From Linkedin Pulse •

In 2015 I contributed to the “Mindful Nation UK” report, a UK government policy recommendation document released in October 2015 in the UK Parliament.

The Mindful Nation UK report highlighted the lack of publicly available information about implementing best-practice mindfulness training in the workplace. In response the Mindfulness Initiative has published ‘Building the Case for Mindfulness in the Workplace’.

The aim of the document, which includes contributions from 30 workplace representatives, mindfulness experts and researchers, is to support organisations at all stages of the mindfulness journey – from those seeking to pilot mindfulness and assess the potential benefits, to those with well-established programmes who are ready to roll out mindfulness globally and embed a mindful approach into their culture.

I was pleased to serve as an expert advisor to the Mindfulness Initiative, a UK think tank, and helped to author and edit this new publication.

The Document was formally launched at the Offices of EY in Canary Wharf London. Around 180 senior managers, researchers and mindfulness specialists attended the launch. The launch event included Keynotes from Baron Stone of Blackheath*, former Managing Director of M&S, Labour member of the House of Lords and Fleur Bothwick OBE, Director of Diversity and Inclusive Leadership EMEIA, EY. Document summary and findings were presented by Jamie Bristow, Director of The Mindfulness Initiative, and Emma Wardropper, and, Leonie Schell, Manager, People Advisory Services and EY Mindfulness Network Chair.

I had the pleasure of leading a panel discussion on The case for and future of mindfulness in the workplace. My panelists included:

• Karen Bowes – Vice President International HR and Sustainability, Capital One
• Chris Tamdjidi – Managing Director Kalapa Academy
• Dr Jutta Tobias -Senior Lecturer Cranfield University School of Management
• Katy Owen – Cabinet Office – lead on the civil service working group
• Carmel Moore – Executive Director, People Advisory Services EY
• Debbie Jeremiah – Mindful Manager Leaders programme, General Electric

Questions answered by the panel included:

• What is ‘Organisational mindfulness’? How can it be developed?
• How can mindfulness training can help to improve resilience and well-being at work?
• How can mindfulness training can help to improve relationships at work?
• How can mindfulness training help to improve productivity?
• How to gain organisational buy in?
• Steps to take when planning the introduction of mindfulness into a company?
• How to evaluate programmes and measure Return on Investment (ROI)?
• When introducing mindfulness: what has worked or did not work?

‘Building the Case for Mindfulness in the Workplace’. was published online on the 28/10/16. It includes mindfulness at work case studies and guidance from organisations including EY, GE, GSK, HSBC and Jaguar Land Rover.

If you are unsure of how to get management buy in for mindfulness programmes in organisational settings, in Appendix B you will find an example of a Business Case for Mindfulness, including return on investment calculations.

If you’d like to read more, use this link to download your free copy of the document

* Lord Stone featured in an 8 page mindful leadership case study – Chapter 4 – Mindful Leadership for Dummies, published in July 2016.

As a leader, to become more aware of our own participation in our relationships with our team, both as a whole and also with each individual member, requires that we begin to notice the ‘position from’ or manner in which we listen – i.e. do we listen passively, actively, blankly, judgmentally, as a potential helper, or in some other way? When listening to anyone (whether leading them or not), if we can begin to notice our own private experience and inner sensations during listening, then we can begin to feel more capable and balanced in how we participate in the relationship and its needs – this helps to make our personal and professional relationships vehicles for increased efficiency and productivity. Mindfulness helps us create these new conditions and behaviors, both internally and within our greater workplace culture.

By putting a portion of one’s attention on the speaker and a portion on our own internal reactions to what is being said, it then becomes possible to discover our habitual reactions: are we consistently in a rush to help, or do we drift in our interest, or do we space out completely? These previously unconscious reactions have important ramifications for the quality and effectiveness of our interactions, and mindfulness or undistracted attentiveness, greatly improves our ability to send and receive important information. As we bring our attention to ‘what it is that we actually do’ internally, then we can begin the process of deliberately adjusting how we listen – as a byproduct of our increased attentiveness, we will naturally create and surround ourselves with more capable employees, we will embed increased effectiveness as our culture’s norm, and we will realize countless small and large improvements in overall productivity.

Knowing and practicing the capacity to deliberately and fully direct our attention is immensely empowering and quickly builds an individual’s and/or team’s confidence. Teams that can truly notice what works and what does not work in their micro-interactions, in turn have an increased responsiveness and sensitivity that makes timely adjustments possible in the event of miscalculations. Mindfulness minimizes oversights and sloppiness during processes involving numerous essential details.

