traditionally in MHI across historically underfunded and resourced areas of health care, everything from brain health to healthy aging to infectious disease through to kind of sustainability in health. And I think employee health and wellbeing has such an important role in terms of helping everyone live happier, healthier lives.

Yeah. No, I love that. And that's where I think, and you know, you say MHI historically works in underfunded areas right. On the healthcare spectrum. And I would Say, you know. Yes, and hence employee health is the right place to be. Because even though the funding has gone up over the last several years, you know, I hold that 99% of it is wasted. So if you think about real funding, that that is actually making a positive impact in the health of employees, very little of it is. So I'm glad that you're actually shining the light on the role of organizations and on employee health because that's where we spend most of our waking hours.

Fully agree. Ashish. Could not agree more. And I agree with you. We know nine out of 10 companies are doing something, you know, particularly post Covid. It really shone the spotlight on employee health wellbeing. I just think they're investing in the wrong things. And that's one of the things that really underpin the research, which is actually what drives real health outcomes and real work outcomes. And therefore, this isn't about investing more, it's about investing better.

Exactly, exactly. So we'll get into a lot of it. And it is, you know, we are in so much on the same page on this one in terms of the role of the different areas that you can invest. I mean, that's what I get excited about. As you know, that's the reason I decided to dedicate my life. I'll be 50, by the way, in March 9th.

So congratulations.

And I'm speaking at this gross global happiness. I mean, a gift that universe gave me. So on my birthday, they're like, here you go. Go spend time on this. Go spend time on flourishing. So let's start with a definition, because most people actually don't really fully understand. They kind of think they do, but they don't. So let's define holistic health and why it is so important in the workplace.

Yeah. So we had lots of debates around this and we decided to go with the four dimensions of health, so physical, mental, social, and spiritual. And let me just take a moment to define each of those elements. So physical health we define as the extent to which an individual can competently perform physical tasks, you know, without significant discomfort. So that's kind of. I think most people intuitively understand physical health. Mental health we define as an individual's cognitive, behavioral and emotional state of well being. Social is really about an individual's ability to build healthy, nurturing, genuine and supportive relationships. And spiritual health, which was the area that I can imagine, particularly as McKinsey we debated a lot a as what to include, but also the definition. It isn't about religion. It's about the extent to which People integrate meaning into their lives. And I think we're seeing that much more with people, particularly the younger generation, really wanting to connect to their patterns. Yeah.

And I love that Viktor Frankl in the 50s said, Today we have more means to live and less meaning to live for. Yes, we are in an epidemic of hopelessness and meaninglessness which the two are such killers around. Well being.

Fully agree. And I love his book. I'm a big fan. It's one that I return to every couple of years just to remind myself his work is wonderful. Yeah.

And so even relevant today, you know, in our times. So think about those four elements. Right. And if you're listening, friends, just do an assessment. You know, where are you in terms of social health? Right. Physical health, you know, physical comfort. This is, by the way, an area, especially as we get older, we struggle with a lot of, you know, our bodies can put up with a lot. I myself am a living example of that. God, I think I'm blessed with this body that for 25 years, the amount of abuse I've put it through between late night drinking and not enough sleep and food, look, and it's still somehow carrying on. And so, you know, my commitment in my 50s to now really focus on my physical health is a big one. So you'll see a lot of that. But it's a really important one because we often neglect our physical health. Right. And we often use substances to numb our emotional stress and well being by abusing, borrowing from physical health. I love that you included. When I first looked at the research, Barbara, I was a bit curious around social health. I recognize how important social relationships and connections are to flourishing, but very rarely have I seen social health actually as a separate domain. But I loved it that you included it regardless, because it's so important. Again, in our day to day work, we take away from relationships, we put everything into work, we take away from friends, family, forget about broader relationships. Right. So I love that you include that.

One note on that, actually. I mean, for me, the eye opener was this on social wealth. We know that loneliness and social isolation actually is a killer.

