The Wellbeing Purpose

How Companies Can Make Life Better

Richard Hardyment

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Année: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351001021
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Commerce
• Sous-sujet: Commerce Général

In a turbulent world of geopolitical change, declining trust in institutions, and increasing scrutiny of companies, the big question facing leaders is: what difference does business make? Lots of companies talk about social impact, but few have defined what it really means. This book sets out a more human form of capitalism with people at its heart.

The Wellbeing Purpose is the first book that explains how companies can make life better across their value chains, from sourcing raw materials to innovating, marketing and selling products and services. This book is a blueprint for raising life satisfaction for all those touched by a business – suppliers, employees, communities and consumers. It sets out the steps for any organization to create profits (wealth creation) whilst simultaneously making life better (wellbeing enhancement).

Drawing on his experience as a political adviser and business consultant, Hardyment takes us on a journey across the global footprint of business. There are some startling findings along the way. Case studies from pioneering firms and the latest scientific research are used to explain how any organization can source, make and market products that create wealth and wellbeing. This is a manifesto for business to profit through helping more people to realize the good life.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Why happiness matters

Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.

Aristotle (384–322 BCE)¹

On 23 March 1768, a gentleman in a coffee shop read six words that changed our world forever. Jeremy Bentham was a child prodigy. His father told a story about how he’d found the toddler sitting at his desk, browsing a multivolume history of England. This young boy was studying Latin aged 3 and was sent up to Oxford at just 12 to study law.

On that spring morning, Bentham had returned to his alma mater to vote in parliamentary elections, as was the custom at the time. He had quickly tired of practising law, preferring instead to critique the ideas through reading and writing. Popping into a coffee shop named Harper’s, on the corner by Queen’s College, his attention was caught by a travelling library, tucked away at the back.

Browsing the eclectic collection of pamphlets, his eye landed on one in particular. Essay on the First Principles of Government had been written by a preacher named Dr Joseph Priestley. Turning its pages, Bentham made the discovery of a lifetime. Such was his shock, he was said to have yelled “Eureka!” at the top of his voice when he found these six words from Dr Priestley. What, the other drinkers in Harper’s coffee shop must have wondered, had this guy just read? Bentham had stumbled upon the idea of the “greatest happiness of the greatest number.”²

Utilitarianism, as it became known, suggests that actions should be judged by whether or not they increase or decrease our happiness. The test for everyone – governments, individuals and businesses – is the total amount of pleasure and pain that is created. Rather than following rules laid down by a god, Bentham advocated that we measure and judge our actions by their results.

Over the last 250 years, this beautifully simple idea has redefined how many think about the very purpose of life. The idea of maximizing our happiness has become a central pillar of philosophy, built on foundations laid down by Aristotle and others. Utilitarianism has transformed social welfare, and shaped political discourse and laws.

In the early twenty-first century, several governments have identified wellbeing as a new way to measure society’s progress. As a complement to the traditional gross national product (GNP), policymakers have pioneered measures that have been dubbed “gross national happiness” (GNH). But we have only scratched the surface of how wellbeing might transform business.

Feeling good is a fundamental and self-evident aim of life. Happiness is what we live for. But despite all the talk of responsible and sustainable business, remarkably few companies have ever articulated their role in making us all more satisfied with life. There has been a deafening silence from the private sector about the central purpose of human existence.

This book aims to fill that void. It makes the case for wellbeing as the driving purpose of every business. A social purpose explains why an organization exists. Rather than vague promises about a positive role in society, the Wellbeing Purpose has a revolutionary ambition: to maximize human happiness for all those touched by a company. It places people and their feelings at the heart of the firm, whether that’s farmers supplying raw materials, factory workers creating goods, or shoppers buying and consuming products and services. The Wellbeing Purpose is a blueprint for the future, a visionary moonshot, to guide research and development, procurement, marketing – in fact, all parts of the business.

A Wellthy Company

The end goal is what I call a Wellthy Company: a new type of corporation that creates wealth through wellbeing. A Wellthy Company boosts life satisfaction (wellbeing creation) and generates profits in the process (wealth creation).³ The fruits of this wealth are shared with society through salaries for employees and business partners, taxes for governments and returns for shareholders.

When I use the term Wellthy Company, this describes a business that is reaping the benefits of the Wellbeing Purpose. While there are no fully mature Wellthy Companies today, elements can be identified in many leading businesses. The insights can be applied to any organization; they are relevant to every sector and every territory.

This isn’t about doing good for its own sake. The Wellbeing Purpose can boost our world’s happiness – and generate profits in the process. Enhancing life should be the social purpose of all companies because it makes great commercial sense. It’s the logical next step for responsible and sustainable business in a world where more and more organizations are looking to combine profits with social value.

