Four Pillars of Health


I started a new online course this week through Harvard University online.  This course, entitled "Improving Your Business Through a Culture of Health", immediately grabbed my attention when I was deciding what I wanted to learn next.  This class promises to help me speak more intelligently on the business case for a culture of health.  It also promises to walk me through how exactly I might successfully enact sustainable changes in culture wherever I end up for work.

The first section introduced the framework on which much of the learning was based.  This framework, called The Four Pillars of Health was developed by Dr. John Quelch.  Dr. Quelch is the Dean of Business Administration at the University of Miami and also joint faculty memeber at Harvard.

The four pillars of health are as follows:
  1. Consumer Health
  2. Employee Health
  3. Community Health
  4. Environmental Health
The top triangle of the above image is meant to represent you, as a part of your company, and the base of the structure is leadership.  This portion of the diagram is trying to show the importance of buy-in from top leaders if you hope to make a lasting change, or really any change at all.

Each pillar is just as important as the next - the building loses some of its structural strength if one piece is missing.  In fact, the whole building could collapse quite easily if it doesn't have intermittent attention, checking to see if everything is in place.  Making a cultural change isn't just a "one and done" action.  It requires business leaders to be flexible, innovative and responsive to change.

As I dive into this class, I'll share what I've learned here in a few posts.  So, stay tuned!

-Vicky



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