Wellbeing Foundations in Strengths and Engagement

Gallup Called to Coach Webcast Series -- Season 11, Episode 7.

Below are audio and video plus a transcript of the conversation, including time stamps.

Your dominant CliftonStrengths and your level of engagement at work are important components of your wellbeing. How can these three work together to move you -- and those you coach -- toward a thriving life? And what can organizations, leaders and managers do intentionally to support the wellbeing efforts of employees? Join Gallup Wellbeing Lead Ryan Wolf to learn more about this timely topic.

Strengths really help kind of establish that trust between two people. And when we can start there ... then wellbeing ... [is] not off limits.

Ryan Wolf, 4:57

We need to have some structure to a wellbeing program ... And it really starts with organizational alignment. And what that really means is understanding the connection between wellbeing and business outcomes.

Ryan Wolf, 22:26

We [as managers] want to get to know this person through their strengths, through conversations about engagement, and then kind of weave that into a natural way about each of those 5 [wellbeing] elements.

Ryan Wolf, 26:44

Jim Collison 0:01
I am Jim Collison, and this is Gallup's Called to Coach, recorded on January 12, 2023.

Meet Our Guest on This Episode

Jim Collison 0:18
Called to Coach is a resource for those who want to help others discover and use their strengths. We have Gallup experts and independent strengths coaches share tactics, insights and strategies to help coaches maximize the talent of individuals, teams and organizations around the world. If you're listening live, and you don't see the chat room, there's a link right above me to that. We're going to mention it and take your questions and chat today. So click on that and sign in to the chat room. If you have questions after the fact, you can always send us an email: coaching@gallup.com. Don't forget to subscribe to your, on, to Called to Coach on your favorite podcast app or right there on YouTube -- it's just over there in the corner -- so you never miss an episode. Ryan Wolf is our host today. Ryan is a Wellbeing Lead here at Gallup. And Ryan, always great to be with you. Welcome back to Called to Coach!

Ryan Wolf 1:02
Yeah, great to be here as a guest, Jim. Certainly I'm excited to get to chat about this topic that, that I get to operate in. And it's a pleasure to be here.

Jim Collison 1:13
Your role has certainly changed in our organization over the last 5 years, as we've spent a lot, we've spent a lot of time on the physical wellbeing side of things together. You have now kind of become an overall Wellbeing Lead. One, tell us your Top 5, and then tell us how those fit maybe a little bit into your new or expanded or more focused role at Gallup.

Ryan Wolf 1:36
Yeah, that's great. So Discipline, Achiever, Futuristic, Activator and Harmony. So I've kind of got all of the domains represented in there. But really, I like to get things organized and done. So I'm really thinking about, How can we internally get our, all of our wellbeing initiatives really super succinct and organized? And that's challenging, because wellbeing is such a big topic. And it's diverse in all of its elements and how we all interpret wellbeing. So I'm trying to kind of help create borders, but also, at the same time, make sure that we're inclusive of everything that is important to everyone's lives.

Jim Collison 2:22
Yeah, and it's a gigantic topic in the 30 or 35 minutes we're gonna be here together. We're talking about wellbeing foundations and strengths and engagement. And you and I have spent a bunch of time talking and thinking about this together; it seems to be one of the conversations we always default back to, just when we're sitting around talking to each other, super fun. We, we really think in, in a lot of, in a lot of the thinking that I do around these topics, I see them as these pillars, these pillars to -- strengths and engagement don't happen without wellbeing, and vice versa with, with the others. They all kind of tie together and, and shouldn't be and can't, I don't think, can be thought separately, I think, in a holistic approach, right, to all three of these, and they need to be taken into account. I think you and I in a couple seasons ago, we were talking about this -- how, you know, physical wellbeing used to be -- and I forget chicken and lettuce or something? The -- ?

Ryan Wolf 3:22
Chicken and broccoli, maybe? Going to the gym and eating broccoli?

Jim Collison 3:27
Some, and it's so much more complicated than that. So let's, let's tie wellbeing into strengths. And we'll talk a little bit about it from an engagement standpoint. So why and how do strengths fit into the wellbeing ideas we've been thinking about?

