Maeno: “Well-being design” is defined as innovative design aimed at satisfying the conditions of happiness, health, and well-being. It can be applied to products, services, workplaces, education, and other things.

Takada: The Sumitomo Life Group has positioned well-being at the heart of its management efforts, aimed at realizing its ideal 2030 vision of being an indispensable insurance company group that contributes to well-being. Our sales staff will operate as “well-being designers,” by offering health support and well-being services in addition to insurance consulting. They will help people to achieve well-being by helping them in their daily lives. When they talk positively about health, customers smile and become more positive too. The staff themselves also change.

Our new corporate message, “for your well-being,” embodies the company’s commitment to pursuing whatever ways it can to help people achieve personal Well-being, whether young or old, sick or healthy, and even if they’re unsure about what Well-being is.

Yoneme: Asahi Soft Drinks has brands like Mitsuya Cider that have been around for over 100 years. To express our determination to survive for another century, we have pledged “100 years of Excitement and Smile.” We will continue to generate new value by focusing on health, environment, and community co-creation as high-priority challenges.

To fulfill this desire, we will view corporate value three-dimensionally, as “growth potential × profitability × excitement level.” If employees approach their work with a sufficient “excitement level,” they will be more likely to experience well-being, and the products and services we create will also contribute to genuine well-being.

Shimada: Our primary mission is to raise the level of well-being in Japan.

Making use of PERMA[*] as an indicator of improved well-being can help us to live better, more joyful lives.

We believe that providing experience-based learning opportunities is essential for improving the well-being of workers. Currently, we are offering opportunities for primary industry “workcations” at an ume plum farm in Wakayama Prefecture. We feel that this initiative, which has proven popular with employees, is increasing PERMA scores. When people engage in useful tasks with enthusiasm and excitement (such as picking ume plums), they feel a sense of purpose; a sense of contributing to society, to a community, or an organization. We want to offer more experiences that give people this kind of feeling.

Maeno: It seems that the world of well-being is expanding and growing in a variety of fields.

Takada: It is important to play a “connecting” role, like the hyphen between “well” and “being” in “well-being.” We want to create well-being not only among ourselves, but also by building bigger and broader connections between businesses, local governments, and academia.

Yoneme: Everyone feels a sense of well-being when they are excited by something. We want to create products that can make individuals happier.

Shimada: According to the broaden-and-build theory, positive emotions cause the brain to expand, as it is fed by new ideas and actions. It follows that the brain shrinks, as negative emotions increase.

* PERMA is a word built from the first letters of Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishments.

Kobuse: What are your thoughts on well-being?

Ozawa: Everyone has a different definition. Whatever your ideas about the best way to live, it’s important not to impose them on others.

Kameda: More than 80% of my job is listening to others. This allows me to learn things that I would never see on my own. I think that well-being is something that people create together.

Sato: In my mind, well-being is feeling good about things. We tend to use words like “exciting” to refer to our organizational assets, “dynamic” for human assets, and “cheerful” for customer assets. When a good cycle is established, a chain of well-being is created.

Kobuse: Are you saying that when a variety of people work with energy and excitement to build relationships, they generate corporate value?

Sato: That’s right! All corporate value is in the future.

Kobuse: What’s the connection between well-being and hit songs, or hit products?

Kameda: I have never made music with the objective of creating a hit. My basic aim is to try and excite myself. My well-being comes first.

Ozawa: I am currently looking for a job and participating in an internship. What I look at are the people. While jobs, titles, and income are important, everything is ultimately created through communication between people.

Kobuse: Isn’t the Hibiya Music Festival project aimed at promoting social well-being?

Kameda: One day in New York, while I was walking through Central Park, I heard music wafting in from a distance. It was a free event called Summer Stage. It struck me that music in daily life really enhances well-being.

My biggest fear now is the mental distance that separates people. I believe that the power of music and culture can bridge this distance in a natural, unintrusive way.

Sato: As I see it, well-being is generated from the combination of company or workplace and culture. Value can be created by multiplying company × culture. If it’s only about ease of work, corporate value and stock price are unlikely to increase much. A good way to increase well-being is to recognize that every individual has multiple sides or talents, and to make use of all of them.

Ozawa: It’s also important that people see themselves in this way, so that they don’t pigeonhole themselves unnecessarily.

Kobuse: How do you envision a future in which everyone is creating well-being?

Sato: It would be great if we could all climb the mountain together.

Kameda: I have never used the word “well-being” as frequently as I did today. This alone will alter my consciousness. I believe that this accumulation of words and thoughts will help to shape a future of greater well-being.

Ozawa: Age is unimportant, in the sense that we are all working together. The essential thing is to match the people who are passing on batons with people who can grab and keep running with those batons.