How Mindfulness Can Facilitate Organisational Change
MINDFULNESS is fast becoming an important contributor to workplace effectiveness and well-being. Over the last decade, many organisations have embraced mindfulness at work, e.g. Apple, Google, GlaxoSmithKline, KPMG, Harvard Business School, to name but a few. Many top executives, such as Jeff Weiner (LinkedIn), William Clay Ford Jr. (Ford) and Mark Benioff (SalesForce) are strong advocates of Mindfulness. Are they following a fad?
“If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does calm, and when it does, there’s room to hear more subtle things - that’s when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. […] You see so much more than you could see before. It’s a discipline; you have to practise it.”
What is mindfulness?
In its essence, mindfulness is attention training. Being mindful is a practice that trains your mind to focus on your present-moment experience, in a non-judgemental and non-reactive way. It is simple but not easy. Mindfulness practice involves noticing things deliberately, both within yourself (breath, body sensations, thoughts, emotions) and in your environment (people, places, nature). Examples include daily meditative and reflection time, breathing pauses, mindful movement and attention techniques.
Many of our workplaces are characterised by constant performance pressure, information overload and complexity, “always-on” expectations and multiple distractions. We cope by multitasking, “doing more” and running ever-more routines on “auto-pilot”, often reacting in not-so-effective ways. While our external environment keeps on changing fast, our brain and body structures have not changed much for millennia – we urgently need to bring ourselves into the 21st century!
Advanced neuroscience technology now shows the effects of our busy (work) lives on our well-being and performance. Ongoing stress and unfocused multitasking damage our productivity, brain and relationships. The good news is that, with practice and dedication, mindful practices bring about multiple positive effects and helps us remain balanced and effective in today's complex, fast-paced and challenging world.
There are numerous studies of the benefits of mindfulness at work. Apart from more resilience it helps create “headspace” - clear thinking, creativity, and perception in complex environments. An increased capacity to focus improves attention span, memory retention and problem-solving. More presence and less judgement foster deeper connection and facilitate growth.
Mindfulness and organisational transformation
If mindfulness training in organisations is primarily seen to help employees cope better and maintain high performance, some essential aspects of its real benefits to organisations are lost. Being mindful allows us to operate from choice, by reducing biases and perceiving clearly whether to reflect, decide, act or confront. Not only are these valuable competencies for individual employees – but also powerful ingredients for organisational change processes.
However, there is still a gap between individual mindfulness practices and organisational transformation. Preliminary findings can be found in research done by the University of Bremen, building on Sutcliffe & Weick’s “Organisational Mindfulness”. Mindfulness at an organisational level can be defined as systemic and collective openness to what is emerging, both from within the organisation and from without. Dialogue, trust and collective intelligence are the pillars of a mindful organisation. In the following, we outline some key considerations on how to integrate mindfulness into processes that allow for organisational learning and evolution.
Continuous improvement and innovation
Look out for unintended side effects of actions and decisions, positive and negative! See the whole picture of what is emerging – and not what one wants to see.
Consider that seemingly insignificant “little problems” or “hick-ups” could point to symptoms of more serious problems in the making.
Communicate and model a culture where it is safe to make mistakes and where errors and failures can be transformed into learning opportunities.
Encourage critical dialogue and divergent opinions at all levels of the organisation.
Upskill employees in effective feedforward and feedback techniques.
Reward handling of errors, i.e. their reporting, forwarding, analysis, and processing, for the sake of organisation learning.
Allow errors and deviations to become a source of innovation.
Inquiry and perspective-shifting
Watch out for over-simplified interpretations and perceptions of reality – particularly common under performance or time pressure.
Increase diversity and multiple perspectives – invite external people into meetings or forums, use “wild cards” or assign specific roles to introduce other perspectives.
Devote people and processes to “scanning or listening” (to external stakeholders, networks, customers etc.), without any particular agenda. This allows deep perception of what is needed, what wants to be said and what wants to emerge.
When problem-solving, sit with the problem, let it “ripen”. Wherever possible, and especially with important decisions, take the pressure off to reach a conclusion too quickly.
Resilience and Connection
Reduce the need to “predict and control” everything. Help employees to embrace a certain level of ambiguity and uncertainty.
Understand that (business) life is cyclical and support people through challenging times by providing coaching and psychological support.
Intentionally celebrate the start and end of projects.
Have regular team days or organisational retreats with the aim to reconnect, integrate and co-create new futures together.
Provide spaces or rooms dedicated to stillness or reflection.
At the start of meetings, make a point to really connect with each other, e.g. a minute of silence, visualising the common purpose of the meeting, personal check-in. Do this consciously, deeply hearing each other, not to “tick the box”.
Encourage learning communities, buddy systems, peer-to-peer exchanges. This brings the organisational eco-system to life, fostering relationships and cross-fertilisation of ideas.
We have seen that mindfulness has real benefits on an organisational level as it can foster authentic dialogue, trust and collective intelligence. MIT Professor Otto Scharmer has integrated mindful change in his “Theory U” – this change management approach goes far beyond individual mindfulness practices by integrating action research into transformation processes. Theory U helps us to bring the “emerging future” to life now – more about that soon.