Ryan Wolf 3:41
OK, good. So this is a beautiful topic, because -- and this is sort of a punch line or a title of a chapter, but strengths make wellbeing work. So that comes from our wellbeing book. Jim Harter, Jim Clifton published that a couple of years ago. And really, that's kind of the, this promise that, you know, strengths help us come from a positive perspective. When you think about kind of the messiness that human beings have around them, they're certainly not always everything is positive about our wellbeing. But strengths are positive. So if we can start with things that, you know, from a positive lens, a positive perspective, then that can make wellbeing an easier topic or a more open topic to have -- a lot of people are closed off about talking about things like their physical health, their, their financial wellbeing, their relationships, which is their social wellbeing.

Ryan Wolf 4:39
So those are touchy subjects, and we can, when we can start with the best of who we are in mind, then it's less heavy, and then, then people are more likely to be able to have a conversation that is productive about it. And strengths really help kind of, kind of establish that trust between two people. And when we can start there, and we can we can establish that trust, then wellbeing just kind of is, is more of a topic that is, is on, it's not off limits, we'll say.

How Partnerships Enhance Wellbeing

Jim Collison 5:18
Yeah. And I think sometimes we think of wellbeing as an individual sport. Like, no, this is about me and about what I'm doing. And yet, the partnerships we create, we're going to talk about engagement here in a few minutes. But sometimes some of those partnerships that we create and the things we do for work or whatever, volunteer type things, our wellbeing components can fit into those pieces as well. Can you talk a little bit about how partnerships can enhance our wellbeing?

Ryan Wolf 5:49
Yeah, definitely. So conversations can certainly, you know, happen with managers. Maybe they're not, not likely to naturally occur initially with managers, but probably more likely best friends at work, people who you trust, people who you can share with. And we truly do need others for support in our wellbeing. There's one element specifically that calls that out and, and, and signifies that, and that's social wellbeing. Social wellbeing is, it's really about having, you know, love and support and relationships in your life that, that you can really count on; people who, people who love you for who you are and can support you when, when you need it. And, and yeah, you're right. And when you look at your strengths, and when you're identifying kind of what, what you do best, it's those people tend to know -- your best friends at work, your, your best friends at home -- tend to know what you're naturally inclined, what you're best at, what you're naturally inclined to do. And then we can kind of point those strengths towards the kind of the common elements of wellbeing that we know are, are so significant globally to everyone.

Jim Collison 7:07
Those partnerships, I too, oftentimes don't live in isolation across the 5 elements as well. In other words, you and I have been friends for a long time. Yeah, it would make sense from a, from a physical wellbeing perspective, you were a big part of the story with me. But that, that, that has, you know, bled across the lines into, to, from physical to community. We've spent time, you and I have spent time, and then actually reaching out to others. Like we would partner together to energize a group, to race up some stairs or to run a marathon or whatever crazy things that does. From, Ryan, from even though I said it's not an individual sport, I do want to think from an individual's perspective, though.

Connecting Your Strengths and Your Wellbeing

Jim Collison 7:53
As we think about the individual themes we come with, as an example for me, I used to budget, I used to build this big annual budget -- we think about financial wellbeing -- this big annual budget that would just make me super grumpy. Like, cause I would, it was, I was, I was swimming against the stream, right? I was trying to do something -- this Discipline, it's not in Discipline, I get angry at Sarah all the time, because she would break the budget and whatever. I do it too, just to be honest, right? And I, and I moved, I have Arranger high, I have Maximizer high, I have Activator high. I moved to a rolling budget, where I really just spend time, I kind of go a month, maybe 2 or 3 at a time where I'm constantly adapting and adjusting -- I have high Adaptability -- it played, that methodology played to my strengths of just making a simple change from a dynamic budget to an, from an annual budget to a dynamic budget. Are there other situations like that, as you think about these wellbeing elements, of actually capitalizing, getting beyond the, Well, this is the way I always set goals, you know, to using your, maybe using your individual themes to do that?

Ryan Wolf 9:02
Yeah, great. So yeah, there's 5 themes that we've found that are globally common among all, among all citizens of the world that are actionable. That's really how we defined our framework of, of wellbeing. And then we, then, of course, we know that there's, you know, 34 themes that we can apply to these 5 elements. So when you do the math, it's, it's pretty outrageous how we can each kind of interpret wellbeing and what we can do to take action in those elements.

Ryan Wolf 9:35
My mind, Jim, is going right to the Appendices in the Wellbeing at Work book, which you highlighted with Jaclynn. So when you think about what your themes are, and how you can point them and, and utilize them towards and for the, each element of wellbeing, there's, there's some really good prescriptive kind of questions that you can ask and tasks that you can activate on that Jaclynn wrote, along with the authors in the wellbeing book that are, that are super, super helpful. Of course, you dove into them really deep with her over the course of the last year, which I think that's a really powerful resource. If you're thinking about this topic, and you get excited about it here today, and you want extra resources or just ways to learn more about it, that's a good place to explore.

