30 - Second Speech

There's No 'I' in 'Team'

Companies are finding that team wellness challenges work better to create behavior change than individual incentives. But team challenges have their limits, too.

• By Rebecca Vesely
• Published: October 30, 2012

In an effort to inspire employees to take charge of their health, Kaiser Permanente in May launched an online nutrition program to encourage employees to eat more fruits and vegetables every day.

Called Mix it Up, the program has a database of more than 120 possible fruits and vegetables to choose from. Employees signed up with the goal of eating at least five servings of produce per day. They have logged in to the site through their computer or a smartphone application, clicked on images of the produce they ate, then dragged them over to a virtual blender. Mix it Up then added up the number of fruits and vegetables eaten per day and tracked progress over time.

Mix It Up is just one example of team wellness challenges that are catching on at companies nationwide. Team-wellness challenges at the workplace are relatively new, says Steven Noeldner, principal and senior consultant at Mercer. It's part of the "gamification" of workplace wellness programs, he says.

Indeed, wellness gaming companies such as Keas of San Francisco and Kairos Labs of Seattle are harnessing mobile technology and online social networking to get people to change their behavior.

A total of 13,350 employees participated in the six-week Mix It Up challenge. Registrants could sign up individually or as a team with colleagues. Forty-four percent chose to work as teams, while the other 56 percent took the challenge as individuals. Seven hundred teams participated in Mix It Up over the summer.

While Kaiser Permanente did not specifically encourage team participation, it found that teams ate more fruits and vegetables than employees doing the Mix it Up program on their own, says Nancy Vaughan, vice president of national accounts at Kaiser Permanente.

More than twice as many people on teams completed the challenge as those who competed individually. And though more people registered as individuals, team participation success was about double that of individuals. Overall, 32 percent of all participants increased their fruit servings, while 29 percent of participants increased their vegetable servings, the Oakland, California-based integrated health system says.

While there is little research on team versus individual outcomes in wellness programs in the workplace, anecdotal evidence suggests that team challenges can be an important motivator, Noeldner says.

"More people tend to participate on team challenges; people do like competition," he says. "It's not inconsistent from what we know from behavioral economics."

However, Noeldner cautions that employers should view team challenges as just one aspect of their wellness offerings.

"These activities are typically short in duration," he says. "I think there's some limits to it."

While most people would benefit from adding more fruits and vegetables to their diet or walking several times per week, other aspects of their health status also need to be addressed, Noeldner says. For instance, a diabetic would benefit from a tailored, ongoing program that could include a personal coach, he adds.

Challenges can lose their novelty as well. "Any organization that uses these types of campaigns has to think about changing them regularly," Noeldner says. "There's a clear drop-off in the number of participants in repeat campaigns."

And some team challenges can have unintended consequences. Team weight-loss challenges have spurred the use of diuretics, laxatives and crash dieting at some workplaces, he says.

"Often times, short-term contests don't support long-term healthy behavior changes," he says.

Rebecca Vesely is a writer based in San Francisco. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com.

Tact

Tact 

When President Gerald Ford was in office, he was on one occasion visited in the White House by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. When the Ford's son, Jack, was dressing for a formal dinner with the queen and prince, he couldn't find the studs for his shirt so he rushed into his father's bedroom to see if he could borrow some. 

He ran into the elevator with his shirt unbuttoned and hanging out and his hair disheveled—too late to discover that somebody else was already in the elevator. It was his parents with their guests, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. 

Mrs. Ford, feeling awkward, introduced Jack to their distinguished visitors. Sensing Mrs. Ford's embarrassment, the queen remarked sympathetically, "I have one just like that!" 

Tact and kindness are great gifts to use every day. Indeed, "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver." 

Do You Want to Be Made Well ? 

You may have heard the story (a fable to be sure) about the father who knocks on his son's door. "Jaime," he says, "wake up!" Jaime answers, "I don't want to get up, Papa." 

The father shouts, "Get up, you have to go to school." Jaime says, "I don't want to go to school." "Why not?" asks the father. "Three reasons," says Jaime. "First, because it's so dull; second, the kids tease me; and third, I hate school." And the father says, "Well, I am going to give you three reasons why you must go to school. First, because it is your duty; second, because you are forty-five years old, and third, because you are the headmaster." 