Ironically, the capacity to be more effective in the present moment also creates circumstances for more fully appreciating how best to leverage the present moment for longer-term productivity needs, things like maintaining a key business relationship far into the future.

Mindfulness experientially slows down situations that feel chaotic and allows us a greater opportunity to make better choices when under pressure. Ironically, the capacity to be more effective in the present moment also creates circumstances for more fully appreciating how best to leverage the present moment for longer-term productivity needs, things like maintaining a key business relationship far into the future. When mindfulness is marshalled in this capacity, we may not always yield the highest immediate returns, but the tertiary returns can be enormous – things like continued business, positive word-of-mouth recognition within our market, being more attuned and responsive to how our business is perceived publicly, etc.

Mindfulness also creates the conditions in which we highly value having multiple perspectives when making crucial decisions regarding workplace productivity. Whether or not these new perspectives apply directly to a given issue does not seem entirely necessary, but rather these new perspectives – simply by being new and fresh – help to dislodge old, habitual, and limited ways of thinking. The new perspectives that result from implementing mindfulness help to make space for what is truly needed in any given situation, and sometimes this is simply more spaciousness itself; when a change in direction requires something both new and specific, spaciousness makes room for the best decision to be applied in creative, innovative, and pragmatic ways.

Whether applied directly or indirectly, mindfulness creates the greater likelihood of flexible and creative leaders and employees, and this in turn translates into greater workplace satisfaction, increased results, and improved bottom-line productivity. Mindfulness at its core is an increased responsiveness, responsive in the most effective, appropriate, and productive way possible.

Jonathan Reynolds is Principal at Mindful Life, Mindful Work (www.mindfullifemindfulwork.com)

MORE ABOUT JONATHAN

In today’s world, we need mindful leadership more than ever, but there are still few scientific studies which directly support evidence of the impact of mindfulness training on leadership. Megan Reitz, an Associate Professor of Leadership and Dialogue at Ashridge Executive Education at Hult International Business School, and Michael Chaskalson, one of the pioneers of the application of mindfulness in leadership and in the workplace, examine the path of implementing mindfulness training in company leadership.

From Harvard Business Review :

Mindfulness is the height of fashion in leadership development circles. At a recent conference in the field, we saw a missionary-type fervor among some trainers who claimed that mindfulness could fix every ill in the organizational world. It’s easy to succumb to enthusiastic hyperbole; one HR director we spoke to was characteristically delighted to be introducing a two-hour workshop to her board of directors to help them become more resilient, more focused, and more open to challenge.

But hopes like these are justified more by wishing than by any reliable evidence. There is in fact very little data in relation to the impact of mindfulness training on leadership development. Despite plenty of anecdotal support from leaders who have tried mindfulness, the current enthusiasm for it derives mainly from research conducted in clinical contexts that don’t much resemble modern organizations.

From the perspective of leadership development, there are three urgent questions that need to be answered if the enthusiasm (and the usefulness of mindfulness in a leadership context) isn’t to dissipate.

We need to know:

• Does mindfulness training actually “develop” leadership?
• If it does, how does it do so? What are the mechanisms that make it effective?
• And how do we design interventions that actually work?

As we explained in our previous article, to begin to answer these questions we designed a Mindful Leader program involving fortnightly workshops, three of which were face to face and one of which was a shorter virtual meeting. In all, the research studied 57 senior business leaders in two cohorts. Participants learned why mindfulness might be relevant to their leadership practice, how to practice it, and how to apply their learning to their individual leadership challenges.

Read the full article here

In 1975, I developed my first Corporate Based Mindful Stress Management program. My clients were health care providers at Stanford, Palo Alto Medical Foundation and ultimately every San Francisco based health center staff. Since then I have held senior roles in Learning and Development, Human Resources and Organization Effectiveness designing programs for small, medium and large companies.

What I learned then, and would assert is relevant now, is that any program aimed at improving employee and leader competence in self-awareness/emotional intelligence and social skills must be thoroughly aligned and grounded in organizational goals. Motivations to help staff adapt better to change and stress are commendable but in the long run they are a waste of money if not embedded within an overall strategy that is designed as a change initiative.

If a company trains individuals to be more self-aware, then they are also inviting them to pay attention to the ways in which the environment is, or is not, conducive to the tools and skills they are learning.

