JOOL Health Is Now Kumanu: The Purpose Company

ANN ARBOR, MI, March 7, 2019 — JOOL Health was launched in 2015 by purpose scientist and behavior change technology pioneer, Vic Strecher, PhD, to further his audacious goal of helping a billion people find greater purpose in life. His selected route: employers and other organizations navigating the growing demand for purpose in life and meaning at work. Today, JOOL Health relaunched as Kumanu, signifying the next phase in the company’s development and its strategic intent to help thousands of organizations globally ground their corporate, people, and wellbeing strategies in an authentic, people-centered purpose.

“Purpose isn’t just a feel-good topic, it’s a core business strategy,” said Dr. Strecher. “You read about it increasingly in the business press. Purposeful organizations outperform their peers financially, and in employee experience metrics. And research shows that organizations that help employees self-affirm and align with their purposeful best selves do a much better job retaining talent,” added Strecher.

“Vic Strecher’s work with our company has provided our leaders and associates alike with a firmer understanding around the importance and value of being purpose-driven,” said Jeff Brown, chief executive officer of Ally Financial. “By tuning our organization to think in these broader terms, we’re better equipped to deliver for our customers, to stand apart from the competition, and make Ally a place where people want to work.”

When it comes to invoking an authentic purpose, organizations “discover it through empathy—by feeling and understanding the deepest common needs of your workforce. That involves asking provocative questions, listening, and reflecting,” according to Robert Quinn of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, co-author of the recent Harvard Business Review article titled Creating a Purpose Driven Organization. “Kumanu’s approach uniquely does just that,” noted Quinn.

Kumanu’s highly scalable purpose activation platform, called PurposeCloud, comprises a mobile app for individuals, a web-based analytics dashboard for organizations, and an AI-driven Insights Engine that connects and contextualizes them. The mobile app transcends traditional wellbeing and mindfulness apps by harnessing each person’s intrinsic motivation to translate purpose into action. The analytics dashboard delivers meaningful metrics in real-time, including a PurposeGraph, a social graph illustrating the authentic center-of-gravity for an organization with respect to purposeful aspirations. Kumanu also provides an array of launch, integration, and sustainability services to help organizations better fuse their corporate, people, and wellbeing strategies around a shared purpose.

“I often say that if purpose were a pill, it would be a blockbuster,” said Strecher. “The impact we see it having on people’s lives and organizations every day proves that the purpose movement isn’t just vapor. It’s bedrock.”

Recent research suggests Strecher is right. A strong sense of purpose is linked to longevity, faster recovery from and lower risk of illness, less relapse after substance abuse treatment, and greater receptivity to diversity and resilience to change. Breakthrough brain research using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) completed by Strecher and colleagues shows that purpose has a strong, independent effect on behavioral outcomes—exactly the kind sought after, but often not consistently achieved, by traditional wellness and wellbeing programs.

“By leveraging this strong source of intrinsic motivation, or purpose, organizations can become less heavily dependent on budget-sapping financial incentives, which have been shown to have questionable value in producing lasting behavior change,” added Strecher.

Kumanu’s latest research and developments will be showcased in keynote addresses by Dr. Strecher and company exhibits this spring at the Human Resource Executive’s Health and Benefits Leadership Conference on April 24-26 in Las Vegas, NV, at the Silicon Valley Employers Forum’s Bay Area Global Benefit Conference on May 1 in San Jose, CA, and at the Center for Positive Organization’s Positive Business Conference on May 9 and 10 in Ann Arbor, MI.

About Kumanu

Kumanu builds stronger organizations and bigger lives by creating better alignment with purpose. Organizations use Kumanu’s PurposeCloud platform as a transformational and integrative element in their corporate, people, and wellbeing strategies. Purposeful by Kumanu, a brand new kind of mobile app, fuses the latest purpose and behavior science with machine learning and digital life coaching to make it easier for individuals to take more purposeful actions each day, producing deeper engagement and more enduring behavior change. The result: healthier, more purposeful organizations that activate talent and produce better results. 

PurposeCloud, PurposeGraph, and Purposeful by Kumanu are trademarks of Kumanu, Inc.