Yep.

I didn't realize this until I started doing this work, but loneliness and social isolation is as damaging to an individual's health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. I mean, that blew my mind. Yeah, that really blew my mind. And you know, in a world where, you know, nearly 30% of elderly people report feeling lonely, that is, you know, shocking. And so that for me was the killer stat that I remind myself of on a regular basis.

I Love that. Repeat that for our listeners, Barbara, because I think it's a really important one. People do not understand how important this is.

Yeah. So loneliness and social isolation can be as damaging to an individual's health as smoking up to 15 cigarettes per day.

Yeah, Think about that, friends. And so why it's so important to invest in this domain. Right. So I get it for, from an individual. Talk a little bit, Barbara, about why is this so important in the workplace? Why are these four elements so important in the workplace?

Yeah, so as we thought about employee health and wellbeing, it is about holistic health because when we look at the underlying drivers behind these things, many of those things feed into each other. So, you know, there's a lot of studies that show actually if you're moving and having physical health, that actually improves your mental health. You know, social health also improves your mental health. Being in good mental health improves your ability to connect socially. You know, having some sense of meaning and purpose at work helps drive productivity, also helps with your mental health. So these are all interconnected. And so we saw a real opportunity and need to think about addressing holistic health. You know, we did a deep dive initially on mental health coming out of the pandemic because that was the kind of crisis and that we saw and there was a lot of attention on that. But doing that work, we realized that actually many organizations wanted to have the broader conversation with, on supporting employees across holistic health precisely because so much of this is hard to disaggregate.

Yeah. And you can't really, I mean, we've known this for years. Right. And you and I were part of that work that we were leading. Mental health can't be disassociated from physical health. Mind, body are, you know, are fundamentally connected. You know, and so I'm glad that I think that evolved into this holistic, holistic well being conversations now. So talk a little bit about, you know, this. It is such amazing research. We'll dig into a couple of elements of it, including the important role that organizations play rather than individuals. Things that individuals can do into this. How are you seeing, I mean, you've been all over, right? You've had so many conversations with clients on this. Are you seeing clients move from knowledge to actual practice? And if you can share a couple of examples of those, that would be amazing.

Yeah. So as ever, Ashish, there's always a few frontrunners around this. So I think we're increasingly seeing a movement towards actually understanding that this is an issue. Not only that, but it's becoming a C suite issue. And so I think the things that have driven that have been coming out of the pandemic, but also investors starting to understand actually that there is a big correlation, actually, frankly, between a company's workforce and the degree to which they are thriving and actual performance. So there are studies that now show that there is improved stock market performance. So there's not, for me, just a kind of moral case for doing this. There's also a business case and actually hot off the press, Ashish. So we haven't published this yet. We've got a paper coming out very soon. But we've also sized the business case for this globally. And we think if you get this right, it's worth between a 4 to 12% uplift on GDP, which is huge, massive, massive. So even you can't necessarily capture all of that, of course, but even if you capture 10% of that, that is a major driver for both economies and for businesses. So we do see some front runners. There are also obviously a lot of companies that are skeptical around this. And so you have those. And then you have a large proportion of organizations in the middle that are going to be, you know, understand that it's important, but frankly are under huge financial pressures and other pressures in the world right now. And actually, the extent to which they're going to do this is dependent a bit on it being forced upon them rather than necessarily proactively moving. But my view is, you know, you can either take the opportunity to do this to yourself or you can wait and have this done to you. Because we're seeing increasing evidence investors doing it. We're seeing workforce making choices based on how, you know, they're investing in their employees. And ultimately, I don't think businesses can wait.

