Interplay is a decision intelligence platform designed to help leaders make better-informed, more defensible decisions in environments where outcomes unfold over time and human consequences matter.

Interplay does not claim to invent the science of human flourishing, nor does it automate moral judgment. Instead, it draws upon established research, integrates insights across disciplines, and translates them into tools leaders can use when navigating real-world complexity.

This page outlines the research foundations, methodological principles, and ethical commitments that inform Interplay and the Growth Index™.

Interplay is grounded in the understanding that human flourishing is multidimensional, interdependent, and context-sensitive.

Across public health, psychology, education, philosophy, and social science, there is broad agreement that well-being cannot be reduced to a single outcome such as happiness, income, or performance. Instead, flourishing reflects multiple domains that interact over time, particularly for young people whose development is ongoing.

Interplay draws on scholarship identifying core domains of flourishing, including:

• Happiness and life satisfaction

• Mental and physical health

• Meaning and purpose

• Character and virtue

• Close social relationships

• Financial and material stability (as a sustaining condition)

A central implication of this work is that tradeoffs are unavoidable. Improvements in one domain may undermine another if decisions are made without holistic visibility. Interplay is designed specifically to surface these tensions so leaders can navigate them responsibly.

Interplay’s approach to measurement is aligned with validated, domain-based well-being measures developed for population-level assessment.

Rather than collapsing impact into a single score or ranking, Interplay preserves domain-level visibility, allowing leaders to see:

• Where flourishing is strong

• Where it is uneven

• Where it may be fragile or at risk

This approach reflects several core principles:

• Not everything that matters can be measured precisely

• Measurement should inform judgment, not replace it

• Data should illuminate patterns, not dictate values

Accordingly, Interplay avoids predictive claims about individual outcomes, automated decision-making, or normative rankings that obscure lived experience.

Measurement is treated as a starting point for inquiry, not an endpoint.

At the center of Interplay is the Growth Index™ score (patent pending)—a system-level indicator of how well an organization or ecosystem is positioned to create meaningful, durable impact for youth.

The Growth Index does not measure program activity alone. It evaluates whether foundational conditions are in place for youth-serving efforts to succeed over time.

These conditions reflect whether systems are structurally prepared to support young people—not simply whether services are offered.

The Conditions the Growth Index Evaluates

The Growth Index assesses how effectively organizations support youth across four interrelated conditions:

• Access — the reliability and reach of pathways to support and opportunity

• Trust — the extent to which relationships, culture, and systems are experienced as credible and safe

• Guidance — the consistency and quality of direction, mentorship, and developmental support

• Care — the degree to which well-being, dignity, and whole-person needs are meaningfully supported

These conditions are evaluated in relationship to one another, recognizing that weaknesses in one area can limit success in others.

The methodology, weighting, and dynamic modeling underlying the Growth Index are proprietary and patent pending.

Interplay is designed for systems where:

• Human development is ongoing

• Outcomes emerge over long time horizons

• Decisions shape lives well beyond the moment they are made

This includes youth-serving organizations, education systems, philanthropic initiatives, and public institutions.

Interplay is informed by applied research demonstrating that long-term youth outcomes are strongly shaped by:

• The quality of relationships and trust

• Experiences of belonging and safety

• Consistent guidance and mentorship

• Opportunities for meaning and contribution

• Stability and predictability over time

This research also shows that well-intended investments can fail when underlying conditions are weak, misaligned, or ignored. Interplay exists to help leaders see these risks earlier.

Interplay is informed by research traditions focused on complex problem solving and polarity thinking—the recognition that many persistent challenges cannot be solved once and for all, but must be continuously managed.

In youth-serving systems, leaders frequently navigate tensions such as:

• Scale vs. depth

• Accountability vs. learning

• Efficiency vs. care

• Innovation vs. stability

Interplay does not eliminate these tensions. It makes them visible and discussable, supporting more thoughtful, adaptive decision-making over time.

Interplay is designed for leaders who accept responsibility for the consequences of their decisions.

Accordingly:

• Interpretation remains with human decision-makers

• Contextual knowledge is essential to use

• Stakeholder perspectives matter in making sense of results

• Transparency is prioritized over technical opacity

Interplay supports ethical use by strengthening judgment, not bypassing it.

Interplay draws upon a broad body of peer-reviewed and applied research across public health, psychology, education, organizational science, and leadership studies.

In particular, Interplay is informed by scholarship on multidimensional human flourishing, including the work of Tyler J. VanderWeele and colleagues associated with the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University, whose research has contributed to widely used frameworks and measures of flourishing.

Interplay also draws from international research on student and youth well-being, leadership and belonging, group decision-making, and collective intelligence, as well as foundational work in complex problem solving and polarity thinking.

References are provided for attribution and transparency. Their inclusion does not imply endorsement, affiliation, or authorship by the cited scholars or institutions.

Interplay’s contribution is not new science—it is new integration.

Interplay:

• Connects domains typically analyzed in isolation

• Translates research into tools leaders can actually use

• Operates at the level where values, tradeoffs, and power intersect

• Supports decisions that are defensible over time

It exists to help leaders see more clearly—before choices become difficult to reverse.

Interplay is built on a simple but demanding premise:

Better decisions require better seeing.

This platform exists to support leaders who want their decisions to strengthen young people, institutions, and communities—not just in the moment, but over time.