We are social beings, we cope with and adapt via cultural cues, norms and rewards. If a company trains individuals to be more self-aware, then they are also inviting them to pay attention to the ways in which the environment is, or is not, conducive to the tools and skills they are learning. Case in point: a coaching client described to me going to a daylong workshop on mindfulness then being accosted and ranted at by their manager “for wasting company time and making everyone have to do double work since they were lounging around at a class.”

If you are a champion for bringing mindfulness in to your firm or team, here are guidelines that will increase impact, make the investment sustainable and give you objective evaluation data to support the ROI.

Guidelines for an Effective Company-wide Change Initiative

1. Develop a clear mandate for the impact that Mindfulness has on individuals, teams and organizations by researching and reporting on the outcome studies that are easily found and quoted. There are many studies from sound academic research institutions to use in support of the program.
2. Include a third-party researcher on the design team to gather and report on objective outcomes that are meaningful to your company.
3. Design with the end in mind. Don’t do a mindfulness program because it is a good idea or it is humane or as a wellness initiative, unless any of these three are integrated completely into a larger purpose that is thought of as an organizational change program.
4. Insure that the impact you are designing for is tied directly to important targets and goals of the company. For example, use the mindfulness programs to address the reliability of project team results. There are numerous studies demonstrating that increases in mindfulness across an entire team can improve the reliability of commitments.
5. Use Kotter’s 8 step change guidelines to introduce and manage the intention and goals of the program.
6. Embed the Mindfulness program in the strategy and vision of the company. Think of your intent as being long term, big picture and highly impactful versus a wellness program that a few people do during their lunch break.

Mindful leaders are the type of leader that Gallup and others describe as caring, developmental and communicative. Mindfulness is proving to have a large impact on employee engagement when programs are designed as a centerpiece of the business strategy.

More about Elad

I first learned about mindfulness when I was nine years old back in the early 60s when my grandmother would say a Christian prayer and blessing before family holiday meals, which included the phrase “…and make us ever mindful of the needs of others.” Wanting to know what that meant, I began my exploration of what mindfulness is all about, and how one could attempt to become “ever mindful.” Like most, I quickly learned that the two thousand+ year old practice of mindfulness was an integral part of the Buddha’s teachings; yet it is also expressed and practiced in some form in many faiths and philosophies around the world.

In both my professional work and my personal meditation practice, I’d observed over the years that mindfulness practice itself is exceptionally transformative.

The global existence of diverse mindful awareness skill building practices I’d discovered as a child framed my journey along the path of learning and exploration, and I also studied several other forms of meditation and self-awareness tools and teachings that are complimentary with what I learned from Buddhist teachings. By the time I read Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness when it was first published in the early nineties, I was both a certified massage therapist and clinical hypnotherapist working with the scientifically acknowledged mind-body relationship. I took an early course in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) in San Francisco, and found immense benefit in the application of Kabat-Zinn’s work with my clients.

I was a self-described “Heinz 57/spiritual mutt” by then. Having found deep value and meaning in the various ancient and contemporary teachings I’d explored during the prior thirty-odd years, as much as I deeply revere Buddhist philosophy and have adopted many practices from it, I did not feel alignment with any one path toward higher conscious awareness was right for me. In both my professional work and my personal meditation practice, I’d observed over the years that mindfulness practice itself is exceptionally transformative. I quietly worked with individual clients and small groups, combining mindfulness and the various mind-body awareness building tools I’d learned, way before the internet connected people who were also incorporating secular mindfulness practices in both alternative health care as well as part of the human potential/growth movement that was blossoming all around the planet.

Right after that, online turf wars began to arise, wherein Buddhist practitioners were fighting with secular practitioners. I was verbally attacked by Buddhists in the new frontier of internet forums and discussion boards, who were worried that “non-Buddhist people like me” would destroy the purity of mindfulness itself.

Fast forward to 2009. I was writing a monthly “Living Mindfully” column for a metaphysical publication based in Atlanta, and the secular version of mindfulness that Kabat-Zinn had been promoting through MBSR, and its adoption in scientific research was really beginning to explode. I wrote a column titled “Mindfulness-Based Trainings: Caveat Emptor” (reprinted here) about what I foresaw could happen if what I termed “mindfulness lite” became the “new trend.” Right after that, online turf wars began to arise, wherein Buddhist practitioners were fighting with secular practitioners. I was verbally attacked by Buddhists in the new frontier of internet forums and discussion boards, who were worried that “non-Buddhist people like me” would destroy the purity of mindfulness itself. Yet as the saying goes, there was no putting the horse back into the barn. 2014 was termed the “year of mindfulness” by JWT Worldwide, one of the world’s largest marketing communications brands, and other teachers had formed their own versions of secular mindfulness trainings, bringing it into the workplace to not only help reduce stress (like MBSR was originally intended to do), but also to improve employee attention, performance and productivity, and nurture more consciously mindful leadership.