You and I, you know, I was sharing, I was having a conversation with a Fortune 500 CEO, the leadership team. I gave them the same imperative. Barbara and I, you know, I actually gave them two contrasts. I actually asked them how many of them thought the earth was flat. And everybody looked at me as if, you know, I was saying something weird, right? And I was like, look, 500 years ago, 50% of you would have said yes. It's just that science is proven. And now you all believe Earth is round. So you believe Earth is round. Fifty years ago, half of you would have said global warming is not real. Today, 90% of you agree. The point that you're making between the research you are just about to publish Alex Edmonds work that showed 2 to 3.5% employee satisfaction incremental shareholder returns from employee satisfaction. Jan Emanuel's work on Oxford around return on assets and work well being. The science is here, dear friends. And I think the invitation is what Barbara is saying and what I've been saying all along, which is the only choice you have when you look back in 50 years is were you the front runner who truly made it a source of a competitive advantage and created a 50 to 90% alpha for your shareholders through investing in human flourishing or were you one of the ones who had to be dragged there because if you don't move first, this is not a source of competitive advantage. Because at the heart of competitive advantage is that you do it before others. Right.

100% agree. 100% agree. And we are absolutely convinced it's a source of sustainable competitive advantage. By the way, that doesn't hang around, as you say, Ashish. Right. So I do think there is. You can choose to bury your head in the sand or you can choose to move.

Exactly. So let's talk about movement and what are companies? What should they think about doing? So this research you did was amazing. Thank you for the investment you all made into it. Thirty countries, you know, 30,000 individuals, you all interviewed. What were some of the biggest findings on this topic? Barbara, that really stick with you?

Yeah, so the first was really around, you know, when we looked at this across the organization, that it was perfectly possible to have good holistic health and also experience symptoms of burnout at the same time. So when we looked at this globally, we found that 57% of employees globally report being in good holistic health. So that's across all those four dimensions that we talked about, social, spiritual, physical and mental. But we also found that, you know, around one in five employees globally were experiencing symptoms of burnout. And we define burnout as those four elements around exhaustion, mental distance, emotional impairment and cognitive impairment. And for me, I had not realized, again, you know, maybe because I hadn't necessarily thought about it, but actually those two things are independent of each other. So if you think about, you know, holistic health on one dimension and burnout on another dimension, there's a group of the world which is what we call faring well. So that's about 50%. So I think that's a kind of half glassful part. The half whilst empty view is the other 50 aren't in that top box. Right. They're not reporting both good holistic health and few signs of burnout. There's a group of about 10% who are what we're calling in the stretching zone, who are actually well functioning, reporting good holistic health, but actually showing really quite high signs of burnout. And that's a very worrying group. There's another group which is about 30%, which is what we call in the managing group. So they're having low burnout symptoms, but they're not reporting good holistic health. And then there's the final quadrant, which is the drowning group that are really not reporting good holistic health and also having high burnout symptoms. So I think a lot of the focus has been on the drowning group, but actually we're also really worried about that additional 40% of people who are in that kind of managing and stretching group. And that is an important group because actually they can very quickly tip into that drowning.

So, Barbara, I'm curious. I actually am looking at the white paper now again, and I had this question and I forgot to email you, so I'm going to ask you now. So, you know, when you look at holistic health, I want to talk a little bit about what does it actually mean when we say higher functioning and what's the impact of that? So are they performing even at the level that you want and they're just struggling, not coping well, is more kind of mentally and emotionally? Or what exactly did you all mean when you said higher functioning?

Yeah, so what we looked at, again, this is, you know, a scale that we use, which is a one to five scale for each of these different elements that we looked at. And you know, Ashish, I'm sure that you and I at some point would put ourselves in that group, right? Well, we actually, you know, physically, I was running, I was walking. You know, actually I felt mentally, I felt like things were fine, et cetera. But actually, if you look at the. We also measured burnout on a scale including the Scheuffli scale. And actually, when you look at the individual components of that, I would actually probably have marked a few of those off myself. I never tipped into full burnout, but there were definitely moments in my life I was probably in that stretching zone without actually really knowing it. And I think that is the point, that actually there is a group that is in that zone. And until you're prompted to ask yourself the questions, you may not even realize you're in that zone.

