What do you know about Mindfulness in business?
Mindfulness is the hot new topic in both cutting-edge and traditional businesses, across sectors including Finance, Technology, Manufacturing, Sports and Health, to name but a few. And big names such as General Mills, Barclays, Google, and SAP, they are all jumping on the Mindfulness bandwagon. In fact, over 250 of the top business leaders from across the world turned up for a two and a half hour session at the last DAVOS economic forum.
So what is Mindfulness and why do organizations invest in creating Mindful Cultures?
Let’s de-bunk a few myths before moving on.
Mindfulness is not a religion, nor has it much to do with the popular notion of a Buddhist monk sitting peacefully on a mountain top for weeks on end, blissed out and ‘at one with the world’. On the contrary, mastering Mindfulness brings our mind sharply into focus, helping us to perform to our full potential. It increases resilience, enhances relationships, harnesses creativity, and enables more effective leadership. On top of all that, mindfulness elevates our mood and general sense of happiness. And, as we know at iOpener, happiness is one of the best predictors of performance.
In fact, Mindfulness is one of the most researched interventions in the workplace ever; yes, ever! Top research institutions, including Oxford, Harvard and Cambridge, to name but a few, have done substantial, Gold Standard, research into Mindfulness, and the results are very encouraging.
The original word for Mindfulness suggests a kind of lucid awareness of moment by moment experience, so that you are fully present to your life as it unfolds. In addition, this awareness is accompanied by an attitude of compassion and open-hearted curiosity.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? But isn’t this something we should all be able to do without too much difficulty, I hear you ask? It turns out to be trickier than it might seem.
Here’s a challenge for you; try to keep your mind on the rhythm of your breath for 60 seconds, and notice what happens. Simply close or ‘de-focus’ your eyes, and notice the physical movements associated with your breath around your solar plexus, as you breath-in, and as you breath-out.
How was it?
I’m willing to bet that your mind wandered off, thinking about something from the past, or captivated by something that hasn’t has yet happened; worrying, analysing, day-dreaming. The list of possible topics for the mind to work on is endless. Wherever your mind went, the bottom line is this: it’s extremely difficult to keep our ‘Monkey Minds’ focused in the way we intend. Minds wander, that’s what they’re designed for, helping us to analyse, achieve our goals, and plan our lives.
However, there’s a flip side to our mind-wandering, and it’s not helpful at all. Think of the impact of mind-wandering on our lives, and on our performance at work. How much of the time are we ‘on task’ when we’re supposed to be working? At iOpener our research shows that even small increases in being ‘on task’ can be measured in significant financial benefits. Mindfulness has a lot to offer.
Just like exercise, we have to experience mindfulness in order to become more mindful. Like exercise, we need to actually do it. Simply understanding how to get fit doesn’t make us any fitter, just like simply understanding Mindfulness doesn’t make us any more mindful.
When working with people who have never encountered Mindfulness before, they want to know all the facts, the data, the research. But, the truth is, becoming mindful only happens when we practice it, and when we’re trained by people who know what they’re doing. Just as we can only train for a marathon by running, so too, we can only become mindful by practicing every day. And the more we put into it, the better the returns are.
A word of warning: there are a lot of people out there touting Mindfulness; but to be clear, the research about Mindfulness is linked to facilitators and teachers who have been properly trained to work with it. As with anything, check out their credentials before you work with them.
Do you want to find out more about why Mindfulness is worth investing in? And how a mindful culture might help your organization to flourish and out-perform the competition? Find out more in our next Mindfulness blog.
Photo credit: Visual Hunt