This unfortunately began to create an atmosphere of competition wherein some companies offering mindfulness trainings started to fiercely (and legally) attempt to protect their “brand” – and other long-time teachers were arguing that “their” way is the only authentic way to teach mindfulness as the Buddha brought it into the world – certainly an unintended consequence of mindfulness becoming adopted into mainstream, Western capitalistic culture. Concern over “sullying” the purity of the ancient traditions of mindfulness through Westernized secularization where teaching about universal ethics have often been stripped, and which “official” teacher certifications are professionally acceptable (and where) is understandable. So is the fact there are opportunists who, usually with little training, put themselves forth as mindfulness “experts” who are often just adding another income stream to their offerings – yet don’t have the years of practice under their belt that both humbles and empowers them to responsibly teach this work to others. An understandable backlash has arisen in response to teachers who are unskilled in attending to the “stuff” that can come up from meditation practice.

However, another troublesome issue of concern is the growing division, posturing and competitiveness that is taking place between teachers of the various mindfulness trainings, now that there is money to be made by teaching mindfulness in the professional realm – and the fact that larger mindfulness training companies simply have more marketing dollars than smaller ones do.

My fellow Partners at The Mindful Globe are all passionate and reverent teachers of mindfulness – and each of us celebrates and honors our diversity as teachers wherein we see that the sum of our parts creates an overflowing wholeness of learning opportunities.

Fortunately, in their dedicated service to mindfulness itself, many mindfulness teachers from all backgrounds and formats are seeing that fear-based separation, elitism, in-fighting and grasping can turn this beautiful gift that no one can own into an ego-filled Pandora’s box that could turn off countless people who can benefit from this work. My fellow Partners at The Mindful Globe are all passionate and reverent teachers of mindfulness – and each of us celebrates and honors our diversity as teachers wherein we see that the sum of our parts creates an overflowing wholeness of learning opportunities. Some are Buddhists, and some are not; some use well-known approaches – and some don’t – and we are seeing that collaboration and support is what our service to mindfulness itself requires. We affirm that there is no one perfect training – or teacher for that matter – to learn mindfulness from. In fact, providing students and clients with complimentary and supportive perspectives acknowledges that we’ve all have had many teachers along the way ourselves.

One cannot expect that mindfulness practice itself would not evolve from its ancient roots. It is enhanced by the addition of practices like emotional intelligence and guided visualization – neither of which is a mindfulness practice itself – yet both can help to increase mindful awareness. The ability to clinically demonstrate the effectiveness of mindfulness practices upon both our personal wellness and our work life is a boon, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama is to be commended for bringing in the validation of scientific studies – but lets not invalidate anecdotal evidence in the process simply because science “sells” better. And at the same time, in honoring the wholeness of human beings in the workplace – it is important to also honor the wholeness of mindfulness too, and not over focus on one area where mindfulness practices can measurably benefit employees, yet neglect other, less quantifiable ones just so we can more easily promise a replicable ROI. When we try to put mindfulness in a rigid box and follow a tight script and format, we cannot be purely in the moment with the student(s) or client(s) in front of us. After all, sometimes we may need to color outside the lines.

As a mindfulness educator and/or coach in any arena of application, own your own mind and trust the wisdom of your own heart. No teacher of mindfulness in any form must ever forget how mindfulness has enriched his or her life, or the moment you knew you wanted to serve others with it as well. Listen to, learn from, and support the diversity of approaches to mindfulness education available, and always always always return to beginner’s mind as you teach what gave so much to your own life.

Even if you may have conscious and unconscious biases around the forms of mindfulness education available, I invite every teacher to choose to focus upon our collective honorable intentions, and the beauty and power of diversity and unity that we can support in one another. United we stand, and divided – well, everyone loses – and especially mindfulness itself. If you view other teachers/trainings as a threat to yours, check to see if that is your ego speaking, and reflect upon if you may be coming from a scarcity or elitist mindset. Know the pie is big enough for an infinite number of slices, and trust that any potential student or client will connect with the teachers/trainings that resonate best with him or her in any given point along their own journey of mindfulness – and it may or may not include yours. Let go of any sense of “ownership” that finds you attached to any particular format of teaching the core principles of mindfulness that basically everyone teaches.

