Helping organizations rethink how well-being is designed into leadership, culture, and everyday systems.

Senior Scientist, Johns Hopkins University;
Director, Institute for Health and Productivity Studies

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 contemporaneous events with colorful and humorous anecdotes. She emphasizes the importance of purpose and culture—two important pillars in establishing best-in-class health promotion programs. Most importantly, she underscores the importance of measurement and evaluation—not just as a nice-to-have, but as a critical element for the sustainability of initiatives in the long term. 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.

University of Michigan; Founder Kumanu, Inc.

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.

President, Organizational Wellness & Learning Systems (OWLS); Author, Well-Being Champions: A Competency-Based Guidebook

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. Harrington’s title Building Health-Promoting Organizations: A Practical Model for Making It Happen is almost accurate. I would start with How to Systematically Build Health-Promoting Organizations because the 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 the Harrington Ring Model (Why, Who, What, How, and When) shows you exactly how to do it. Rotate the Rings!

Founder, Analytic-Translator.com

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.

Founder, Built Well Consulting / Chief Well-being Officer, Emory University

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.

CEO & Founder, Motion Infusion; Author, Workplace Wellness That Works

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!

CEO, Wisdom Works Group, Inc.

Strong leadership relies on the scaffolding of clarity and compassion. Dr. Harrington’s model provides exactly that—giving leaders a framework to transition from good intentions to systemic culture change. It is a valuable contribution to the fields of leadership and well-being.

Co-lead of a large-scale federal Chief Well-being Officer program

“Wow — Dr. Harrington’s book is amazing! She has taken the elusive concept of employee well-being and created a framework that serves as a roadmap to true cultural change. It provides tools and practical guidance to guide those working in this vitally important space. She has nailed the essence of the issue and provided structure for a true solution. I can’t wait to share it with all the CWOs and those in my network. Bravo!”

AVP Health & Wellbeing, University of Houston

“The pursuit of well-being is necessarily complex. I've had the privilege of learning from and with Dr. Harrington, customizing her model with teams at multiple institutions to successfully visualize that complexity and create actionable strategy. With this book, she has clearly illustrated and contextualized an accessible model for any leader ready to do the same.”

Founder & CEO, Wayhaven

I’ve always admired Suzy’s gift for making complex systems accessible. This book captures that same spirit—clear, practical, and motivating for anyone ready to lead change.

Writer, Speaker, Bridge-Builder

“Big promises don’t shift culture—aligned daily choices do. Suzy Harrington’s model shows exactly how to line up purpose, people, and practice so small acts add up. From upstream prevention to policy, this is how ripples become waves.”

Professor, Community, Systems and Mental Health Nursing, Rush University, Chicago, IL

The current best available evidence demonstrates that effective health promotion strategies need to be holistic and address multiple determinants of health. Dr. Harrington's text helps the reader think broadly about the health of people across all facets of an organization and work to provide interventions and programs that are comprehensive and sustainable.

Morrison Family Associate Vice President for Student Well-being, Kansas State University

Dr. Harrington’s model was critical for our early efforts to build consensus, sharpen priorities, and unify both efforts and resources. This book is timely to help leaders in higher education and other settings translate vision into practical steps.

Associate Vice President for Well-being & Belonging, Old Dominion University

In less than three minutes at a conference, Dr. Harrington’s model captured my attention. As someone deeply invested in leading collaborative change in higher education, I appreciate this book illustrating just how quickly clarity can lead to action. With practical guidance, it brings focus to our efforts, offering a shared model that helps us move from ideas to impact.

Clinical Professor (Retired), University of Houston Tilman J. Fertitta College of Medicine

With this work, Suzy Harrington takes a leap forward in building health-promoting organizations. Achieving organizational well-being is complex, involving multiple factors at multiple levels, which often leads to fragmented approaches and difficulty in measuring achievements. Dr. Harrington is an expert in guiding organizations through this complexity, offering a unique model to implement and integrate the various levels involved in promoting health within organizations.

Assistant Director, Texas A&M University; USPCN Steering Group

My work on the Okanagan Charter has shown how vital it is to move from isolated initiatives to systemic, values-driven approaches. This book offers a practical model for that transformation—helping leaders make well-being a visible, actionable part of organizational life.

Manager, Workforce & Community Health, large oil and gas company

“The ARC guide to Building Health-Promoting Organizations is a timely and practical resource for practitioners navigating the evolving landscape of workplace well-being. With a balance of heart and evidence, Dr. Harrington delivers actionable strategies that empower organizations to embed health promotion into daily operations—fostering environments where both people and performance thrive.”

Corporate Wellness Specialist, Health Fitness Corporation

Whether your career was born in well-being or you had well-being thrust upon you, Suzy Harrington’s Building Health-Promoting Organizations: A Practical Model for Making It Happen will point you to her proven methods of program success. Chock full of real-world examples and best practices, this guide helps you ask and answer the most important wellness strategy questions for your organization.

Director of Wellness and Health Promotion / UH Wellness, University of Houston

As a new Director of Wellness, this book has been an invaluable guide in helping me lead my team in shifting from isolated interventions to a more strategic, systems-level approach. The Harrington Model provided a clear, actionable framework that empowered us to think upstream and begin building a truly health-promoting department.