Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements - Tom Rath and Jim Harter

Post date: Dec 17, 2012 5:38:29 PM

Wellbeing

Review

This book introduces the 'five essential elements' for wellbeing, which have been established as a result of extensive research by Gallup over a number of years; they are the domains of career, social, financial, physical and community wellbeing. The majority of us (66%) do well in one area, while only a small minority (7%) thrive in all five areas. Rath and Harter support each of the domains with evidence from research, and provide a brief and clear overview of each area.

The book argues that health is affected when career wellbeing is compromised, and that leaders and managers should take their responsibility for employee wellbeing seriously:

No doubt some leaders will continue to ignore employees' wellbeing as if it is beyond the scope of their job, but they do so at their peril. The research we conducted suggests that employees with low engagement and low wellbeing will quickly drag the group's performance down.' (p.135)

They argue for a workplace which also recognises the importance of social wellbeing drawing on the evidence that 'idle chit-chat might actually be valuable to productivity... that even small increases in social cohesiveness lead to large gains in production' (p.41). They also look at how best to spend our money for financial wellbeing and conclude that, as long as we have sufficient for our needs, money spent on experiences (like family holidays) is more beneficial than money spent on material possessions.

Each section provides the evidence for the importance of each domain and concludes with three practical recommendations for boosting individual wellbeing in this domain. The focus is very much on those aspects we have some degree of control over.

Rath and Harter have developed resources for individuals to measure and develop their wellbeing, including the Wellbeing Finder and the Daily Tracker online tools available at http://www.wbfinder.com/home.aspx (a code in the back of the book allows for free access). There is also a section on the Gallup website devoted to these findings at http://businessjournal.gallup.com/content/126884/five-essential-elements-wellbeing.aspx

This is an American publication using research data focused on the USA , but it also includes large international data sets, and enables the authors to make evidence based claims about wellbeing and, particularly, its impact in the workplace, making it relevant to us all.

Academic interest: the foundation for this book is research carried out on behalf of Gallup. It looks at the elements that are significant for human wellbeing for individuals, and across cultures. The notes pages provide references and sources, and are useful and informative. The research process, and its validity and reliability are discussed towards the end of the book, alongside extracts from the data and sources for fuller information. The 5 essential elements identified are domains for wellbeing, differing from the New Economic Foundation 'Five Ways to Wellbeing' in the UK, which are the wellbeing equivalent of the 5-a-day dietary health message. Whilst the perspectives are different, they do have similarities and some commonality, particularly in their recommendations for action.

Practitioners: Although this book is not designed for positive psychology practitioners, it does contain useful and relevant information, particularly to those involved in workplace coaching or human resource management. A clear layout, and succinct, clear writing style makes this an easy book to engage with and to extract salient facts from. Each of the chapters about the 5 essential elements concludes with recommendations for boosting individual wellbeing in that domain.

Self-helpers: If you are a manager or a leader who wishes to improve your leadership style, then this book will certainly give you food for thought: for example, chatting round the water cooler may not be a time-wasting activity, and may well increase productivity!

Best Bits

The succinct recommendations at the end of each of the '5 essential elements' sections, for example:

'Three recommendations for Boosting Financial Wellbeing:

1. Buy experiences – such as vacations, and outings with friends or loved ones.
2. Spend on others instead of solely on material possessions.
3. Establish default systems (automated payments and savings) that lessen daily worry about money.' (p.66)

A wonderful quote from Bobby Kennedy on the inadequacies of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as a measure of wellbeing in society (page 109-110), which is quickly followed by this quote from the authors summarising their conclusions:

'To create a life that's worthwhile, not just for ourselves but for those around us, we need to find something we love to do that benefits society. We need to spend time strengthening our relationships with the people we love. We need to enough financial security to provide for our families' needs. We need to adopt lifestyles that give us health and energy to keep moving each day.' (p.111)

About the authors

Tom Rath has written 3 international bestsellers: How Full is you Bucket?, StrengthsFinder 2.0 , which was the highest selling US business book of 2008, and Strengths Based Leadership (2009). He specialises in workplace research and leadership consulting.

Jim Harter, (PH.D) is the Chief Scientist for Gallup's international workplace management and wellbeing practices, and the co-author of '12: The elements of great managing' based on a worldwide study of employee engagement, and of 'Manage your human sigma' which was published in Harvard Business Review. He joined Gallup in 1985 and has authored more than 1000 research studies.