“Discovering Excellent Health” by Dr J Paul Rand

Dr J Paul Rand, MBA, CPCN is a respected advisor to the White House, Department of Defense, Big-4 C-suit executives and multiple globally recognized corporations based in Seattle, Washington. His work has been measures, tested, vetted, and endorsed by Federal, State and local government agencies, non-profit, and for-profit institutions based on outcomes achieved by participants in his programs. The construct of well-being was not well attended to in the early years of the War on Terror. But, in part due to the seminal research by Rand among other leading scholars, the military has further embraced the focus of INSPIRA methods into their development of whole-person military personnel (read more about this in Veteran Success: leadership is a culture, Rand, Rankin, & Gold, 2016). Rand is published monthly in 43 cities with the Business Journal Leadership Trust and is routinely seen in Huffington Post outlets (Medium, Thrive Global, Entrepreneur) as a respected scholar and SME on human performance optimization and culture-ROI leadership systems.

Thus, the role of whole person (well-being) is important for active frontline healthcare professionals facing the uncertainty, loneliness, stress, fear, frustration, anxiety and other mental, emotional, and spiritual impacts (in addition to the physical health risks) of the Covid19 global pandemic. Just as modern warriors are better equipped now, based on lessons learned in the early decade of the War on Terror, healthcare professionals are well advise to do more than not only seek simply physical protection, but also to embrace the whole-of-self (INSPIRA) personal protection equipment (ppe) provided in this overview on well-being.

Well-being is defined by four domains: mind, body, spirit and heart. Each of these domains being distal in nature (long term). But, focus on the long-term is balanced by focus of short-term traits of well-being defined as: fiscal-vocational, social-emotional, physical-health, and educational-mental. Entire courses are taught on this construct alone, and this presentation is a brief overview into the complexity of well-being.

These eight elements of life satisfaction measure the construct of well-being using subjective, perceived, and observed ratings. Research reveals that the deployment of a process within a company or community group that promotes employee-centered (member focused) well-being ultimately results in organizational well-being1 enhancements; making this an interesting measurement because it applies not only to the individual, but also to the team, group, or collective “whole.” (see segment one about leadership as a culture). This is further explored in later sections.

In the coming section, specific short-term (elements) imperatives of career-development will be analyzed by key populations (employers, hourly, salary, unemployed, and veterans). A key component [of personal effectiveness] is recognizing that leadership (self and organizational) is a choice.2 Both career and life development start with the individual’s choice to recognize their personal best contributions. Leaders then choose to engage in service and dynamic life strategies (distal domains) to enhance, hone, and improve their performance and development. These concepts are aptly measured by well-being; moreover, they remain applicable to group measurements meaning the lessons here are applicable to groups, teams, committees as much as individuals.

1 Rand & Associates, 2013.

2 Rand & Mashuta-Madayag, 2013

Considerable research has gone into controlling and confirming the use of well-being as a measurement to define the earned outcomes or achievements. However, to date, no other construct meets the requirements to measuring equally the whole-person as well as directly measuring impact on occupational performance (fiscal-vocational measures) as in all vocational settings the one constant – regardless of industry, sector, or company – is people. Humans.

Moreover, because applied learning designations are rooted equally between industry-business standards and academic attainment, the direct measures of short-term training (mind-element) and long-term mind-domains (education) makes for an equally balanced measurement system.

Research for this segment was conducted using a variety of control groups in applied, real-life settings; through empirical surveys using both qualitative and quantitative methods and involved well over 1200 industry certified professionals, some 3000 applied-certification professionals, and several hundred students ranging from adult vocational to advanced-degree participants. Using well-being as a measurement is valid for several reasons. First, whether examining a person’s mission, values, or essence as an individual, we can measure their autonomous culture of leadership they create within their personal walk in life. A person is a complex individual and well-being helps measure not just short-term or immediate influences on behavior, but also the long-term tendencies. … …

The application to a team, group, or company is no different. By effectively measuring the exact data for each person, a second phase of testing can be introduced. This phase includes external observation as well as perceptual rating methods. What emerges is a whole-person focused system to measure the “pulse” of an organization (or group) as represented by the “sum of its many parts” without losing sight that a business is a system made of individual autonomous humans. Unfortunately, this is where most machine scientists and researchers go astray – relying on mathematics to predict versus a proven method of predictive learning sciences to capture the well-being of an organization based on recognition of the commonality but while embracing the free, autonomous, and biased responses of humans that mathematical processes alone can not measure without understanding well-being as a constant.