Enjoying this episode. If you think someone you know could benefit from these insights, why not share the podcast with them right away? A quick share could make a big difference in someone's day. Thanks for spreading the happiness and being part of this happiness revolution with us. I love that. Right. And it very personally touches me. It connects with me. Right. And I think this is, you know, frankly, if you're a consultant or if you're a banker or like, if you're a senior executive, this zone will be familiar to you. Right. This is that zone. When we have overextended ourselves two, three, four weeks into a row, or have gone, you know, seven days with three hours of sleep, I'm working on the midst of a deal. We think somehow through coffee and through sheer grit that we are kind of muscling our way through. But frankly, we tough it out. That's what you do. Right. This is life, you know, toughen up, you know, pull up your shoelaces or whatever the phrase is. Right. But the reality is our performance is nowhere, by the way, also close to where we think we are. Right. Yes. We are 30 to 40% less, thinking slower. We are not making the right decisions emotionally. We are less regulated. So I love that you're actually capturing that we are functioning as in we're not dead. We're not like completely taking a break because we can't handle anything anymore. But it's that zone. And there's so many who find themselves because of the changing world in the zone right now.

Yeah. And Ashish, interestingly, we didn't actually. This is self reported. Right. So I think the, the important point that you're making is your perception of your own performance and how you're actually functioning. We didn't actively translate that into actually, you know, how productive you actually are. So I think, you know, that is an important point to make. So that was kind of one of the core findings. The other one for me was actually that there is a big opportunity here to really shift the focus from optimizing poor health to better health. Exactly as I said, you know, because I think it's really about how do you move from the focus on the people who really actively need support. And employers should do that, obviously. So those that are, you know, in that middle zone also, because frankly, you know, if you think about life, you work across a spectrum, you know, and at some points you're. And then the other big piece, and this was again, a big insight.

Barbara, can you pause for a minute before you go there? I think this is a really important one because of all the conversations I've had in the year and a half. There is so much resources to go towards supporting those who are not well, but proactive care and creating interventions and supporting people who are towards being more healthy. They might not Be sick, but we can all be healthier. I think is an important message here.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is not about deprioritizing EAP systems or which I have seen, you know, people reporting on. Right. It's not about that. If people are in crisis, you absolutely have to support them full stop. However, it's just that that's been the only focus or a disproportionate part of the disproportionate. And actually when you look at the business case, coming back to that, most of the business case is actually moving people to optimal health. It's actually not so much on moving people out of the crisis point. And I think that's where the opportunity lies. It's much more about how do you move, move to those, you know, proactive investments that avoid people getting into that zone so that you can unlock all of that wonderful productivity, attract employees, have a happy, healthy, thriving workforce, rather than, you know, just focusing on the people who really need critical support when we get that. Because you know what, when we do go there, we'll need that support. But it's about how do you support everybody?

Right. It's about the 80% or 80, you know, in your case, you know, it's the 87%. Right, right. Like how do we. And by the way, because even those who are faring well, you know, as any athlete would tell you, just because you're doing well doesn't mean you can do better. We all have those growth edges. Right?

100% agree. And again, this is self reported.

Right. So amazing. So number one, you said burnout and wellbeing are two different. You can be burnt out and functioning well. Second, don't just support people who are, you know, suffering. It's about moving everybody to better health. Beautiful. What else?

