From Mind Health to High Performance: A New Mandate for TD Leaders

In today’s world of rapid change, skill-building alone isn’t enough. As talent development leaders, we’re often asked to accelerate performance, unlock potential, and scale capability—but rarely are we asked: Do people have the internal capacity to learn and perform? What if the real limit isn’t the content we design or deliver, but the system people operate in—and the state of their mind health?

At a recent ATD Forum Roundtable, I had the chance to participate in one of the most thought-provoking conversations we’ve had this year. The question posed was deceptively simple: What underpins our ability to learn and perform in today’s world? What followed was a data-rich discussion, led by Rahul Varma—former CHRO of Accenture’s Technology division and now co-founder and CEO of Samuh, a performance science company that helps organizations embed practices that support learning, performance, and well-being.

Measuring What Truly Matters: Mind Health

Rahul opened the roundtable by sharing a key insight: before we can solve for learning outcomes, we need to understand what makes learning possible in the first place. In learning circles, we often focus on the “what” and “how” (what skills to build, what modalities to use) without stopping to ask “why.” Why does learning matter? Because it fuels people’s ability to perform at higher levels. But what happens when that foundational capacity to learn begins to decline?

Rahul introduced us to the Mind Health Quotient (MHQ), a scientifically validated tool developed by Sapien Labs, a nonprofit organization specializing in neuroscience research. MHQ assesses cognitive, emotional, physical, and social functioning across six dimensions. It provides a compelling new lens for organizations to understand how effectively their people are performing, beyond engagement scores or absenteeism rates. This index evaluates mind health across six critical dimensions:

• Cognition – Our ability to think, learn, and make decisions.

• Mind-Body Connection – How physical health influences mental focus and energy.

• Mood and Outlook – Our emotional tone, optimism, and hopefulness.

• Drive and Motivation – The fuel behind persistence and goal pursuit.

• Adaptability and Resilience – How we handle change and bounce back.

• Social Self – Our capacity for connection, collaboration, and belonging.

The MHQ data, drawn from more than two million participants worldwide, reveals a sobering trend: global mind health has steadily declined since the pandemic, with no meaningful signs of recovery. Among the six measured dimensions, the most significant and consistent drop has been in the social self, our ability to build relationships and feel a sense of belonging. This deterioration has serious consequences for collaboration, trust, and team effectiveness.

Equally troubling is the downward trend in cognitive functioning. The MHQ data reveals that scores in attention span, working memory, decision making, and creativity have plummeted, especially among the younger generation. Individuals aged 18–24 are demonstrating cognitive functioning levels that are three to five times lower than those in their 60s. These are the very employees entering and shaping the future of work, yet they’re doing so with significantly reduced capacity to learn, adapt, and engage. And if learning enables performance, then this eroded capacity becomes a serious business risk. MHQ findings show a direct correlation between mind health scores and performance. Every 10-point decline in MHQ is associated with a 2–4 percent decrease in productivity. For Fortune 500 companies, this could mean millions lost annually due to diminished mind health. Yet, we rarely measure it, let alone design learning or organizational practices to improve it.

We can’t meditate, app, or perk our way out of this. The solution must be systemic with consistent rituals.

Three Imperatives for Organizations

Rahul provided a framework for action.

Measure What Matters: If you can’t measure mind health, you can’t manage it. The MHQ tool, adapted for organizational use, provides leaders with visibility into how their staff are performing across key areas like cognition, resilience, and social connection. This offers both individual insights and enterprise-level data that help identify where productivity is being lost and how to recover it.

Focus on the Environment: Based on Samuh and Sapien Labs’ research, they’ve identified 12 environmental factors—each of which organizations can influence—that affect individual well-being and collective performance. These aren’t just theoretical ideas; they are actionable levers that can be prioritized, measured, and integrated into how we design systems, processes, and culture. According to Sapien Labs’ research, strategically improving the work environment can raise MHQ by 30–40 points and increase performance by up to 15 percent. The most effective? Relationships. In fact, workplace relationships have a 45 percent greater influence on performance than workload or flexibility. Organizations need to look beyond benefits and perks and assess how systems (like onboarding or performance management) support or drain human functioning.

Ritualize High Performance in Teams: Sustainable performance doesn’t come from one-off efforts. It is built through consistent, meaningful rituals embedded in the rhythms of team life, from the welcome of new members to the review of goals, the provision of feedback, and the management of transitions. Rahul emphasized that teams, not individuals, are the most powerful unit of change. By ritualizing these everyday moments, organizations can reinforce their values, foster a sense of belonging, and enhance their learning capacity.

What It Means for Talent Development Leaders

This roundtable wasn’t just insightful; it was a call to action. MHQ’s data raised critical questions about how we design for learning and performance amid declining human capacity. The discussion sparked thoughtful dialogue among Forum members, including one who noted how even the best coaching efforts can fall short when the larger team environment isn’t aligned—a reminder that systems often determine individual success.

Learning and performance are deeply connected, and the systems around them shape both. As talent development leaders, we have a role in shifting those systems: measuring what matters, strengthening team environments, and embedding rituals that build connection, clarity, and capacity for the teams we work with.