Excerpted from the aforementioned “Living Mindfully” column I wrote back in 2009:

Doing the work of radical self-inquiry to unveil the shadow qualities and bugs in their internal operating system that hold them back from growing, and committing themselves with gratitude and humility to actualize transparency between what they profess to believe, the ideals they align with personally and professionally, and how they treat others in every moment of every day as a form of egoless service to humanity is the bodhisattva/spiritual warrior way. It is vital to recognize that all who are genuinely moved to teach this work consider it a calling, complete with every speck of responsibility to whom they share their knowledge, as their reverence for their fellow human beings and mindfulness itself is so immense they are more than “qualified.” Let this be your main criteria for choosing someone to assist you along the way, not merely their academic titles, their number of social media followers, whether or not they are a New York Times best-selling “mindfulness celebrity” author, the big corporate clients they list, nor the “brand name” (or none at all!) of the mindfulness courses they teach.

Take a moment each day to extend gratitude to all the dedicated teachers and students who are midwives in the birth of growing states of more mindful, conscious awareness within our fellow human beings, and the light that each one brings to the world to help to “…make us ever mindful of the needs of others.”

© 2009, 2016, Suzanne Matthiessen/holisticmindfulness.org

MORE ABOUT SUZANNE

From Linkedin Pulse •

In December 2015 I chaired the Mind and Matter conference, a conference focussing on the impacts of mindfulness at work.  Over 30 speakers, mostly from well-known organisations, took to the stage to share their experiences of mindfulness in the workplace.

Is mindfulness simply an umbrella term?

Nisha Vas published an excellent post conference summary, in which she commented “What is mindfulness?” It may seem like an odd question to ask after attending a conference on mindfulness, but it is an important one. Within the audience there were many different ideas on what mindfulness is and how it should be implemented.

”It is apparent that there is no strict definition of mindfulness; instead, it is an umbrella term constituting an array of concepts.”

Whilst I understand exactly how Nisha came to this conclusion, I would argue that mindfulness is not, and should not become simply an umbrella term.

Organisational uptake of mindfulness is increasing, but there is still mass confusion about what mindfulness is, and is not.

Nisha raises an important issue. There is still much confusion out there about what mindfulness is and is not. It’s no great surprise when you look at the publicity surrounding publications like ‘The Mindfulness Colouring Book’ and ‘The Ladybird Book of Mindfulness’, or the volume of businesses jumping on the mindfulness bandwagon. Some coaches, with little or no mindfulness training or experience now offer ‘Mindful Coaching’.  Other companies are re-branding all sorts of eastern practices as ‘mindfulness’.

Myth vs reality

One parable in the Ladybird book encapsulates two common misconceptions about mindfulness. Firstly, mindfulness training from a workplace perspective does not involve hours of ‘staring’ at something. US Marines programmes, CBMT programmes and WorkplaceMT programmes all involve short practice periods (typically 3 minutes to 15 minutes duration). Secondly it’s not about escaping things you find difficult, it’s about learning to deal better with the challenges that life throws at you – its certainly not about escaping or avoiding them!

You don’t need to be walking barefoot to practice mindfulness.  No special equipment is needed to teach mindfulness in a typical work setting.   It’s usually taught in a standard meeting room, with chairs, sometimes tables, with attendee wearing everyday work clothing, and not a yoga mat in sight! No one has ever sat on the floor, legs folded in Lotus position, in any course I have ever taught.  The GPs, Council workers, teachers, bankers and insurers I have taught tell me that they manage to squeeze in a little mindfulness practice whilst sitting at their desk between appointments, or walking from A to B.

Mindfulness: a simple definition

If mindfulness is to produce desirable work outcomes it’s absolutely essential that organisations have a clear understanding of what mindfulness is and is not. Setting aside eastern definitions of mindfulness and medical and therapeutic definitions of mindfulness, in simple terms, “mindfulness is the ability to pause and observe what’s going on without getting sucked into reactive cycles and knee jerk reactions.”

By tuning into, and increasing your awareness of the interplay between thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations you are better able to maintain an optimum mind state, enabling you to be more productive and effective at work.

What’s the evidence for mindfulness at work?

There are now over 70 workplace specific studies published on the impact of mindfulness at work. (100’s if you also include ACT research). The Journal of Management has recently published a meta-analysis of the impact of mindfulness on the work, authored by a number of well-respected researchers in the field (Contemplating Mindfulness at Work: An Integrative Review). The authors conclude that current evidence links practicing mindfulness with improved performance, relationships at work, and well-being.

