People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1 - 21

Suominen-Troyer, Davis, Ismail, & Salvendy,
1986; van Praag, 2008), exercise improves our
"executive functions," including our abilities
to properly select between appropriate and
inappropriate behavior and to maintain focus
amid distraction (e.g. Davis et al., 2007).
HR professionals can benefit greatly from
implementing wellness programs that include
exercise as well as the other six activities
described. The issue is often a cultural one,
however. People must feel with certainty that
it is okay to take an hour out to exercise several times a week, and it is especially important
for top executives to lead by example.
Focus Time: Attention Management
Focus time refers to time spent spotlighting
our attention on complex work as well as
nurturing efficacy, mastery, and completion.
When we focus, we enable our brains to hold
information in mind and make choices as
thoughts occur; focusing gets tasks done.
Attention requires a state of optimal arousal,
neither under-stimulated (bored) nor overstimulated (stressed). To achieve this state we
must feel a sense of control and predictability.
Asking questions that assess an individual's
sense of stimulation can help gauge this.
One of the major threats to focus is having
too many competing tasks demanding our
attention. We aim to address this challenge
often by multitasking. But multitasking is
known to diminish cognitive performance (as
discussed in Rock et al., 2012). To minimize
the negative consequences of competing
demands within one's organization, employees should be trained to harness their focus
by breaking tasks up such that they can mentally attend to only one task at a time.
Realistically, 21st century workplaces are not
brain friendly and are not conducive to focusing. To make better focus possible, we have
to counterintuitively allow time for the seven
elements of the Healthy Mind Platter. That
will facilitate the full use of people's working
memory and executive function.

Adopting the Healthy
Mind Platter
HR professionals seeking to implement the
Healthy Mind Platter in their organizations
need to look at it from three angles: the organization, multilevel leadership, and the
policies that support best practices. Adopting
the framework comprehensively to effectively alter workplace culture will take time
and financial investment, as well as a change
of mindset at the top.
To incorporate the Healthy Mind Platter framework, HR will need to prepare a business case
based on ROI that addresses the following:
* How much is lost per annum through
sick leave
* Case studies of when poor decisionmaking due to lack of wellness had
major consequences

Examples of ROI in Other
Companies
With sponsorship and participation from the
executives, HR should encourage leaders to

Downtime is a necessary precursor of insight in
complex decision-making. ... Leaders must learn to
value downtime as essential, and implement
downtime with their team.

adopt a healthy balance of the seven states of
activity for six weeks. This is a long enough
period of time to embed new neural wiring,
create new habits, and to invest time encouraging others to do the same.
Most employee programs only deal with
middle management down. Top leaders tend
to handle exhaustion and stress outside of the
organization and look for one-to-one coaching to improve performance because they feel
they should be able to cope perfectly with
whatever work throws at them. This is due to
a dangerous stigma surrounding these issues
that must be extinguished. It is time for top
leaders to acknowledge the recipe for a
healthy brain as the same recipe for top performance and stress reduction.
Leaders must model positive behaviors to give
"permission" for employees to do the same.
Going to the gym during work hours demonstrates that it is okay to look after one's self as
part of an overall healthy lifestyle. Similarly,
not having the "open door" policy that is so
often recommended is likely to produce more
brain friendly focus of attention.

Realizing Full Potential
The Healthy Mind Platter is designed to
guide us through the seven activities necessary to optimize the mental wellbeing and
decision-making capability in organizations.
Adopting the Healthy Mind Platter as an
organizational framework will improve brain
health, creativity, and performance of leaders
and subordinates alike. Although we have
introduced the different factors constituting
VOLUME 38/ISSUE 1 - 2015

People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1