Many people say they want to overcome their problems too, but are not prepared to do their part to make it happen. Even the best psychologists will tell you that "people don't really want to be cured. What they want is relief; a cure is too painful." One surgeon said that many patients who come to him with a problem would rather that he operate on their body than they operate on their lifestyle, and that only about 25 percent of his patients accept responsibility for their wellness. 

To be made well needs to be more than a wish. It needs to be a true desire, with determination and commitment to do what one has to do to get well. As a Chinese proverbs puts it, "Great souls have wills; feeble ones have only wishes." 

Do you want to get well … to achieve something worthwhile with your life … to become happy and fulfilled … and to go to Heaven when you die ? Or do you just wish all these things ? Remember that wishes don't make it. 

One Step at a Time

One Step at a Time

Are you facing a daunting task, a major responsibility, or just need to clean your garage. If it's the latter, start in one corner and work your way around it in a clockwise pattern picking up one thing at a time and either store it in its proper place, put it in a pile to be given away, or throw it away.

Treat cleaning your house the same way, systematically tidying one room at a time. As you see one corner and then one room tidied, each of these successes will help keep you motivated. Just don't jump all over the place or discouragement will quickly dampen your enthusiasm. Apply the same principle to any task you have to face. Do it one step at a time—one day at a time. As the old saying goes, "Inch by inch anything's a cinch" to which a friend added, "but yard by yard it's miles too hard." 

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses 

"Douglas Bernstein, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois, recently asked faculty members for the 'most unusual, bizarre and amazing student excuses' they had ever heard. He got dozens." Following are a few: 

"An old favorite, but one professor's class established some sort of record when 14 out of 250 students reported their grandmothers' deaths just before final exams. In another class a student reported that he could not take the mid-term because his grandmother had died. When the instructor expressed condolences a week later, the student replied, 'Oh, don't worry. She was terminal, but she's feeling much better now.'

"I had an accident, the police impounded the car, and my paper is in the glove compartment." 

"I can't be at the exam because my cat is having kittens, and I'm her coach." 

"I need to take the final early because the husband of the woman I'm seeing is threatening to kill me."

Excuses go all the way back to Adam and Eve who said when they blew it, "The devil made me do it." Yeah. 

Right! 

Sir Walter Scott put it realistically when he wrote, "Oh, what tangled webs we weave / When first we practice to deceive." 

Of one thing we can be sure. God sees all and knows all. We can never deceive Him. There will be no excuses when we stand before Him on our final examination day.

Things That Bug Us

Things That Bug Us 

As the ditty goes, "It's the little things that bother us and put us on the rack, you can sit upon a mountain but you can't sit on a tack." 

And isn't that the truth? It's the little annoyances in life that get us tied in a knot. A slight criticism, a driver who cuts us off on the freeway, a green light that turns red before we get to it, a friend running late, and so on. 

Let us realize, however, that somebody's negative reaction may have more to do with them than us. A criticism may be somebody projecting their unresolved issues onto us. Somebody failing to thank us may indicate that they are having a "bad hair" day, and somebody cutting us off on the freeway may be an indication of their impatience—as well as a reflection of ours ! 

What somebody else does to me may or may not be a problem. How I react, though, is always my issue, and when I overreact, that is always my problem. What the other person does is their issue. How I act, react, or overreact is always my issue and my responsibility. 

If we'd remember that "whatever others think of me is none of my business," I would at least learn to cope much better with many of life's little annoyances. I know it's easier said than done, but it is a goal to work towards. Furthermore, the more mature and whole I become, the less life's little annoyances will bother me. I'm still working on this issue. 

Dear God

as it is your purpose for me, 

please help me to grow 

through the circumstances of life 

that 'push my hot buttons' 

Thank you for hearing and answering my prayerz

Well Done

Well Done 

Theodore Roosevelt said, "It's not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of good deeds could have done better. 

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena: Whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again … 

"Who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause… 

"Who, at best, knows the triumph of high achievement …

"And who, at worst, if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." 