Such measurements for capturing and measuring well-being, like an individual professional portrait or headshot, can be both immediate snapshots or reflective of intentional creation… This method links people, teams, and organizations to culture. However, there is a difference between capturing the existing culture versus intentionally creating a culture by design. This following section will address the science and measurements to creating cultures of leadership (both individual and collective) based on the psychology of success and dynamics-psychology systems.

Prosperity Systems

Prosperity systems focus on three key drivers that create a prosperous output: passion, purpose, and profitability that create profound (success) output that is greater than the sum of any one contributor. The balancing of the three creating the best measure for prosperity, but ultimately as long as all three are represented in strategic focus then the psychology of success (profound outcomes) can occur. In other words, the individual or collective sum of individuals will influence the percentage of each measurement of prosperity. Meanwhile, this provides the essence of why a prosperity system. A profit motive should never be more than 80% of a 21st Century-long Success Strategy. Moreover, a purposeful or passionate cause can never achieve success without sustainable growth and revenue through profitable delivery. Therefore, to balance these competing, but clearly related drivers, our research revealed the Prosperity-Motive (Rand, 2012; see also Rand, 2015) as a guide and measure to ensure application, relevance, and focus without cutting what is needed to ensure the development of a culture of leadership.

After all, well-being is measured by two sets of data –long-term and immediate – each having multiple measurements and being internally and externally calculated. Therefore, profit, purpose, and passion can easily be measured on a sliding scale based on organization or community design using these quantified metrics relying on objective, subjective, and perceptual measurement consistent for each individual as much as the team. By reporting on prosperity, a company is re-embracing the employee/individual focus needed to put the human back into the business system, the healthcare system, the military system, and even technology systems: allowing a culture of leadership to emerge.

The psychology of success has been modeled by the research and incubated systems that developed this leadership framework. To understand this requires examining the relationship of the “Speed of Patience” and “REAL REACH” principles within the context of multiple non- profit, social-outreach, and controlled for-profit enterprises. Editor’s Note: Unlike most for-profit systems, keeping with the applied-research safe-havens, Dr Rand worked with a team to structure an incubator for accreditation methods known as the Strategic Learning Alliance. This system would test for-profit outcomes using approved vendors, capture the data and benchmark the data for future business acceleration and investment as a form of what Rand defines as “organic baseline for measuring success and dynamic research in a living control model. The result was the creation of an applied learning association valuation of $24M dollars over a ten year long incubated control study. This served as the baseline for a “success system model.”

Well-Being Defined

What is Well-being? And how does it relate to living a dynamic life of prosperity? It is a complex system (well-being), and the hope is that these real stories might shed simple and right ways for you to better understand, to better adapt and attain, and better articulate your well- being. Well-being, as guided by this book, focuses on one of two parts (internal/subjective vs external-perspective): your inner awareness guided by long-term domains and short-term actions (elements).

In this section we introduce the evidenced-backed system that defines subjective well- being as: long-term domains and short-term elements.

A person subjectively measures their well-being by understanding themselves based on their domains and elements. Domains are influenced directly by individual’s personal missions, values, and principles. These lofty concepts define a person’s purpose and contribute to prosperity – something you will learn about in this selection as it relates to well-being and applied-leadership sciences (see Covey; 2004; Rand, 2012; Rand, 2014; see also Ed & Diener- Biswas, 2007; Rand & SLA, 2015; Rand, 2017). Well-being domains are categorized by four key systems of well-being:

●        Mind (mental/educational),

●        Body (physical/health),

●        Spirit (transcendent/unseen),

●        Heart (social/emotional).

The 5th element is the self- your total measurement and recognition of “being-well” (Rand, Rankin, & Gold, 2017) while in pursuit of long-term domains of well-being. For now, think of, and learn about, “Well-Being” as a multiple-part system made up of several processes: think of a globe, our planet (see Rand, 2014; Carruthers & Hood, 2007). Humans are influenced by two key conditions: peak experiences and peak performance (Rand, 2012; see Maslow, 1959; Carruthers & Hood, 2007; Hood & Carruthers, 2007; Rath & Harter, 2011; Rand, 2014).

