Troy W. Norris built his career at the crossroads of science, strategy, and human potential. With degrees from Harvard in biochemistry and business, he launched his professional path as a cancer researcher at Dana-Farber. From there, he shifted into pharmaceutical development and then biopharma consulting, helping life sciences companies and startups translate breakthroughs in genomics and digital health into real-world solutions. At McKinsey and L.E.K. Consulting, he co-led each firms’ personalized medicine initiative. His co-authored work on the economics of tailored medicines remains widely cited. And he has helped multiple new ventures develop digital solutions for psychiatric conditions. Together, these dual passions and thought-leadership would lead him to WellBalance.
Despite his success, Norris found himself burned out and disconnected, ultimately leading to crisis. Losing a high profile job, and then his marriage, marked a turning point and inspired a new mission. Applying his scientific training to his own life, he began exploring the research behind resilience, happiness, and personal transformation. The result was a new framework for living well, built from his lived experience and proven by science.
The WellBalance Model: Rooted in Science, Designed for Life
What began as a personal experiment evolved into a validated system. The WellBalance Model measures how people experience life across four domains of wellbeing – relationships, meaningful contributions, and physical and mental self-care – and feelings of wellbeing these create. The model identifies each individual’s unique opportunities to close the gaps between where they are and where they want to be. This experiential, evidence-based approach goes beyond traditional self-help or abstract wellness scores. It delivers personalized, actionable interventions tailored to each person’s unique life situation, helping them find their own path to build a flourishing life.One of Norris’s key research findings is especially relevant to both individuals and organizations. Life and work situations have a greater impact on well-being than demographic factors like age, gender, or income. Whether someone is employed or unemployed, partnered or single, raising children or caring for aging parents, these roles shape how well they feel throughout our lives.
Bringing WellBalance to the Workplace
For business leaders, this insight is crucial. Employee engagement, retention, and performance are all deeply tied to well-being. Yet many corporate wellness initiatives offer generic solutions that don’t take a whole-person, whole-life approach, and overlook each employee’s individual situation. That is where WellBalance can make a measurable difference.
By using the WellBalance Assessment to understand the real-life circumstances employees face, HR teams and leadership can design targeted strategies that support people in meaningful ways. Whether through leadership training, tailored mental health resources, flexible scheduling, or purpose-driven development opportunities, more targeted interventions can significantly improve morale and motivation while reducing the risk of burn-out.
Employees taking the WellBalance Assessment also receive a personalized wellbeing positivity plan and access to WellBalance’s library of wellbeing resources that enable them to take control of their own wellbeing, both within and beyond the workplace, improving their own and collective wellbeing across the organization.
The potential return on investment is compelling. Studies continue to show that companies with healthy employees who feel their lives and jobs matter enjoy lower turnover – of both employees and customers – better productivity, and increased profitability and growth. Supporting employees as whole people is not only the right thing to do. It is also a strategic advantage that drives sharehold value.
Leading a New Conversation on Wellbeing at Work
Norris continues to advance the science of well-being, in life and at work, and now speaks and writes regularly on the importance of personalizing well-being interventions. His upcoming book, The WellBalance Way, will offer practical insights for individuals and leaders alike. Meanwhile, a growing number of organizations are exploring how to incorporate the WellBalance method into their leadership coaching programs and HR frameworks.
Through partnerships, workshops, and tailored offerings, Norris envisions WellBalance as a tool for both personal growth and reshaping organizational performance.
For those looking to learn more, the WellBalance blog shares wellbeing science and stories and WellBalance’s BloomBook journals are valuable resources to learn and apply wellbeing principles to your own life. Or take the WellBalance Assessment and discover your own personal wellbeing profile with personalized recommendations for creating a more flourishing life for yourself.
In a world where work and life intersect more than ever, WellBalance offers timely, essential personalized solutions. The WellBalance method provides a better way to understand what makes us well and how to build lives and workplaces where people truly flourish.
Written in partnership with Tom White