Jim Collison 10:24
And I'll remind those individuals, that's all Season 1 of The CliftonStrengths Podcast. Jaclynn and I get together by theme and talk about these, and maybe a good, a good way to wrap up this section on, on strengths, as we cover each of the individual themes from Appendix 1 in the back of the book. So it seems like that was a million years ago, but that was just last year. And so if you want to dive in, if you haven't listened to Season 1 of The CliftonStrengths Podcast, we kind of covered that as well. OK, I think that makes good sense for a lot of people, especially, we have a lot of strengths coaches who listen. They're kind of going yeah, OK, I get it -- strengths, wellbeing. What about engagement? As we think about that, that may be a little more of a new area, or a different thought, as we think about engagement. How does that impact wellbeing?

Ryan Wolf 11:07
Yeah, so the beautiful thing is we got so much data on this to kind of correlate the two sciences and really the three sciences and practices. And we've found that organizations who are really highly engaged, so kind of that top quartile or decile of, of engagement, those are, those organizations are also really thriving at a high rate. And thriving is that term we use to describe those who are scoring really high in wellbeing evaluation, when we do, when we conduct the Wellbeing Index, Cantrell's ladder, and we kind of dive into each of those 5 elements and ask questions that have been validated globally. And we find that those who, those organizations, teams of people who are really highly engaged are also going to, are much more likely to be thriving within their lives. So, so that's really good to see. You know, with career wellbeing, you know, that's, that's kind of a foundation that we can start with, when we talk about kind of the blending of engagement and wellbeing and how could we even, how could I even bring up the idea of, of wellbeing or the topic of wellness and health?

Ryan Wolf 12:16
And a really natural place for us to start with is career wellbeing, is kind of that foundation that the other elements can then kind of, kind of branch out to -- and strengths, strengths as well. We're talking, a lot of times, when we're talking about strengths, it's, it's for that career element. Certainly, it applies directly to the others, but the first natural conversation can be with, with career. Yeah, I think you know, so like people who are just engaged, they're, they're also, kind of like with strengths, they're a little more open to having conversations about their wellbeing and what's going on with their lives. They're already very committed to the organization. They're enthusiastic, enthusiastic about their work, their manager, their leadership. So it's then, it's more natural for them and more trusting for them to be able to open up and have conversations about wellbeing, kind of life outside of work that impacts life inside of work that's so important to work.

Connections Between Your Engagement as an Employee and Your Wellbeing

Jim Collison 13:25
Yeah, I often think about a healthy situation between a manager and an employee in the 5 Coaching Conversations, as we think about that, and, and checking in on a regular basis, and taking care of their development and, and, you know, those pieces that we think in those conversations happening. Ryan, as you think about our Q^12® assessment, which is an easy way to manage, to manage and measure employee engagement, as you think about those 12 elements, are there any of them that speak to wellbeing more than others? You know, as you think through that, are there some indices -- if I'm using that word correctly -- that we could pull out and say, yeah, these, this, these kind of could create a little bit of a Wellbeing Index for us?

Ryan Wolf 14:14
Yeah. OK, that, that's a great way to be thinking about how to kind of evaluate wellbeing, or how do we cross crosswalk the two sciences and practices? So one of them that comes to mind is, At work, there's someone who cares about me as a person. So that, to me, is kind of, as a person, means not just as an employee or a productive member of this team, but totally me as an entire human being. There are in, there is an index that our kind of, there's 5, there's 5 elements of, of engagement that have a more impact, I guess we'll say, more correlative score, in terms of wellbeing. So that's, so that's the Expectations, which is Q01. And then next is Q03, which is, which is the strengths question. So that makes a lot of sense. And then it's 6, 7, 8, so, Development, Opinions, and Mission and Purpose. So that's just literature and research from, from our research team, Harter and crew, that have just really done all the analysis and finding ways where engagement and wellbeing are really correlative. And then just being aware of that, and then, you know, being kind of intentional about that can be helpful.