• Mindfulness can improve performance – current evidence demonstrates a link between practicing mindfulness and improved job and task performance. It also links mindfulness to improved citizenship behaviour and safety at work.
• Mindfulness can improve working relationships – current evidence demonstrates a link between practicing mindfulness and improved communication and relationship quality. It can assist with conflict management, improve leadership and teamwork. It can also increase empathy and compassion.
• Mindfulness can improve well-being – current evidence demonstrates a link between practicing mindfulness and improvements in physical, psychological and behavioural well-being.

Introducing mindfulness to your workplace

As Nisha concluded in her article “Mindfulness works! It is an effective strategy to achieve states of mind known to improve workplace performance”.

If businesses are serious about changing the way they work, and genuinely want happier, more resilient, more productive employees, it’s essential to become informed buyers. Just because someone is calling it ‘mindfulness’ does not mean to say it is the same ‘mindfulness’ that has been the subject of workplace mindfulness research studies. Beware of cowboys and informed about what you are buying.

1: Choose a teacher who has been adequately trained to teach mindfulness and fits your organisational culture:

• The Oxford Mindfulness centre,  Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice at Bangor, Exeter University, The Mindfulness Association, and independent providers such as Enter Mindfulness all offer recognised teacher training pathways to teach mindfulness generically or to a clinical population. Training is normally split into level 1 (equipping trainee teachers to start teaching mindfulness) and level 2 (competence assessed having gained experience of teaching)
• The Mindfulness Exchange offer WorkplaceMT teacher training specifically developed for those who intend to teach in the workplace, following a level 1, level 2 training model.

2: Choose an approach to teaching mindfulness that will suit your organisation.

There are now a number of established approaches to teaching mindfulness.  Here is a brief summary of the key differences and similarities:

• Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) – typically 8 weeks x 2 hours a week with 40 minutes of formal practice required each day. Developed for clinical populations, but can be adapted for use in the workplace
• Mindfulness Based Living Course (MBLC)– typically an 8 week programme similar to the above, but developed for a non-clinical population
• Mindfulness a Guide to finding peace in a frantic world – An MBCT programme adapted for a healthy population. 8 week programme with shortened daily formal practice requirement of around, with around 20 minutes formal practice required each day, build up to longer practice times by the end of the course.
• Corporate Based Mindfulness Training (CBMT) – typically a 10 week programme with a short daily practice requirement
• Workplace Mindfulness training (WorkplaceMT) – typically a 6 week programme with around 20 minutes Formal + informal practice requirement each day.

3: Adapt, by all means, but retain the core elements.

• Change the language by all means
• Experiment with different delivery formats (but bear in mind that this adaptation may make the programme more or less effective – we are still learning what works best from a mindfulness teaching perspective )
• Formal daily practice is important both during and in-between taught sessions

4: Mindfulness may not be the solution

• Mindfulness is not a cure all, and cannot fix toxic working cultures.
• Get the basics right first!

In conclusion, The evidence base for mindfulness at work is growing. Evidence to date suggests that mindfulness training has an impact on cognition, emotion regulation, behaviour and physiology, which impacts on work performance, relationships at work and well-being. Whilst organisational acceptance is increasing, the use of mindfulness as an umbrella term for all things meditation or relaxation based is dangerous and misleading.

Anyone who has ever practiced mindfulness knows that it takes time, effort and perseverence, and at times, it can be anything but relaxing.

If relaxation and improved well-being is the aim, offering staff massages, subsidised gym membership, yoga, generic meditation, tai-chi or qigong may be the solution.

If you want to improve performance, relationships as well as well-being at work, there is a growing evidence base that mindfulness training, delivered appropriately in a workplace setting, has the capability to deliver these outcomes.  Evidence informed programmes such as MBCT, MBSR, CBMT, MBLC, or WorkplaceMT may help you achieve this. The choice is yours.

MORE ABOUT JULIET

When a person grows from a narrow, ego-framed life focused upon “me” into the wider, more self-less embrace of “we,” his or her degree of conscious, mindful awareness expands exponentially. In the ancient Pali language (used to preserve the Buddhist canon of the Theravada Buddhist tradition), the word for heart and mind are the same. Therefore, kindness is the heart-full-ness companion of mindfulness in action, and is not source-dependent like the elusive pursuit of valuing transitory, surface-level happiness can be. Kindness often brings forth the even deeper state of joy, naturally. The experience of joy is a positive outcome of extending kindness toward others without expectations or a desire for reciprocity, and becomes an integrated component of who we are and how we show up in any given situation or encounter. It is sustainable because it arises from a spirit of abundance, not a sense of lack.

