Five Bottom Lines

In the early 2000s, Spiral Dynamics visionary Dr. Don Beck proposed that any emerging, sustainable business model for the global community must be "profitable" in 5 key areas.

He envisioned that these 5 "bottom lines" must meet the human needs of all affected constituencies, from management, to employees, to suppliers, to financial markets, to governments, to the earth itself. They are:

• A noble purpose that is transcendent, that lifts us above the mundane and gives true meaning to the contributions we make.
• Use of sound principles and efficient processes to remove unnecessary costs.
• Responsible profit with multiple usages (not just to pump up CEO pay).?
• A sensitivity to people and to societal needs.?
• The integrity of professions (like, no accounting scandals).?

Getting to overall health

As Beck would posit, a business can manage to these 5 bottom lines, and in so doing ensure that its efforts are "integrated, aligned, and synergized - rather than ad hoc, piecemeal, and fragmented."

One could wonder whether he had health insurance cost problems and well-being programs in mind as his theory was developed. He goes on to talk about the 5 bottom lines as mechanisms to "build 'change dynamics' into the systems and structures, as contrasted with using only attitudinal pressure for progress to occur."

Certainly, the attitudes, values, and belief systems of company leaders, executives, managers, and employees all play a part in the overall health of any organization. Certainly, the healthcare and medical needs and lifestyle habits of all the people in a company affect its operations and profitability.

But if we have a system in place - a well-being system - then we can manage to the health states, behaviors, and attitudes of all the people in a company, all the time, including those who come and those who go.

Unplug the stressors

Health states affect absenteeism costs. So also does the business culture - including the values and world views of leaders and managers. When people feel valued and appreciated for who they are as well as for what they contribute to the organization in terms of job function and interpersonal skills, they don't tend to take time off just to manage workplace stress issues, or to exploit the company.

When leadership is "plugged in" to their people and their needs in an integrated, dynamic way, that attunement functions as a "vital signs monitor to track deeper currents and critical indicators," as Beck would say.

In today's business world, stress has become a daily experience. Personal life issues overlap with company directives and financial necessity to create a certain degree of systemic havoc that interpenetrates all the people within a company. Often, the human response to such stressors is to fight against them.

Shedding the skin of poor health

However - as most of us have experienced - fighting against things as they are either brings more of the same (or worse), or we see our more tenuous system structures begin to collapse.

Buckminster Fuller said, "You can never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

And, not to put too much of a bloom on the well-being rose, but the scope of such programs today - being as broad as ever - offers a singular opportunity to reshape company cultures as well as human lives. In so doing, we can truly build a new model. With persistence, the new model - as it takes on form and substance - will also tend to reveal the shortcomings of the old systems and structures.

And, while it may not necessarily make it much easier, it can certainly make it clearer that the old systems really need to be shed, much as a snake might shed its skin - so that we can proceed more confidently into a more comfortable future.

Who(se) rules?

These concepts become more important if we take to heart the observations of a management theorist/realist like Tim Connor, who says:

• The average manager needs improved skills on how to coach, motivate and train employees.
• There is generally more negative feedback and criticism given to employees than encouragement and appreciation.
• There is a serious disconnect between people at the 500-ft. level (employees) and the 40,000 ft. level (senior management).
• Morale in organizations is worse than managers think it is.
• There are often 2 sets of rules, one for employees, and another for management.

Under such conditions, it's easy to see why organizations find themselves struggling with how to consistently and successfully maintain a "well-being program." After all, well-being not only means behavioral and lifestyle change, but it also - and perhaps more compellingly - means that business cultures must change as well.

Given the entrenched nature of the above issues at many companies, there is an intuitive sense that the scale of the change needed requires the obsolescence of the current model. And that's just the beginning if we want to become profitable across Beck's 5 bottom lines.

Honoring the inevitable

Connor suggests some fixes, including:

• One set of rules and standards for everyone.?
• Everyone is held accountable to the standards.?
• Everyone has the right to coach anyone else - up or down the chain of command.?
• If bosses ask an employee to do something - anything - they should be willing to do it themselves.?
• Respect and trust must permeate the organization, top-down and bottom-up.
• Try some bottom-up reviews from time to time.?

These kinds of ideas can form a scaffolding for a broad-scope, integrated well-being and health promotion program.

We're not talking genius, or rocket science - but we are talking change. As in any human process, we must be willing, as Beck says, "to honor the inevitable steps, stages and waves in human emergence."

5 bottom lines from well-being

From a well-being perspective, the 5 bottom lines look something like this:

Helping our people become healthier, happier, more present, and more productive is...

• A noble, transcendent cause.
• A sound principle and an efficient process to remove unnecessary health care costs from our benefit plans.
• A means to generate responsible profits for multiple usages.
• Being sensitive to people and societal needs.
• A means to support the integrity of vocational callings.

The last word

No one has all the answers, not even Don Beck and Tim Connor. But Beck helped reshape South Africa in such a way that Apartheid fell. Connor has helped reshape companies into more lithe operating entities. Any forward-thinking company can benefit from ideas like these, and that can lead to healthy rewards across any bottom line.

~ Mark Head

? 2023-24. All Rights Reserved.

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