Ryan Wolf 15:44
Certainly, when we're thinking about engagement, always, always good to know that there's foundations of it, right. So Q01, Knowing what's expected of me at work. We kind of got a need to be able to address that and have a conversation about that before we can really advance within the, the pyramid and kind of tackle the, the top of it or even the middle of it. So I'd start there: Know what's expected of me at work. Only 50% of United States workers can give this a 5 out of 5. So when you think about the ambiguity that people are facing within their job or within the kind of the multiple bosses that they might feel that they have, maybe they have a direct report manager, but they also have other teams that, that have managers that are different from theirs. So that can be kind of one way where expectations aren't clear. And when we can really make that more clear, then there's, there's a good chance that wellbeing scores can enhance as well.

Jim Collison 16:44
I love that idea of getting two for one out of the Q¹². So measuring engagement overall. And then maybe inside -- and we've been doing a lot of this lately -- maybe inside of the Q¹² is a mini Wellbeing Index. You mentioned those 1, 3, 6, 7 and 8 that we're going to measure in our organization, to say, Hey, these scores, we're going to combine these scores together, and then we're going to measure them over time to see, and we're going to ask some questions around them. And we're going to be intentional about pointing that towards our wellbeing initiatives, whatever we're doing, whatever we've decided to do, however, we're deciding to attack this, right, and measure those over time. I love it, you get, you kind of get two for one out of the deal with that as well. Speaking of initiatives, let's talk a little bit about that. As you, as you think about getting inside organizations, getting initiatives rolling around wellbeing, and I joked about this just a second ago, about it being about, you know, working out, chicken and broccoli. Right. As we think beyond, beyond that kind of thinking, how do we get the ball rolling inside of organizations? What's some ways to get started?

Negative Experiences Have Been Climbing for a Decade

Ryan Wolf 17:56
Yeah. OK. I thought of another index that -- could I press pause on that question? Can we footnote it? OK. So another index we're thinking about and hearing about, reading about a lot lately is the Positive Experiences Index, as well as the Negative Experiences Index. So if you've read seen or heard about the Blind Spot, which is Jon Clifton's book from last year, awesome book about those two indices and how, how negative experiences have really been climbing during the last 10 years or so, while positive experiences have been just kind of flatlined. And a lot of people tend to think the, the kind of the CliffsNotes™ version, which I feel like I'm not doing justice to the book by giving in this 30-minute podcast, is that a lot of people and leaders assume that the pandemic is the reason for negative experiences and their rise during the last couple of years. But if you look back, we've been measuring it since 2006, and it's been climbing for more than 10 years.

Ryan Wolf 19:01
So one good thing as coaches, as strengths connoisseurs and practitioners and scholars here is we've found, we've done, we've done research comparing those -- I guess we'll say it this way -- those who spend extra time, so per hour, per day, those who spend more time utilizing their strengths are much less likely to experience those negative, negative emotions or experiences. So those are things like sadness, anger, worry, stress and pain. So we asked that among all employees, and we've got some good data on that. There's an article from a couple years back that you can check and just kind of maybe cite or just find for, for inspiration.

Ryan Wolf 19:53
The opposite is true as well. So for every hour that you can spend utilizing your strengths more so, then you're going to experience, or the respondents said that they experienced those positive emotions and experiences more frequently. So those are things like feeling well-rested, was treated well, treated with respect, I learned something new, I laughed or smiled a lot yesterday, and I had, experienced a lot of high energy and enjoyment yesterday. So those are some things that I think, as we think about, excuse me, as we think about why strengths are important for wellbeing, we've just got, sometimes that can feel like maybe a soft question. But we have some really good hard data that kind of prove why that those two are so important and correlated.

Getting a Wellbeing Initiative Started in an Organization

Jim Collison 20:54
Yeah, we've got that data available on our website, head out to gallup.com. And, and we continue to publish around that, talk about these, these topics available for you as well, while Ryan collects himself. OK. So Ryan, let me, let me come back to that question again. So as we think about getting the ball rolling in an organization, and a lot of, certainly, this is not a topic that's new to anybody. Let's just be really clear. Organizations, most organizations have been thinking about this. Let me ask it from this perspective, though. The world's changed in the last 3 years, and we're spending a lot more time remote. Organizations, some organizations have changed personnel drastically -- a third to a half might be new, might be a new organization; they never, they've never met each other. They're not going in. They're not physically going into an office every, you know, 5 days a week anymore. Right? Talk a little bit, in that, in the, in the light of that context, talk a little bit about that, of, of restarting maybe or getting something rolling in an organization.