Fear-based thinking, acting and behaving by employees, management and leadership contaminates a workplace into a toxic environment. Mindfulness trainings may be brought in for only the above-listed benefits, and can be merely a band-aid slapped over deep and complex foundational cracks.

Teaching mindfulness skills in the workplace environment is often centered around introducing practices that can offer measurable results and a tangible ROI to the organization, such as improved employee performance, focus, and productivity; managing the effects of chronic stress; and improved awareness and self-regulation through the inclusion of emotional intelligence training and simple conflict resolution techniques. All are noble efforts that are having a beneficial impact, moving away from the old status quo of how work gets done.

However, fear-based thinking, acting and behaving by employees, management and leadership contaminates a workplace into a toxic environment. Mindfulness trainings may be brought in for only the above-listed benefits, and can be merely a band-aid slapped over deep and complex foundational cracks. A highly competitive and frequently uncivil culture within an organization (and extended outward) fuels all sorts of unkindness that is often justified as “business, not personal” – even though real live human beings suffer damages on multiple levels that cannot be simply “meditated away”. If a culture of mindful awareness does not become transparently adopted and continuously supported within all levels of an organization, once the trainers have left the building, the long-term transformative capabilities of mindfulness practices are eventually lost if they are not modeled in an inclusive and authentic manner. And if kindness is viewed as a weakness, it will happen even faster.

Those of us who don’t need science to validate the positive influence of kindness in all areas of life (and particularly at work) couldn’t be more thrilled to see what is simply common business sense may indeed someday become common business practice

Being kind in our professional lives makes logical business sense, as just about everyone wants to be treated with respect, honesty, fairness and appreciation. However, if a workplace environment is not consciously created to bring forth honorable and humane relationship behaviors between all stakeholders what Case Western University Professor Dr. Richard Boyatzis teaches about Resonant Leadership in his book and trainings is absolutely true: what makes common sense isn’t always common practice. Although cultivating compassion and empathy is touched upon in almost every basic mindfulness training, teaching about kindness (along with its companions benevolence and goodwill) is worthy of greater emphasis within any trainer’s “mindfulness toolkit”. This is especially true now that there is increasing scientific evidence to back up kindness’ value as not only a trainable skill, but also one that can help to attain the ever-present reality of the business’ financial bottom line, while also contributing to facilitating wholeness within a broken workplace.

Several examples of how the common sense skill of kindness is being given a scientific, academic, medical and organizational “thumbs up”:

• An October 2015 study by Raposa, Laws and Ansell published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science found performing small acts of kindness for others cultivates an improved outlook on life, and helps people cope with stress more effectively. “Our research shows that when we help others we can also help ourselves,” explained study author Emily Ansell from the Yale University School of Medicine. “Stressful days usually lead us to have a worse mood and poorer mental health, but our findings suggest that if we do small things for others, such as holding a door open for someone, we won’t feel as poorly on stressful days.” The study suggests that pro-social behaviors like kindness might someday be a beneficial aspect of treatment for people suffering from chronic stress or depression.

• The “soft skill” of kindness is often passed over in favor of “hard skills” possessed by potential employees, but a study of pro-social skills in kindergarten students published in the American Journal of Public Health (Jones, Greenberg, & Crowley, 2015) demonstrated that skills like kindness can support a more stable and healthier adult experience in all areas of life, regardless of one’s background.

• Participants in a study designed to “establish the effects of acts of kindness and acts of novelty on life satisfaction” published in The Journal of Social Psychology (Buchanan & Bardi, 2010) showed a positive effect from both, concluding that both kind and new acts, performed daily over as little as ten days, can increase life satisfaction.

• Psychologist John Gottman of The Gottman Institute is committed to helping couples build and maintain loving, healthy relationships by implementing data from scientific studies into his counseling practice. His 94% success rate in determining which couples will stay together and which ones will split up is corroborated by independent studies that confirm his assertions that, “Contempt is the number one factor that tears couples apart” while “Kindness, on the other hand, glues couples together” (Smith, 2014).

