Mindset - What Do Social Impact and Happiness Have in Common?

What do social impact and happiness have in

common? Steve Coles

Intentionality CIC

Everything! What do social impact and

happiness have in common?

Question: What makes you most happy?

“Wellbeing is a positive physical, social and mental state; it is not just the absence of pain, discomfort and

incapacity. It arises not only from the action of individuals, but from a host of collective goods and relationships with other people. It requires that basic needs are met, that individuals have a sense of purpose, and that they feel

able to achieve important personal goals and participate in society. It is enhanced by conditions that include supportive personal relationships, involvement in empowered communities, good health, financial

security, rewarding employment, and a healthy and attractive environment...”

UK Government’s Whitehall Wellbeing Working Group, 2006

Question: How many people do you know who would help you

in a crisis?

Relationships Matter… “What seems to be the most important factor in

providing happiness is close social relations. People who are married, who have good friends, and who are close to their families are happier than those who are not. People who participate in religious communities are happier than those who do not. Being connected

to others seems to be much more important to subjective well-being than being rich.”

Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice, p. 107

Employment Matters… “We can be needed by our family, but most of us need

more than this: we need to feel we are contributing to the wider society. Thus work provides not only income but

also an extra meaning to life. That is why unemployment is such a disaster: it reduces income but it also reduces

happiness directly by destroying the self-respect and social relationships created by work … So unemployment is a very special problem … And even when you are back at work, you still feel its effects as a psychological scar.”

Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, Richard Layard, p.67

Employment Matters… Unemployed Britons show high levels of mental distress. Using a particular scale to measure mental distress, the mean levels are the following:

In other words, the 522 jobless people in the sample had approximately twice the mental distress score of those with jobs

Trust Matters…

From: Do we really know what makes us happy? by Dolan, Peasgood and White - http://pauldolan.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/do-we-really-know-what-makes-us-happy.pdf

“…social trust (trust in most other people) is

associated with higher life satisfaction and

happiness, and a lower probability of suicide”

Year!

Percentage saying that

most people can be trusted

(Britain)!

1959! 56!

1981! 43!

1990! 44!

1999! 29!

An Experiment… Imagine you had to choose between living in two imaginary worlds, in which prices and all other factors are the same other than:

–  In the first world you get £50,000 a year, while other people get £25,000 (on average)

–  In the second world you get £100,000 a year while other people get £250,000 (on average)

Which world would you prefer to live in?

An Experiment…

When asked, most say they would prefer to live in the first world - the world in which they earn £50,000 and everyone else earns £25,000.

Relative Position Matters…

From: Inequality, Happiness and Relative Concerns: What Actually is their Relationship? by Ed Hopkins, University of Edinburgh - http://www.homepages.ed.ac.uk/hopkinse/ineq-survey.pdf

“There is increasing acceptance that the welfare of individuals is not solely determined by their material circumstances but also depends

heavily on their relative position in society.”

What’s all this got to do with social impact analysis and going

‘beyond measurement’?

Organisational culture

Mission

People at the centre

Environment

Focus on what really matters

Creating overlapping

impacts

Tell a ‘story of change’

Organisational culture

Mission

People at the centre

Environment

Focus on what really matters

Creating overlapping

impacts

Tell a ‘story of change’

Recognises that all you need is…?

Organisational culture

Mission

People at the centre

Environment

Focus on what really matters

Creating overlapping

impacts

Tell a ‘story of change’

Recognises that all you need is…? Love?

Discussion, Questions and

Answers

1) What is beyond measurement? 2) Why should we go beyond measurement? 3) How do we improve beyond measurement?

Many thanks for listening

Steve Coles Intentionality CIC

Web: www.intentionality.co.uk Email: steve@intentionality.co.uk

Tel: +44 (0)7791 868 597

Twitter: steve_coles Twitter: Intentionality_