Featured Story: Corporate Mindfulness
Dear John:
Many people think of mindfulness as diametrically opposed to business, but only until they see the overwhelming evidence of mindfulness’ benefits in all aspects of business: innovation, productivity, health, collaboration, negotiation, etc. Many companies that have realized the advantages of mindfulness training encourage employees to center themselves during the day using various relaxation techniques. Some businesses even institute mandatory retreats and mindfulness breaks during the workday.
Chapter 29 in The Ten Paradoxes: The Science of Where’s My Zen? presents evidence of the positive effects of Mindfulness (or what the ancient masters have called No Mind) and Business. Some of the studies presented here may aid the implementation of mindfulness in your career or business.
Most businesspeople would immediately assume that mindfulness and business are unrelated, as one belongs in the monastery and the other in the cold, swift corporate world of money. If you told your customers, clients, or associates that you were using a technique called No Mind (mindfulness), their response might be, “I am paying you to use your entire mind, not no mind.”
Paradoxically, studies demonstrate that you actually increase your intelligence and creativity when you think less (Claxton, 2000). Through the study and practice of mindfulness,
your brain solves problems more efficiently, more intuitively and more creatively, and it grasps solutions which lay outside the scope of your normal over-thinking mind. So No Mind Business is not lack of mind but enhanced mind with superior performance…