Every one of us has been given at least one talent; many have been given several. Regardless of whether we have one or many talents, what is important is to use well what God has given and entrusted to us and therewith give life our best shot. 

Taking Risks

Taking Risks

To have meaningful goals in life is to risk failure. Not to have any goals may keep one feeling safe and comfortable, but it is to guarantee failure. "Equally comfortable," writes Peter Wagner, "is to define your goals in terms of what you happen to be doing at any given time. If you shoot first, then draw the target around the bullet hole, you'll never miss the bull's eye. If someone looks later, he might even call you a good marksman." Then you can brag about your accomplishments!

But this is not success. It is allowing life to shape you rather than you shaping your life and deciding how you want to invest it.

True success is to discover what God's purpose for your life is and then give life everything you've got to achieve that purpose.

Whatever that is, it's not failure that is a crime, but to have such a low aim that there is no chance of failure. Or, as somebody else put it, "Not to have a goal is more to be feared than not reaching it." If you tried and did your best, even if you failed to achieve all of your goal, you are already a success. All God requires is that we do our best.

Remember, however, if your goals are in harmony with God's purpose for you, he has already equipped you with the wherewithal to be able to achieve them. It's up to us to get well trained and learn how to effectively use these abilities. So, don't waste your life. Invest it in a worthwhile God-given life purpose—a noble cause into which you can put your best efforts and be excited about it. 

Don't Be a Part of the Living Dead

Washington Irving is credited with having made the remark that "a barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion."

Another way of saying the same thing is that "the race is not always to the swift but to those who keep on running."

Frank Lloyd Wright, the world-famous architect, tells how a lecture he received at the age of nine helped set his philosophy of life. An uncle, a stolid, no-nonsense type, had taken him for a long walk across a snow-covered field. At the far side, his uncle told him to look back at their two sets of tracks. "See, my boy," he said, "how your footprints go aimlessly back and forth from those trees, to the cattle, back to the fence then over there where you were throwing sticks? But notice how my path comes straight across, directly to my goal. You should never forget this lesson!" "And I never did," Wright said. "I determined right then not to miss most things in life as my uncle had."

To experience the wonders of life we need to be in touch with all of our God-given emotions—including the emotion of wonder. "Life without emotions," said one humorist, "would be like playing a trombone with a stuck slide," which of course would be dreadfully monotonous and boring. The same is true when one's emotion of wonder is repressed, the effects of which are to be characteristically bored with life.

Emotions are God-given. They are a vital part of living a life with vitality, joy and wonderment. So learn to enjoy the emotion of wonder. Learn to let your hair down more often. Have fun. Hang loose. Go with the flow. Plant a tree. Write a poem. Draw with your non-dominant hand. Tell your spouse and kids how much you love them … tell them now and tell them often. Get out of your ruts. Do something different. Stretch your imagination. Step out of your comfort zone.

As Robert Frost said in his poem, "Road Less Traveled," "I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence / Two roads diverged in a wood / And I took the one less traveled by / And that has made all the difference." 

Where's the Scent ?

Earl Nightingale told how on one National Secretaries Day he gave his secretary flowers and she remarked how beautiful they were. She also said that she couldn't understand why they didn't have any scent.

He informed her that the flowers came from a hothouse and explained that because flowers raised in this type of environment have everything done for them, they don't have to attract insects to pollinate them. As a result they lose their scent. In the same way fruit raised in a hothouse, because it doesn't need to attract insects to scatter its seeds, doesn't taste as good as fruit grown in its natural environment.

It's similar to the child who wanted to help a butterfly out of its cocoon by putting a slit in it and, in so doing, caused it to die. He didn't realize that the struggle to get out of the cocoon is needed to strengthen the butterfly's wings so that it is able to fly.

When people do too much for us or overprotect us, especially in our early developmental years, they can do serious harm to us. And even in adulthood it's the problems and difficulties we have that strengthen us, build character, give wisdom, understanding, and compassion—if we let them.

Dear God
help me
not to run
from my fears,
 trials, and problems
but accept them
as opportunities
for personal
and spiritual growth.

Thank you for hearing and answering my prayerz