Want to Build a Mindful Company? There's No App for That.

When it comes to the modern search for mindfulness, collective wisdom seems to say, “There’s an app for that.” After all, apps abound for finding pet sitters, booking vacation rentals and creating investment portfolios. Why wouldn’t we expect to find inner peace via our smartphones, as well?

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While tech platforms certainly make meditative concepts more widely accessible, they can also foster a shallowness of practice. Without a holistic understanding of what mindfulness means, practitioners will never achieve the benefits -- personal or professional -- that they seek.

Mindfulness in the workplace

Mindfulness is all about experiencing the present moment. When you’re conscious of your thoughts instead of letting them run amok, you can make deliberate choices and refrain from impulsive and potentially harmful statements. But, in my experience, people can’t achieve mindfulness merely by practicing it for a few minutes each day helped by an app. They must return to the practice'sprinciples again and again, and that requires a substantial commitment.

Many big-name companies, such asGoogleandAetna, have embraced mindfulness in recent years. The goal of increasingcreativity and well-being, both good for employees’ health, isalso good for corporate productivity. It’s heartening that leading brands are promoting what can be a life-enriching habit. But a mindfulness approach canhave limited effects if it becomes half-hearted or inauthentic.

How to achieve group enlightenment

Studies show thatmindful teams experience fewer interpersonal conflictsand are more results-oriented than their more reactive counterparts. A drop in conflict, for example, enables managers to focus on high-priority tasks instead of refereeing employee drama. By some estimates, in fact,managers spend up to 40 percent of their timeaddressing interpersonal conflict. Imagine what they could achieve if they could reclaim even a fraction of that wastage.

So, consider: Group yoga and meditation sessions could cultivate mindfulness throughout your organization and inspire colleagues to collaborate more effectively. When people have the presence of mind to critique one another’s output rather than their character, they’re more likely to develop productive solutions.

Mindfulness could alsohelpperse colleagues at your organization respect one another’s differenceswithout rushing to frustration or judgment.There’s a clear financial benefit, as well. Aetna has seenproductivity increases worth $3,000 per employeeafter introducing pre-meeting meditations and other mindfulness offerings.

Again, though, mindfulness initiatives must be rooted in authenticity. Companies that invite employees to engage in meditation, yoga or other practices in this realm must create environments that support genuine mindfulness. Here’s how your company can do that:

1.Explain the why behind your company’s mindfulness policies.

Before every meeting, I center myself in my intentions and in what my team and I are trying to achieve. Doing so enables me to embody those values without having labored discussions with colleagues about our goals.

The concept of meditating to improve business performance may seem alien at first. Leaders should brief their teams on what mindfulness is and how it corresponds to the company’s culture and long-term ambitions.

Cultivating mindfulness takes time, so leaders should offer employees support as they adjust to the new mode of thinking. Explanation sessions and mindfulness-centered activities are great opportunities to model the types of interactions and attitudes desired within the company.

58003 To date, more than 1,000 employees have participated in the program, and 20 certified facilitators are available across the company to help employees adapt the practice across leadership and HR programs, team eventsand webcasts. Overall, Accenture says the program has increasedfocus, creativityand resilience while reducing stress and distraction.

2.Give people the choice to opt out.

Forcing employees to adopt a mindfulness practice is a bad idea. That only fosters resentment and stress -- the exact effects mindfulness is supposed to reverse. Companies should offer and promote meditative activities on a voluntary basis. As long as employees treat their co-workers with respect and thoughtfulness, they can still be effective members of the organization.

For many people, seeing is believing, so participation in mindfulness activities should always be open to all. Those who shy away in the beginning may come around when they see the positive effects meditation has on their peers.

SAp, a German software company, provides employees with a wide range of mindfulness activities, including meditation micropractices, mindfulness challenges and in-house meditations led by trained guides.

As of this year, some6,500 SAp employeeshad participated in the company's two-day mindfulness course, with another 5,500 on the waiting list. While those numbers are impressive, it's likely that there were skeptics in the group at the outset. 58003

3.Emphasize actions over intentions.

Too often, egos get in the way of meaningful interactions. Mindfulness can help in this regard. I used to become frustrated with a colleague who included me only on certain email threads, and I assumed he was trying to one-up me by excluding me from other conversations. When I approached him about his behavior, however, he had a rational explanation and no ill will toward me.

Mindfulness prevents us from jumping to emotional conclusions by enabling us to focus on another person’s actions and our responses, rather than conflating our assumptions with reality. That awareness goes a long way toward reducing unnecessary conflicts.

A recent study by University of British Columbia researchers found that interpersonal conflict decreased when teams weremore mindful at work. Team members also wereless likely to turn frustrationwith a task into personal conflict with a colleague. 原因: Mindfulness allowed them to effectively detach and eliminate any strong emotions associated with that task.

Mindfulness can be incredibly powerful for building conscientious teams who engage with one another (and with clients) from a place of compassion and integrity. But, to be effective, it's something that must permeate a company's culture.

简而言之: There'sno app for building mindful companies, no matter what the App Store says.

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