Ryan Wolf 22:04
OK. Yeah, so, so a lot of times, what we'll see is, is organizations want to provide something that is beneficial, that, kind of, maybe a wellness type of tool or track or a platform. And certainly that is great. But, but sometimes we just, what we've found is we need, we need to have some pillars, we need to have some structure to a wellbeing program, or initiative, or whatever word you want to tie to it. And it really starts with kind of organizational alignment. And really, and that, what that really means is kind of understanding the connection between wellbeing and business outcomes. So that's the organization's commitment, and understanding that, Hey, we know that wellbeing is important for our people. We're going to put it in our mission statement or our purpose or our values statement or somewhere that the public can see and that we as an organization can plant our flag in the sand there and say that wellbeing, we know, is important to us, to our customers, to everyone.

Ryan Wolf 23:08
So starting with kind of that commitment, then with kind of leadership commitment next. So really understanding that correlation between wellbeing and engagement, leaders are kind of leading by example, with kind of some thriving personal behaviors. And then there's the big, next big one is kind of manager. You know, It's the Manager -- manager conversations that can be had, could be ongoing. Managers are kind of skilled to be able to ask meaningful questions or give meaningful feedback, and really kind of naturally embed wellbeing into ongoing conversations. So those are, those are some three, those are like three pillars, before we just start throwing random acts of wellness or wellbeing out there.

Jim Collison 23:57
I was gonna say, that sounds very different than, Hey, let's have a company happy hour! Or --

Ryan Wolf 24:05
Absolutely. Let's do all of those things that people want to do and that people are kind of expecting us to do, maybe, you know, on-site gym or exercise reimbursement, or anything that's like, if you, you know, top trends in wellness and wellbeing for the workplace -- those are important. But without those first three, there's really not support. There's not amplification. There's not a commitment. And then there's just ambiguity. Can I really use these resources? Does my manager care about this? Does the leadership care? So when we can check those three boxes first, then we can have that kind of ongoing support and really smart programs, policies and perks that we like to talk about. And, you know, things that are evidence-based, things that people want to do, not, not things that we're expecting people to do, but, but things that are, you know, kind of scientifically backed and, you know, interesting things that can enhance the wellbeing experience that we have at work.

Jim Collison 25:07
As you were listing those, there were some folks frantically looking for a pen to write this down. And even though it's recorded, just review those really quick, before we kind of move on. What are those things? And they -- actually, they sound a lot like building a strengths-based culture.

Ryan Wolf 25:20
Yeah. Very similar.

Three Pillars That Foster Wellbeing: Organizational Alignment, Leaders, Managers

Jim Collison 25:23
Review those again, Ryan.

Ryan Wolf 25:25
Yeah. So, so Organizational Alignment is the first one. So that's really kind of understanding the connection between wellbeing and business outcomes, identifying wellbeing as a priority within the mission statement, the purpose statement or the value statement. It's something that, you know, resides on your website, something that's easy to speak to. Then, then there's a Leadership Commitment. So executives kind of really understand the correlation between wellbeing and engagement. They're leading by example. Some of the initiatives can come directly from them. Or what they can do is those who are leading the wellbeing initiatives, the leaders can then amplify the support of it publicly to the organization. And then there's The Manager. So everything about being skilled and having the opportunity to comfortably bring up elements of wellbeing that are important to people, in a natural way. So Jim, if you're my, if you're my boss, and the first thing in your initiative is to talk about wellbeing with me, you don't want to just throw all 5 elements at me in the first meeting and say something awkward, like "So, Ryan, how's your physical wellbeing?" We want to, like, get to know this person through their strengths, through their, through conversations about engagement, and then kind of weave that into a natural way about each of those 5 elements.

Jim Collison 26:56
Yeah, kind of comes back around to it's the manager plus engagement, as we think about knowing those pieces. And it's tough for a manager to take action on a team if the manager doesn't know the engagement level of their team, or maybe the team is thriving and struggling asking those questions. One of the steps of building a strengths-based culture is building a community of coaching, of strengths coaches and strengths champions, is what we call that in that, in that setup, Can, can that be copied or stolen from that model and brought into a wellbeing model where you're actively seeking out wellbeing coaches or wellbeing champions in an organization to help with this?

Ryan Wolf 27:38
Totally. Yep. So that is highly recommended. Steal it. Don't, don't, don't be shameful about using that framework and finding people who really care about wellbeing and really just finding people who care so much about others and are willing to support them, and, and the organization as well. So that's certainly a great model to utilize.