A focus on wellbeing can shed new light on some of the most fascinating challenges facing corporate leaders today. In a world where trust in business has collapsed, what role do companies want to play? Does paying more money to staff (and bosses) make anyone happier? Does working in a sweatshop improve quality of life or make it more miserable? Does advertising that paints a picture of what we don’t have (or can’t afford) undermine self-worth or inspire us to achieve more?

The science behind wellbeing

This book shows how any organization can make our world happier. When I use the term happiness, I don’t mean it in some vague, fluffy sense. It’s a rigorously defined and measurable indicator that is backed by decades of research. Thanks to the science of wellbeing, happiness is no longer just for the philosophers and hippies. Businesses can apply the insights to strengthen performance and improve their footprint on the world.

There is now research to show whether buying a luxury car makes us more satisfied with life, or how having a stable job or watching advertisements affects feelings of self-worth. We know whether paying people more makes them happier and what types of products do most to enhance and destroy our quality of life. This means that we can measure, quite robustly, what makes life more joyous in the short run as well as worthwhile in the round.

Over the last 30 years, well over 30,000 scholarly texts have been published on wellbeing.⁴ In the last decade alone, there has been a dizzying acceleration of political interest in the topic. Politicians, policymakers and think tanks are talking about wellbeing as a new measure – for some, the best measure – of society’s progress.

The politics of happiness

The political interest traces its roots back to 1776 in a new America. As Jeremy Bentham was floating the ideas in his own book, Fragment on Government, Thomas Jefferson decreed in the Declaration of Independence that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” were the “inalienable rights” that government must protect. The most powerful critique of traditional economic measures came from Robert F. Kennedy. Just months before his tragic assassination in 1968, he proclaimed an election rally:

Our gross national product . . . counts air pollution and cigarette advertising . . . It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder. . . and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children . . . . Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play . . . it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.⁵

Today, the governments of the UK, France, Canada and South Korea are collecting official measures of their citizens’ wellbeing. Experts from Maryland and Vermont in the US, as well as Australia and the United Arab Emirates, are exploring similar metrics. As far back as 1972, the King of Bhutan announced that “gross national happiness” would become a primary aim of his country’s development.⁶ David Cameron, the former British Prime Minister, said that “improving our society’s sense of wellbeing is, I believe, the central political challenge of our times.”⁷ Some, such as the happiness guru Lord (Richard) Layard, have called for wellbeing to become the primary objective of all government action.⁸

Far from being a sideshow, the energy and enthusiasm behind wellbeing is picking up speed. We live in a world of high uncertainty, with growing inequality, rising nationalism and geopolitical instability. How happy populations are has never been more important. Governments are trying to improve their citizens’ quality of life. Isn’t wellbeing what politics should ultimately be about? Given that political interest looks set to continue, it’s not far-fetched to imagine that future nations could define their central political purpose not as economic growth, but as satisfaction with life for all.

These developments are highly relevant for business. Often, when governments get interested in an issue, it’s only a matter of time before companies are asked: what are you doing about it? If we think about social changes – such as wearing seat belts, motorcycle helmets, smoking in public places or cleaning up after messy dogs⁹ – it’s government that has led. When governments trail-blaze, businesses are often encouraged to follow (through voluntary initiatives) or mandated to change (by regulation). But there is a more pressing reason for the business community to take wellbeing seriously: the commercial case makes it crazy to ignore.

The business opportunity

Since Jeremy Bentham was born in the middle of the eighteenth century, the global economy has grown by about 2.5% every year. This means that each generation is about a third better off than the last.¹⁰ But despite safer workplaces, more consumer choice and rising incomes, most people are no happier with their lives. When asked to rate their satisfaction with life, where 10 represents the “best possible life” and 0 is the worst, the global average is a touch above 5. In the worst-performing countries (mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa and war-torn Syria and Afghanistan), the score is just 3.¹¹ That’s the average person rating their happiness just 3 out of 10. While many people are quite content with their lot, hundreds of millions wake every day with tragically little to live for.

This human suffering is the single greatest challenge that our world faces. It is a global catastrophe. Of course, poverty, hunger, conflict, poor health and discrimination matter – but they matter because they make people miserable.

Unhappiness is an immense opportunity for forward-thinking companies. All businesses aspire to develop solutions, to bring a benefit and value to those who need it. The wellbeing economy provides a fantastic new way to create value for society. Yet, so far, too few companies have grasped this prospect. Beyond a few employee welfare schemes, the influence of companies across their supply chains and in factories, offices, shops and homes has been largely neglected.

Wellbeing is a lucrative route to wealth creation because there are countless compelling business opportunities. Disengaged employees cost American businesses an astonishing $500 billion every year in lost productivity.¹² Boosting happiness not just for staff, but right across the supply and distribution networks, can save money and dramatically increase outputs. That means lowers costs and higher margins.

Then there is the consumer. Brands that build wellbeing into their DNA can ignite long-lasting impro...