And the third one was really about the need to really think about different layers of the organization and thinking. We developed this model looking at both what we called demands and enablers. But we also looked at the factors beneath that. We looked at over 30 factors and we looked at those as individual job, team and organization level levers because we really wanted to understand what was driving those health related outcomes as well as those work related outcomes. And when we looked at that, what we saw is that if you're looking at those poorer outcomes like burnout, over 95% of the negative variance is driven by job and team level. When you look at holistic health and the impact on holistic health, that picture totally changes. Their individual job, team and organizational factors become much more important. So what you see is that holistic health is driven by the enablers, while the burnout symptoms are driven much more by demands at the team and job level. And this is really important, Ashish, because if we go back to the conversation we were having about investments, most employers have really focused on the individual and they focused on the reactive. And we're saying the opportunity is at job, team and organization level. And it's about developing a holistic framework that also looks at the enablers. And so some of those, just to give you some examples of some stressors and some enables, just please, you know, when we look at the stressors, it's things like workload, work pressure, toxic workplace behavior, interpersonal conflict. When you look at the enablers, it's things like, you know, at organizational level, leadership commitment, career customization, psychological safety, you know, job autonomy, and when it comes to individual leaders like adaptability and self efficacy. So, you know, I think my big message is as an employer you need to think about both reactive and proactive measures. And you can't just focus on the individual. I've said this before, I'm gonna say it again. You can't yoga your way out of this. This is really about building a comprehensive portfolio of interventions in order to drive holistic health.

Yeah, absolutely. And this is the part of the research, friends, if you haven't had a chance to see it go, you know, we'll put a link in our show notes to this article. I really, really urge you to think about this and go into it because this is at the heart of the work we're doing in Happiness Squad. This is at the heart, I mean, of what we need to do. Individual interventions, more headspace, more calm, more things that we give to individuals is not going to cut it. Right? As Barbara said, even if you look at health, only 27% is individual. A lot of it in terms of the enablers are around things that as organizational leaders you integrate into the job, team and organization. And on burnout, it's almost 97% of those what Barbara and team are calling demands, right? Like this notion of I feel under pressure to get work done, I don't have enough time, things of those nature, the role isn't clear, so really, really highlighted. And by the way, this also will highlight for you why it is so important that these are not training HR initiatives. Because guess who's creating the environment day to day. It's the business leaders and the teams. It's not hr. This is not about policies, right? This is not about policies. This is not about training people more, but this is about really getting curious about the state of development around these and integrating them into your work.

And Ashish, just on that note, you know, we often get asked where to start. So if you're thinking about addressing burnout, it is those demands that we were talking about. So the top three are toxic workplace behavior, role ambiguity and role conflict. And actually, you know, when we looked at all of the different drivers, interestingly, work pressure came up higher than workload. So I think, you know, that's a great place to start. If you're thinking about moving people to more holistic health, then those individual drivers and those other drivers become much more important. It is a more comprehensive basket. So when we look at the top enablers that enable kind of really good holistic health, all those four dimensions that we were talking about, it's about self efficacy, it's about adaptability, which I know you're big on as well, Ashish. It's about belonging, meaningful work, and psychological safety. So it's all of those things, you know, really help move people to much more optimal health. But interestingly for me, if you're thinking about becoming more effective, self effective, more adaptable, that's only really possible if you're in a good place. Right. You can't do that if you're in a really bad place. And that's why, you know, if we think about how much individual drivers contribute to burnout, that's only 3% of the variance. That explains. Because you can't affect it yourself if you're there.

You cannot. You know, you looked at 30 countries, Barbara, and I really, you know, one of the countries, and I actually extended my stay over the holidays in India this time. Was India, right. A real outlier. So 60, almost 59%. Right. The number was so high around burnout symptoms versus kind of the global average as well as all of the other countries. I think there were three countries above 30. I'm just looking at the data. And then there was India at 59% or something. I'm sure you had tons of debates and discussions around this. What do you think is causing such a big spike in India?

You know, that is a big question, Ashish. And actually one of the things that we are doing is a little bit of country deep dives to kind of understand that. And look, our model probably explains about 50% of the variance, so we can talk about the things that employers are doing. However, there's also a bunch of other things that frankly aren't in our model, including, you know, Cultural factors and other things. So, you know, I'm going to hedge a little bit. We are actually still doing the more detailed work country by country. We're also doing the more detailed work industry by industry actually to really understand the different patterns behind that. So rather than try and speculate, I'm going to ask you to watch this space, if that's okay.