Tactical Strategies to Support Wellbeing in an Organization

Jim Collison 28:04
Yeah, I think there's some, some similarities. We started this, these concepts of saying, you know, really, strengths, engagement and wellbeing are really 3 pillars that really go, that fit together. And I love, as we've talked about this, we've, they all kind of have connectors to each other, as we think about how they fit in together. OK, so with that, let's, final question from me. We'll take a couple questions from chat then here, as we wrap this up. So with the foundation set, right -- leaders and managers supporting wellbeing; some, some, maybe some, some buy-in, right, some, some of that work being done. What are some tactical things that could be done then to support this idea of wellbeing in an organization?

Ryan Wolf 28:49
OK. Yeah, so tactical, meaning, like, things like wellbeing or wellness programs or, that you kind of offer to really anyone who wants to participate. And a lot of these things are just, you know, voluntary. That -- for a while, there was, there were kind of wellness or wellbeing incentives that were maybe like, kind of gamified wellbeing. And there, I think, kind of, there's, there's pluses and minuses to that. But I think what we need to do is just think about, What can we offer, volunteer for people? Don't require them to do these things, but just have them so we can kind of support -- know that, know that they are supported, and that these are, these are valuable things. So things like EAP programs, really just kind of supporting those and kind of taking the stigmatization out of them; having a champion for the EAP. We have an executive inside Gallup who has been a champion of our EAP program. "EAP" stands for Employee Assistance Program. And that's where there's kind of, there's licensed therapists or counselors who can give quick advice to people who, who need it. And, so that's a big one.

Ryan Wolf 30:03
You know, really, and then expanding the offerings to, to family members, spouses, domestic partners. So there's resources, when there's resources given, for example, something like exercise reimbursement at Gallup, we exercise a fraction of every, anyone who wants to have a gym membership. And we offer that to family members and spouses as well. We offer a lot of financial wellbeing support. And this is really just for everyone. I've just had my head in Gallup there, my kind of wellbeing program manager. But, you know, offering, offering that support, whether that's classes, whether that's coaching or learning modules that can help people just kind of upskill their, their knowledge and encourage them to save more and just be a good, be smart about their budget, and how they, they implement it at home with their spouse, Jim.

Ryan Wolf 31:02
There's, you know, things -- another thing is, like, recognizing people for the good, you know, maybe wellbeing achievements that they have, have accomplished. So we have a community wellbeing award that we give here at Gallup every quarter, and nominees are sent in by employees. So, you know, coworkers or friends here at Gallup, we nominate those who are doing good work inside the community, and then we award them with a really cool little trophy and some words of recognition at our monthly Town Hall. So, so I think that's, that's another way to just think about, OK, thinking outside that kind of the traditional wellness box, how can we kind of, kind of take wellbeing to a more advanced stage with, within our organization and expand it to, to people in ways that is important for them?

Jim Collison 32:01
Yeah, it's, you know, it's, and for me, I've been at Gallup for 15 years, so it's sometimes hard for me to see the lens of this outside of the example that has been set there. I think, Ryan, a lot organizations come at this beginning of the year, we're going to set some new things in place. And by April, they have been forgotten about, right? They, best intentions, we're gonna do some things, come out the gate firing, full guns blazing. And then, and then it doesn't, it doesn't make it to June. How do you sustain that? Like, how have, how have we sustained -- there's a lot of things that we do internally at Gallup as an organization that are offered year over year? What's the, what's the key to success in sustaining that? And then I'll ask you some questions from the chat room.

Ryan Wolf 32:46
OK, I would just, I'd, I'd say really rely on your wellbeing champions and your managers. And really help to, to give them the knowledge and help them be amplifiers of wellbeing. Certainly they're not, they're not wellbeing, maybe they're not like wellbeing experts. But they're people experts. And they care so much about people, and they listen, and they know what people are thinking about. And therefore, they can properly and naturally have those conversations about wellbeing that are ongoing, and not flavor-of-the-month and it's a new year for wellbeing type of, of initiatives.

Jim Collison 33:37
Let's dig into some questions. Because I think there's some good ones, as we, as we get in. Lisa had asked, You had talked about some of those questions -- that's not the one I wanted. We'll come back -- Lisa, I'll find that here in just a second. Siobhan asks, Can you please give us some examples of types of evidence-based policies, programs and perks? And maybe you just did that a second ago, but what, how would you answer that question?