• A study of socially anxious college undergraduates recently published in the journal Motivation and Emotion demonstrated that engaging in acts of kindness decreases social avoidance goals, that left unaddressed are linked to “…more negative and fewer positive social events, higher reactivity to negative events, loneliness, negative social attitudes, relationship insecurity, social worry, decreased relationship satisfaction, anxious solitary behavior, and lower perceived popularity” (Trew & Alden, 2015).

• Neurosurgeon Dr. James Doty, founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University wrote a recent post for the Huffington Post that discusses the importance of kindness in healing. He wrote, “Hopefully sharing this new science of kindness helps all of us – physicians and patients alike – to see in new ways how and why kindness heals and even more importantly how being kind results in one living a longer – and happier – life” (Doty, 2016). He referred to a number of studies showing that kindness helps “…contribute to less pain from conditions such as fibromyalgia and arthritis, as well as better health for those with chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, or asthma.”

• A 2016 report released by Making Caring Common, (a project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education “that helps educators, parents, and communities raise children who are caring responsible to their communities, and committed to justice”) titled “Turning the Tide: Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good through College Admissions” endorsed by dozens of revered colleges and universities, proposes that the college admission process should be restructured to promote kindness and compassion in light of increasing academic pressure on students, and encourage high school students to focus upon meaningful ethical and intellectual engagement.

Lastly, Daniel Lubetzky, the founder and CEO of KIND (a U.S. company that sells healthy snack foods), agrees that kindness is “transformative” – and it is also an important business skill. In a 2016 interview published in Forbes Magazine, when Lubetzky was asked if he had to constantly explain what the relevance of kindness to business is, he replied:

Yes, a lot of people see what we’re doing as antithetical to business and the competitive environment. In my opinion, they’re wrong. It’s important for people to know that I’m not doing this because it makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

For me, empathy is an existential question – it’s about the survival of the human race. That is, it’s imperative for us to overcome the challenges we face. Unless we can join forces and recognize each other’s humanity, how can we do business together, let alone make progress on the increasingly complex and difficult problems in society?

Those of us who don’t need science to validate the positive influence of kindness in all areas of life (and particularly at work) couldn’t be more thrilled to see what is simply common business sense may indeed someday become common business practice. “B Corporations,” the Conscious Capitalism movement, LinkedIn Vice-President Fred Kofman’s Conscious Business book and Business Academy, and Frederic Laloux’s Reinventing Organization’s “Teal” model all show that both mindfulness and kindness are part of the growing new paradigm of humane and whole businesses – and their leadership. While the ROI of kindness may be a bit harder to measure for investor or board-requested metrics, it undoubtedly offers priceless intrinsic value in creating a workplace where people feel both valued and safe when they come to work each day, and the bottom line is achieved through a collective spirit of contribution, collaboration, caring and cohesiveness.

© 2009, 2016, Suzanne Matthiessen/holisticmindfulness.org

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References:

Buchanan, K. E. & Bardi, A. (2010). Acts of kindness and acts of novelty affect life satisfaction. The Journal of Social Psychology.150(3). Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00224540903365554

Doty, J. R. (2016, January 26). Why kindness heals. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-r-doty-md/why-kindness-heals_b_9082134.html

Harvard University. (2016). “Turning the tide: Inspiring concern for others and the common good through college admissions.” Making Caring Common Project: Harvard Graduate School of Education. Retrieved from http://mcc.gse.harvard.edu/files/gse-mcc/files/20160120_mcc_ttt_report_interactive.pdf

Jones, D. E., Greenberg, M. & Crowley, M. (2015) Early social-emotional functioning and public health: The relationship between kindergarten social competence and future wellness. American Journal of Public Health, 105(11), 2283-2290. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4605168/

Mauss, I. B., Tamir, M, Anderson, C. L. & Savino, N. S. (2011). Can seeking happiness make people happy? Paradoxical effects of valuing happiness. Emotion. 11(4) pp. 807 – 815. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3160511/

Raposa, E. B., Laws, H. B., & Ansell, E. B. (2015). Prosocial behavior mitigates the negative effects of stress in everyday life. Clinical Psychological Science. DOI: 10.1177/2167702615611073 Retrieved from http://cpx.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/12/10/2167702615611073

Smith, E.E. (2014, June 12). Masters of love: Science says lasting relationships come down to – you guessed it – kindness and generosity. The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/happily-ever-after/372573/

Trew, J.L. & Alden, L.E. (2015). Kindness reduces avoidance goals in socially anxious individuals. Motivation and Emotion, 39(6), pp. 892-907. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11031-015-9499-5