Dr Adrian Medhurst and Troy Mansell.
Two people with one purpose were magically brought together on a cold winter morning in Melbourne’s Flinders Lane. Benny Button’s co-founders, Dr Adrian Medhurst and Troy Mansell were in their own unique worlds beginning another day exploring how they could have a positive impact on people’s lives.
Troy overheard Adrian discussing his new book 'Meditate on This’ and became instantly gravitated to the intellect, energy and passion in his voice. The very next day, with the support of serial entrepreneur Rod Dry aka Poppa Mofo at Vinomofo, they began plotting how they could solve a major problem….
Even with clear evidence showing that wellbeing improves productivity, why were business leaders struggling to value and invest in wellbeing as a high performance strategy?
Three key issues frustrated them.
Rising employee stress and disengagement was not only difficult for people, it was bearing a huge cost to organisational culture and performance;
The broader wellbeing and health of our nation was declining and this too was severely impacting productivity;
People have great strength and value to contribute if organisations can integrate new ways of developing and enabling their potential to emerge.
The research shows that these challenges create a combined cost estimated at over $500 billion per year in Australia alone. Figures are even greater in other parts of the world such as the U.S.
These critical issues and costs were clearly holding back the potential of organisations and their people. Adrian and Troy's professional backgrounds also gave them great insights into why business leaders weren’t seeing and realising the value of current wellbeing solutions. Current players in the market were falling short on a few key factors, and organisations were not being appropriately supported through development and change. Key issues include:
Inconvenience
Current wellbeing programs fail when it comes to engaging busy people and making it easy for them to integrate good habits and routines into both work and life.
Impersonal
Assessment, learning and development approaches have tended to lack personalisation so employees don't clearly see what is relevant and valuable for them.
Poor Commitment
Leaders were showing poor commitment and inconsistent participation to programs, so their teams would follow suit and fail to prioritise participation and any application of learning.
Unclear Data & ROI
Unsophisticated (or completely missing) data analytics was failing to link improvement initiatives with business relevant outcomes.
It is no wonder business leaders were finding it difficult to see the value in wellbeing investment. Without a shakeup, the wellbeing focus would continue to be seen as a discretionary cost that was hard to justify, instead of a critical strategic focus on performance improvement and optimisation.
These problems and frustrations only fuelled their passion and commitment to develop a solution that would change the game. "We need a wellbeing and performance movement, not an intervention" is a signature message Adrian and Troy feel incredibly strongly about.
Through years of personal experience working with organisations across the globe, Adrian and Troy knew that wellbeing and performance were interdependent. However, in business, they continued to find leaders and employees prioritising and pushing performance, but neglecting important elements of wellbeing in the process. They knew they needed to drive the movement, and they needed a vehicle for doing it. It was at this point that Benny Button was born.
One thing was for sure, organisations, leaders, and people need to clearly understand what is at stake. For this reason, a key part of the Benny Button platform is a model that illustrates the importance of simultaneously investing in wellbeing as well as performance - the impact and value of a ‘Switched On’ culture.
The Benny Button movement was designed to cycle organisations, leaders, and their people through three interrelated phases critical to growth and sustainability.
Explore - Knowing what you need to do. Benny Button will provide scalable assessment options based on leading edge science. Analytics and algorithms will reveal data insights and practical, targeted recommendations for improvement.
Transform - Doing what needs to be done. We establish commitment and consistent effort and innovation that promotes learning and behaviour change driving wellbeing and performance improvements over time.
Evolve - Being the best you can be. Here Evidence and value are quantified to allow organisational changes to drive continuous improvement and evolution of a wellbeing and performance culture.
Benny Button is magnetically attracting a passionate team of experts to support the movement. The unique mix of wellbeing and performance Analytics and Services are already supporting early clients. The development of their game-changing digital platform is underway and set for an exciting launch in September 2017.
If you, like Benny Button’s co-founders, want to make a positive impact on people’s lives and improve the performance of your business, no matter how big or small you are, get in touch today.