Ryan Wolf 34:03
Yeah, so there's the EAP, which is a, which, which is a really big one, especially for mental health. So that's an important one. There are, gosh, so the question was evidence-based wellbeing initiatives. Yeah, I think there's, there's, it's, I think it's gonna be hard to find like real good evidence-based or scientific-based, but some things that I'm thinking about are maybe it could be like the evidence that you ask, like, get, get opinions from people. Ask them what they want to do. And that's probably what you should be doing. So that could be anything from like offering a quick survey -- What do you want to do throughout the year? Do you want to do a, an online cooking class? Or do you want to have a nutritionist come in and talk about, you know, things that you can, healthy meals that you can cook while it's, you know, wintertime. Do you want to have some sort of guided meditation that we could complete together? Or kind of maybe some instructions on how to create an exercise workout program? Or, you know, what are the? What are the ways that you can kind of capitalize on the quantified self? There's a lot of tracking devices out there -- everything from, from watches to gadgets. You know, if we could have an expert talk about those, would that be of interest to you? And then you have this evidence that is coming from the opinions of those of people inside your organization. And let's remember that Opinions mattering is an element, is one of those 12 elements of engagement. So then you're kind of tying the two together, wellbeing and engagement.

Thinking Intelligently About Incentives

Jim Collison 35:53
Robert asks a good question: Do you, do you award teams too? As we think about the, you know, the incentives to do this, seems, that addresses wellbeing as well. Thinking about, Ryan, thinking about the, getting the incentives, right, correct?

Ryan Wolf 36:07
Yeah. I think incentives, a lot of times, can be, can kind of take away the, the right type of motivation for wellbeing. So I'd encourage people to think really responsibly about incentives. I have a feeling most everyone on this call will, because you care about strengths. And that, that gives you a pretty good chance of caring about people and incentives. If you're going to offer incentives, really think about how to do that in a way that's more, like, participative versus performance-based. So when we think about wellbeing, well, you know, physical wellbeing, social wellbeing, we're all on these different levels, and trying, maybe like competing on a performance-based wellbeing type of incentive would not necessarily go over the best, in terms of motivating people and helping, helping them feel good about where they're at and where they're going. But certainly participating in things -- yeah, there's incentives there that, that, that, you know, are perfect.

Maintaining, Strengthening a Wellbeing Emphasis

Jim Collison 37:18
Yeah. Catherine asks a great question. She says, How do you maintain emphasis on wellbeing -- and listen, you can insert anything emphasis on fill in the blank -- through leadership transitions? Because all those things during transitions, you know, that's a struggle, sometimes, where ... may see a different emphasis on it. But specifically with wellbeing, Ryan, any thoughts on that?

Ryan Wolf 37:41
I think get it -- it's that first one: Get it inside the board, and make sure the organization is aligned. And starts with that, that, just, it starts there, at the very top, and making sure that something about wellbeing and the, for the people inside this organization is written in the mission, in the purpose in the values statement -- somewhere in there. And then, that way, when, when leaders do come and go, those documents remain. And, and we continue to kind of utilize that as the foundation. But also, you know, the champions are really good too, just having, having that constant conversation about it with managers as well. Then there's this, then there's a culture around it that is really hard to change, even if there's leaders that that are.

Jim Collison 38:42
Well, and that culture creates, like a talent magnet, that draws, it begins to draw people who favor that to begin with. They hear about it. This is where you're talking about making it public. It's on your website; you're talking about it; you're known for it. And then it begins to attract birds of a feather flock together, right. It begins to pull those individuals in and may make that easier. There was some questions too, a couple questions around, you know, What if managers won't support it? What if, OK, those, those aren't easily answered questions that are, from an organizational standpoint, very, very specific to what's going on inside an organization. You know, you may have managers disen -- this happens all the time, right, where folks are, are saying. Ryan, what kind of advice, as you think about where, if you're in an organization, and you've got some pockets that are, that are rejecting this as you're thinking about it, some, some thoughts on that?

Ryan Wolf 39:39
I'd say show them our data. This is all, this is all public data that we've, we've, we've published in statistics that we run on just how, you know, pure business outcomes are really correlative to wellbeing, engagement, strengths. And it's really hard to kind of continue to refute that, but with managers, sometimes they might reject it because they're just not comfortable, you know, having conversations with, with people about some of these personal issues, personal elements of people. So I think, you know, think about some kind of, some upscaling or some, some ways that, that managers can learn about these elements. We've got some questions that you can ask as a manager that are natural conversation starters, finishers, middle questions inside our appendix, in Wellbeing at Work, that book that was published a couple of years ago. That's a great way to, to get that going. But yeah, there might be some resistance, but what you could also do is really highlight and recognize those managers who are doing it really well. And have them coach the other managers or share best practices, and I think that's a good way to, to kind of, kind of naturally grassroots to go about it.

