Building Health-Promoting Organizations - by Suzy Harrington (Paperback)

About the Book

This book provides a clear, actionable model and practical tools for integrating well-being into the core of your organization.

Book Synopsis

What does it take to move from scattered wellness programs to a flourishing culture of well-being?

Whether you're a new wellness leader, an experienced executive, or a passionate advocate for change, you might feel both inspired and overwhelmed by how to create meaningful impact.

Nationally recognized well-being strategist Dr. Suzy Harrington can help! In this book, she provides a clear, actionable model and practical tools for integrating well-being into the core of your organization. Grounded in public health, systems design, and real-world leadership, this book is more than a guide-it's a launchpad that transforms vision into action. With clarity and confidence, you'll shift from scattered efforts to cohesive strategies and from isolated successes to system-wide change.

Inside, you'll discover how to:

• Align purpose, people, and priorities for impact
• Navigate organizational complexity with clarity and effective strategies
• Develop a shared language and vision for sustainable change.
• Engage allies across departments, sectors, and systems
• Streamline efforts to build a unified culture of well-being

Practical and inspiring, this book equips leaders to make it happen-turning well-being into a genuine competitive advantage.

Review Quotes

"Suzy Harrington offers a well-written, engaging, and thoughtful view of workplace health and the role of chief wellness officers in championing these efforts. She intertwines historical and contemporary events with colorful and humorous anecdotes. She emphasizes the importance of purpose and culture-two critical pillars in establishing best-in-class health-promotion programs. Most importantly, she spotlights measurement and evaluation-not just as nice-to-haves, but as critical elements for the long-term sustainability of initiatives. To build and maintain excellent programs, you need credible data, analysis, and interpretation-to tell data-driven stories that your audiences understand and buy into. Suzy's model helps leaders track what truly matters, linking culture change to tangible results."

-Ron Goetzel, PhD, Senior Scientist, Johns Hopkins University; Director, Institute for Health and Productivity Studies

"Dr. Harrington elevates the conversation on well-being from individual behavior to organizational design. Centering on purpose, she shows that an organization with a strong WHY can manage any HOW. This book is a practical guide for anyone interested in creating a flourishing organization."

-Vic Strecher, PhD, MPH, University of Michigan; Founder, Kumanu, Inc.

"This book ends with a pithy bit of wisdom: 'This work is messy. It's powerful. It's personal.' For the reader's benefit, every preceding page provides clarity to help with the messy; ideas and tools to enhance your power as an activator (or leader) for workplace well-being; and practical make-it-happen guidance so you can truly personalize your own strategy for culture change. The Harrington Well-Being Model draws from years of experience, case examples, and research on what works for healthy culture change. Everyone talks about culture as the center point for effective health promotion. The elegance of this model (Why, Who, What, How, and When) shows you exactly how to do it. Rotate the rings!"

-Joel B. Bennett, PhD, CWP, President, Organizational Wellness & Learning Systems (OWLS); Author, Well-Being Champions: A Competency-Based Guidebook

"Too often, books try to tell us what to do, as if actions alone are enough. This book equips leaders to go beyond checklists of items to the why and how that build sustainable culture change. Suzy gives readers value through a refreshing mix of storytelling and rigor."

-Wendy D. Lynch, PhD, Founder, Analytic-Translator.com

"Dr. Suzy Harrington has written the playbook every well-being leader has been waiting for. Building Health-Promoting Organizations transforms complex systems into clear, actionable pathways that make real change possible. It's both a map and a call to courage for those of us committed to building cultures where people and purpose thrive."

-Anna Fitch Courie, DNP, RN, PHNA-BC, Founder, Built Well Consulting; Chief Well-Being Officer, Clemson University

"Well-being isn't just about programs and services-it's about creating a culture of care, improving the way the work gets done, and leading system-wide transformations. In her phenomenal book Building Health-Promoting Organizations, Suzy Harrington shows us how we can. For any wellness leader who has struggled to get workplace wellness to work and is seeking a better way, here's your indispensable guide. I cannot recommend this book enough!"

-Laura Putnam, CEO & Founder, Motion Infusion; Author, Workplace Wellness that Works