I will, I will. And I think as just as input, you know, in dialogue. So I Talked with about 10, you know, CEOs or CXOs in India in January around this topic and I'll tell you the response. The first one was like, literally it was funny, 8 out of 10 this was the same response. First response, really? Really. And then this head nod, look back and something I didn't expect. Makes sense.

Wow.

Makes sense. And I said why does it make sense? And these are the answers that I got back. So just as, you know, input into, as you look at specifically the India model because I think a billion 5,300 million middle class, you know, booming economy growth. I think this is actually quite a relevant topic for India.

I'm taking notes, I'm putting these in.

This is going to go for it. So number one, I think there is just a lot of day to day friction, right. Long commutes, two hours in the morning, two hours in the back. There's a lot of people who are asking people to come back into the office. Right. So I think there is just an overall friction in life that results in, you know, you might have been kind of in that, you know, what you called Barbara, if you were in the stretching zone, the life frictions are going to pull you into the burnout because that's just an additional load you didn't think about. So I think that's number one. I think the second is, I think there is a disproportionate, you know, there's a point of punching out. There are many people who are in stretching punch out to say, okay, I can't take this anymore. When you're in a country with a billion five people, 300 million middle class, more graduates and PhDs without jobs, the punch out happens a lot later and probably not till you are burnt out or close enough to it because there are 10 others to take your job.

Yeah.

So I think that is a second element in terms of just the demand, supply mismatch between the growth in the country, the opportunities and the number of mouths to feed. Yeah, So I think that's the second one that actually came up as one of the hypothesis because I Was like, let's problem solve together. Why do you think that is? The third one that came up was, historically, you know, India has been a relatively hierarchical workplace. Right. Where the boss is quote, unquote king and people are afraid to use their voice to say, hey, this isn't working or no, it is not. Right. Also, for the longest time, India was a six days a week work culture, not five days a week work culture. And even today there are many at the senior levels or even beyond, you know, if called to say, hey, we're gonna get on a call on a Sunday, people will get on a call on Sunday. So you saw spiritually, you know, spiritual well being spikes in India because again, meaning, and then also connection. It's a very cohesive place. But this whole notion around the work and kind of external. Those were at least the three to four things that came up that would explain why we are actually seeing, you know, higher degrees of burnout symptoms in the sample.

Fascinating. Well, we've actually got a collaboration with a foundation in India to look at this, looking at it across Indian companies. So we'd be fascinated to carry on the conversation as well as. Sheesh. And we should just continue the conversation as well. So I'll let you know when our both our countries research comes up as well, please.

So I want to switch to, you know, we talked, we covered a lot already right around burnout versus well being. We covered a little bit around proactive. You talked about many of the drivers, the demands and enablers that organizations really need to invest in. By the way, they are organizational capabilities. Right. They're not individual. They are things that we need to do really into how we run our programs and how we integrate well being. So Barbara, we've talked a lot in the space of well being and burnout and you know, this notion of wellbeing being different than burnout. Let's focus proactive. Let's focus on all the demands and enablers that are very organizational. Job team level, 30 drivers is a lot. You highlighted the top five or six. Right. As well. One of the things that always inspires clients is to look at interventions that work, et cetera, and what others are doing. So talk to me a little bit about, you know, some of the things that you're finding in your research and the resources you all are making available through MHI for companies.

Yeah. So as you know, we try and work evidence based. Right. Because there's a lot of stuff there and it's a bit like throwing spaghetti at a wall sometimes and seeing what sticks Right. So what we've tried to do is start to build an interventions database which we've got as part of our employee health platform. What a core part of MHI's mission is to make things open access. So that's available. You just have to sign in and have a login. And within that interventions database we look at the academic literature around, you know, proven interventions that work. But we also have there a number of case studies which are open access around what companies are doing. They're publicly sourced. There's some case studies there of some very large, you know, companies like Patagonia or Unilever and there's some smaller companies as well. So really I think a great resource and we're continuing to build it out for people to use because, you know, we want to make sure that this is open access and that we're building a set of data that people can add to. And we'd also love to hear from, you know, people if they know of things that they've tried and that have worked. And you know, we've got everything for the burden of evidence from a full scale, you know, randomized clinical control tile randomized clinical control trial right the way through to kind of just more, you know, simple case studies. So it's work in progress and we're building it, but we're excited about starting to build the evidence around what works.

