This opinion piece was written by Sarah Casey, senior strategy and investment adviser for internal affairs in the New Zealand government. It was a runner up of the 2018 Apolitical Young Thought Leaders competition. For more like this, see the other winning entries.

Happy people do better in every aspect of life.

A nation’s prosperity is measured in terms of GDP but while many nations are getting richer, life satisfaction measures are stagnating. In a world where echoes of “me too” and “black lives matter” are travelling the globe, many communities experience hunger, poverty, and violence, and irreversible damage is being done to the planet, it’s clear we need to redefine what success looks like for our people, our communities and our nations.

“Wellbeing” provides an opportunity to have a new conversation that focuses on what people value. But realising the potential of a government that values wellbeing and not just GDP will take a fundamental reimagining of the way we invest and need courage to drive a new operating model across the system.

Exploring wellbeing

Ten years ago, wellbeing was a niche area of study that, while well-intentioned, was anecdotal and aspirational at best. Now a growing constellation of interests are aligning, evidence bases are building and political support is growing to invest in happiness across the world.

Wellbeing takes a connected view of what matters to our people and is beginning to change how we look at the world. It could help us look beyond financial benefit alone when making policy and change how we approach investment decisions for future generations.

It demands a multidimensional approach that explores the relationship between the different aspects of our lives through a human-centric lens. It could, for example be approached by appreciating how work-life balance affects family life, personal health and our overall life satisfaction.

What does good look like? It depends on who you ask

Context is crucial. While people’s wellbeing needs can be similar across domains such as health and employment, the broader dimensions that make up happiness do vary between individuals. Understanding the diversity of, and within, our cultures will help make clearer how governments can best serve their citizens.

It's not the role of government to determine the weight and priority of different wellbeing metrics in a one-size-fits-all application — rather its job is to provide a set of tools to support and empower communities in their own context, to live the lives they wish to.

Compelling stories of people’s shared values and experiences will be the key to highlighting what’s important. These stories will provide the foundation for wellbeing policies and inform investment narratives that capture hearts and minds. People are what really matters and investment logic should be a reflection of their needs, not begin and end with cost benefit analysis.

Investing for the future, today

The day-to-day pressures on governments are real and the public service is often at its best when it comes to responding to immediate challenges. However, only focusing on the immediate crisis runs a risk of missing opportunities for future generations.

Taking an intergenerational view of strategic planning will reframe priorities, by balancing short-term gains and long-term shifts. This is important because short-term gains are often easiest to prioritise, particularly within the bounds of a political term, while longer-term aspirations are easily deferred. Fostering collective ownership of wellbeing outcomes by the public service, citizens and communities will help these priorities to endure beyond political cycles.

Anything worth doing is hard

Every government has many different strengths and there is a risk that their embedded operating models will continue to act in tension with the new mind-sets and practices needed for wellbeing.

The good news is there are others blazing the path and building on the service ethos of government to progress wellbeing outcomes:

The above snapshot represents a very narrow perspective of the formal commitments across the globe. It doesn’t begin to touch on the spirit of wellbeing advocacy that public servants adopt to make their countries the best place to live, work and play.

Courageous governments are redefining what success looks like

Governments can deliver what matters most to their people by looking beyond GDP and embracing the challenges of wellbeing.

The theory is there and the evidence is getting stronger and stronger. Now we need to close the implementation gap and advance wellbeing investment through intergenerational storytelling that not only captures hearts and minds but which also fosters new ways of working. — Sarah Casey

(Picture credit: Unsplash/David Calderon)