To imagine this relationship, think of peak experiences and peak performance as lines of longitude and latitude of a globe. These lines are separate, but equally necessary to identify specific location on a globe. As for humans, lines of peak experiences and peak performance allow people to understand, assess, and improve well-being by focusing on specific parts of their domains (long-term wellbeing) and the immediate influences of living situations (elements of wellbeing).

Our planet has a core; this is can be compared to the heart of an individual: personal passions fueled by unseen fire and beliefs in life. The crust and mantle (of the globe) is the physical manifestation of well-being (the Body); the thin barrier between the heart system and the external world to which our lived experience serve to interact and influence both our physical and heart domains.

The various formations on our planet – mountains, valleys, rivers, plains, are like the ever-changing mental concepts people learn, know, and rely on to survive – denoted as the mind.

But further depicted by the air, clouds, and conditions influencing our planet. The mind is constantly working and present; affected by continual rotation of the “globe” much like how wind is always present within our planet.

The ozone represents the spirit of an individual; the transcendent ability to expand beyond the physical. Many consider the spirit to be totally invisible. Like our ozone, the spirit is a force by which all life is possible, and stems from evolutionary development dating back to the creation of the universe (see Rand, 2010). To accept its existence is unique in every situation, but to describe and define another’s spirit is as impossible as is to bottle up a bit of our ozone here on earth. But, that does not mean our ozone – like the spirit- doesn’t exist.

Domains are strategic – long-term, three to five years into the future. They shift gradually like the tectonic plates within a globe. As shifts occur, external conditions and representations also change. However, over time these can be rather gradual and unknown. This is not to say a major life element cannot force more immediate change of a domain – just as a sudden volcano will shape a mountain for several lifetimes to come. However, domains should best be kept in recognition of long-term goals, changes, and improvements over time – not just the immediate outcome.

Well-being, like the earth, is also forged by various immediate influences, life events, purpose, internal challenges, and external (think asteroid for a continuation of the example) impacts. These are known in science as the elements of well-being (Rath & Harter, 2009). Thus, the globe is still altered and forged by external influences that are short-term in the experience. As a result well-being requires constant awareness of the external impacts, or “craters”, opportunities, and discoveries that can be made in this life. These, elements (unlike domains) are not long-term (distal) but are short-term, sometimes acute, immediate, and very specific to what part of well-being they influence. These elements are best defined by Harvard University research as:

●        social/emotional

●        financial/vocational,

●        educational/mental,

●        health/wellness

The elements take into consideration that the spirit and emotional (heart and spirit domains) exist, but are unique to each individual and not properly defined by external “globes” (Rath & Harter, 2009; see also Einstein, 1949; Jung, 1951). The two primary commonly “seen” domains directly impacted by external elements (mental and physical) components are included in measurements of well-being on a daily basis (Rand, 2014).

For example: the air and wind are unseen yet impact global weather; the body and the mind are always present in short-term life situations – but we do not always allow the spirit and the heart to shine-out. In other words, the elements are not like the big-picture “globe” as much as they are more closely defined by specific regions of the globe. One cannot worry about the mind/body three years from now, while ignoring a “hurricane occurring” within the here and now. As a result, to know your Well-Being, you must think of both elements and domains both, and measure them equally.

Summary

The key to discovering excellent health is understanding that each living person is a profound operating (human) system. One that is both by design, autonomous to engage with internal functions and external environments to create an outcome greater than the sum of the individual alone. The application of well-being is both autonomous and collective, creating a unique method to measuring the wellness of a company, culture, community, club in as much as optimizing and discovering excellent individual health.

The problem is that many medical professionals become hyper-focused on a specialty, forgetting the simplicity of the whole of the human – the impact of mental, emotional, spiritual and physical influences. The simple solution, for optimized care, begins with the individual pursuit of INSPIRA method. The process of living and learning while leaving a legacy; a connection of the past, present, and future measured by both internal (success) and external (dynamics) measurements of well-being defined in the coming sections. This focus, however, starts with health care providers and employees recognizing the importance of equipping themselves with personal protective equipment of mind, spirit, heart and not just of the physical self …

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For a complete bibliography see the original print

Distributed for LinkedIn production (2020) with permission, not authorized for reprint or digital distribution: Orchard-Press with Little Moment Reads, an imprint of Saber Mountain Press ? 2017. Rand, J. P. with Rekow, A. (2017). Discovering Excellent Health. Saber Mountain: Boise, ID. ISBN in original source.