Meditation, Mindfulness and Business Innovation
Looks like meditation and mindfulness is the new black. Like Yoga, organic gardening, and EST (dating myself) there is always a self-help or personal development trend rearing its ugly head and eventually jumping the shark (usually when you can get it at a fast-food place or it becomes a theme on NCIS). I remember when single malt scotch was a fairly quirky drink preference and it was cheap. Then it became the thing and everyone was drinking it. And now perhaps it’s given way to the craft cocktail. And I’m sure that meditation will ebb too. And I’m sure that the faith that meditation is a cure-all, like the other trends before it, will diminish. But I hope that it doesn’t go away entirely and that what’s left behind is a recognition of how powerful a tool this can be for personal happiness…..and for business.
Business is first and foremost a highly complex and ever-evolving set of personal interactions. The framework may be money and product and technology and economy and delivery, but it’s mostly still done (until the Elon Musk dystopian AI future comes true) through human interaction. Meditation and mindfulness are really powerful tools for managing and optimizing human interactions. There is inherent conflict and stress in work and most people are not able to abstract away from those feelings. That creates challenges in both enjoying your work life (the thing that takes up more of your time than your family, hobbies, or friends) and in getting things done. I know that conflict is inherent (and in its most rational form actually highly valuable) in business. I’ve found that meditation is a fantastic tool to mitigate the most negative parts of conflict. Maintaining mindfulness helps you to put things in perspective and distance yourself from immediate emotional reactions. Susan didn’t invite you to the meeting and that’s frustrating – but in the broader calm context, you are able to see that Susan didn’t intend it maliciously and/or it doesn’t really have any kind of long-term impact on you. Fred voiced his disagreement with your plan in a big meeting but can you calmly recognize Fred’s valid alternative point of view and discuss where the facts lead you? Can you recognize Fred’s own ulterior motives/biases and view this less as an attack than as Fred dealing with his own stuff. And even if it is an attack, can you put it into the broad context of your life – where it likely doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. I find meditation and mindfulness very helpful in establishing those kinds of mindsets. And they seem to make me incrementally better at my job and incrementally happier.
One of my sources of insight on this (and where I subtly cribbed the notion of incrementally better and happier) is Dan Harris' (www.tenpercent.com) book 10% Happier. It’s a good primer on meditation and also a fun read. And the Headspace app is my go-to for a very doable 10-minute/day meditation (www.headspace.com).