Jim Collison 41:10
As humans, we're super messy. And, you know, I always say, model it, incent correctly and, and be consistent, right? Continue to, because you're, and it's not going to -- like a strengths rollout, not everybody is going to embrace it on Day 1. Even when you give them all the data, they're gonna be like, No, I'm not going to believe it. Like, I'm not going to go with this; I'm not going to do it. That happens. That's part of the, I think that's part of the human experience, sometimes. And we've got to kind of continue to model it in a way that, that, that, that makes sense for what we're doing and what we're time. I think I'm going to end it on this. And sorry I couldn't get to all your questions. There's some great ones out there. Brook says, What role does giving back -- because I really believe in this -- what role does giving back (helping orgs or individuals) to the community play in wellbeing? And certainly part of our, that community wellbeing component. But what do we know about that? And maybe this, just the data would come right out of the first book that we wrote on this.

Ryan Wolf 42:06
Yeah. So steal, I'll steal another line from Wellbeing at Work, from Jim and Jim -- Clifton and Harter -- is that community wellbeing is the difference between a good life and a great life. So understanding that kind of our natural environment and where we live is a very important part of, of who we are, and our safety and, and how we kind of can, can live our everyday life is, is important. And giving people the opportunity to do, to do that work, connecting them with, what we do at Gallup is we connect, we connect with community organizations that are really in tune with what we believe in. So that's things like strengths, education, diversity, and connecting kind of our organization, connecting their organization to us, to end users like our employees and having, giving the employees opportunities to then kind of contribute in a way that feels good is, is an important part of that element. So Jim, anything you want to add to that? I know you've, you've done a lot of these as well. And anything else you want to add to it?

Jim Collison 43:24
Yeah, I think I want to close it with what Robert said. He said, I find most leaders have strengths from the Executing Domain. Always try to share practical advantages of working towards wellbeing of the group. And that's a great suggestion, as we're thinking about pushback. But it's also a great suggestion from what, the whole thing we were talking around together of, as you think of incentives based on the, the engagement of the individuals and their strengths. Thinking about this from a, because it's never a one-size-fits-all. If you're getting pushback in an area, it may because it's an area you've missed. You're not addressing like, Hey, what, what does this person need? What are they looking for in this? And we know, you know, we know that takes, that's hard. That's, that takes some work. That takes some question. And so Ryan, thanks for, in the short time that we have, we hope we've inspired some of you. If you're an organization looking for some help in wellbeing, you can contact us. We can help you with that. So you can always send us an email: coaching@gallup.com. Just mention that you, from an organizational standpoint, we got some things we can, we can get the process rolling before you. Ryan, anything else?

Ryan Wolf 44:34
Yeah, I think I could just expand on that -- that, that wellbeing is not something that you're going to figure out on the first day, week, month or year of implementation. But it will, it will pay off in the long term. So just encourage you to just keep finding those intersections between strengths and wellbeing, as well as engagement, and how they can expand on each other and complement.

Jim Collison 45:01
All right, with that, we'll remind everyone to take full advantage of all the resources we do have available. And you'd think this is strengths only, but we got a lot of wellbeing resources available on our site. You can head out to gallup.com/cliftonstrengths. Actually, there's a search bar right there, just put that, put "wellbeing" in, and you can see all the things we've been talking about. We update them all the time. So if you're listening to this, maybe it's 2025. I bet we have some new stuff out there that's available for you on strengths. So get out there -- and wellbeing and engagement -- so get out there and check it out. For coaching, master coaching or if you want to become a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach or more information on how your organization, how we can help you with this, this idea of wellbeing initiatives in your organization, send us an email: coaching@gallup.com. Don't forget to join us for the 2023 --that's 2023 -- this June, in person and virtual Gallup at Work Summit. Love to have you there. Get more information today: gallupatwork.com. Find us on any of the social networks by searching "CliftonStrengths." Like, subscribe, do whatever you need to do to make sure you never miss an episode. Thanks for listening today. If you're listening live, stay around for a little bit of a postshow. We'll go back to our strengths, our audience strengths grid, talk a little bit about that. With that, we'll say, Goodbye, everybody.

Ryan Wolf's Top 5 CliftonStrengths are Discipline, Achiever, Futuristic, Activator and Harmony.

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