Friends, I have dug into this and it is super generous, right. For McKinsey, the level of investment that's gone into it, MHI, Barbara's work, you know, we had a chance to connect together about six months ago. You know, I contributed our elements of what we were doing. Really let's. I mean it's open access. So any providers, any solution providers, there's so many who are deeply caring about this and any companies and any company leaders who are doing well being work, please look at that website, please look at that database. You'll find lots into it. And please contribute freely because this is a huge issue right now for every organization, for almost every country. You'll see it and only if we contribute collectively behind this effort to enrich in through practice and lived experiences things that are working versus not will we make a difference here? Right. So I'll put the link in but please look into that and leverage it for yourself and contribute back.

Thank you, Ashish. That's very generous of you. Yeah.

So I want to end Barbara with many people think around wellbeing and you know, you're a partner at McKinsey, you're a mom you serve clients, you're also involved with mhi. There's a lot of additional pro bono work I know that you do as well. So I would love for you to share with our listeners, you know, what might be three or four kind of non negotiables or ways in which you make sure that you are continuously filling your cup. You are implementing some of the practices that you're researching that are allowing you to be able to do what you're doing, you know, because for me you're operating at such a high level and the amount of work and amount of impact you're having is something that, you know, is super admirable.

Thank you, Ashish. I sometimes feel a little bit like a doctor in the sense that I'm very good at telling others what to do and then a bit less consistent about doing it myself. I'm very, very happy to share. I think, you know, I think it's about making sure that you, you do things across all four dimensions, right. So I think there's a couple of things that is important. I think everyone has their own practices. One for me is just about consistency, right? So I'm a strong believer in doing something is better than nothing, you know, just do it, then just do it again. And some things that, that really help me and I think so. One is consistency. The second is what I call doubling up. So being able to hit all of the dimensions simultaneously. So let me give you a simple example. You know, I love to walk, I love to run because movement's really important for me. And so yes, you know, when I'm in the office I can go for a run and you know, on the treadmill and it hits my physical part part even better. I enjoy it much more if I can walk or run by the river in nature because I happen to live close by to a river that's doubling up. Last weekend I could even triple up. So I went for a walk. I went with my friend, she brought her dog, we took the kids. And you've got the social interaction as well. So you've got the, you know, spiritual connection to nature. You've got, you know, the physical exercise, you've got the social connection, my mental health. I came back buzzing after that. So, so I think just simple things around consistency doesn't have to be big, just small. And the more that you can double, triple or quadruple up, the better because we've all got busy lives and that makes a huge difference. The other thing that I do is just very, very simple practices. I know we've talked about this as well. But the one thing that makes such a huge difference to my mental health is the gratitude one as well. I just do a very simple exercise where I think about what are the three good things that have happened to me today that I'm really grateful for. And I also acknowledge, you know, one bad thing because that's also important. Most importantly, I try and do that with my kids as well. So we talk about that at dinner if I'm home for dinner, or at breakfast the next morning if I'm not. And it also builds that as a lifelong practice for them. So I think, you know, that's just something that we do as a family as well. And it really gets us to kind of connect and we love to eat together as well, because that for me, again, is a huge part of the spiritual and social part for me as well.

Amazing, amazing practices. Barbara, thank you for making the time to come and have this conversation on the Happiness Squad podcast. So grateful for you, for our friendship and for all the amazing work you're doing.

My dear friend Ashish, it's been an absolute delight. Thank you so much for having me and I can't think of a more important way to spend my time. Thank you.

Take care.

Thank you. Bye bye.

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