Bringing Mindfulness to Your Workplace

As businesses grow, leaders discover the value of softer skills like mindfulness. Mindfulness in the workplace isn’t just a trend—it’s a proven way to foster creativity, productivity, and collaboration.

We begin in management like bulls, pushing and building to make our mark on the business and get our part of it on track for growth.

As we go higher in management, we find that this bull energy is less helpful. Rather than pushing people to our will, we recognize the need to build a team that will follow us and multiply our effectiveness. Team-building still needs bull energy, but it also calls for the softer energy of a good listener and a nurturer. Yes, of course we still need vision. The soft stuff is meant to complement and extend on that.

Mindfulness benefits the executive through stress management, through bringing clarity to critical  interactions, and through opening the mind to creative outside-the-box solutions. Mindfulness benefits the firm by helping build a work culture focused on teamwork as well as individual wellbeing. Productivity and retention follow naturally from this.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously said:

"Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all."

and

"Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it."

While Ike probably didn’t know about mindfulness or meditation (this was in the 1950s after all), he knew about motivation and getting cooperation from big egos!

These days, Mindfulness meditation is the rising manager’s road to success, and for some businesses it is the key to continuous growth. Mindfulness can be the grease that turns the wheels of a productive work environment for improved workflow and output.

How Mindfulness-at-Work Looks in Action

Let’s say you’ve just been promoted, and in your first meeting the chief executive begins treating you as a novice, putting you down. You feel angry and hurt. After you leave the office, you realize your emotions were running so strong you did not hear clearly. Some things seem distorted in your memory.

So you shut the door to your office, close your eyes, and sit quietly. You incorporate mindfulness as you figure out what to do. Focusing on your breath, and doing a new exercise you learned to calm the emotions, you gradually replay the conversation and remember clearly how you reacted.

Now you must decide: What’s my next right action? You’ve been learning about mindfulness as a philosophy, about the need not just to be calm, but also the importance of taking actions that build. You sit some more and gradually a plan comes to mind.

Finding the Right Mindfulness Meditation Mentor

There are many great books on management at all levels. You could fill an entire book case in your office with them. But these alone won’t help your team grow in capability. Key people need mentorship, other people need lectures. Growth happens person to person, in the real world, with coaching based on what’s happening on the ground.

There are a great many books on Mindfulness meditation as well. You could fill another wall of your office with them. But they will not give you the benefits of meditation any more than reading about chocolate will give you the taste of chocolate. Meditation is best learned from a mentor, and the more expert the mentor is, the more will be learned.

If you’re inclined to read a few books, I can save you a lot of time. Just read this article about Mindfulness in the Workplace on Calm. They do a great job with this overview. The only thing they lack is something personalized. It’s all implemented like a cookie-cutter. Put some inspiring art on your wall instead. It’s all about learning from mentors.

I should know, I’ve been practicing mindfulness meditation for many years, and still I grow in my understanding. Even this week my practice deepens.

I worked in business, primarily in finance, for many years. That’s where I started meditating as a young manager faced with daily stress, back in 1975. I’d walk over to St. Paul’s on Broadway, sit in the quietness, and say “ommm” to myself over and over. That was helpful, but I can tell you now there was a lot more to learn!

Getting started with Mindfulness in Management

I know from my own experience that bringing mindfulness meditation to a business requires deep understanding by the executive leading this growth plan, and that needs to come from a person versed in both business and mindfulness.

I am not the only person with this background, but I can tell you honestly: teaching mindfulness has been my focus for 15 years. And that only began after more than a generation of practice and learning from other masters.

My approach is to start with a 5-10 minute Zoom or phone call. I’ll use that to get a sense of where you are in the process of learning for yourself and/or spreading mindfulness to your group. If we feel it’s a good fit, we would follow that up with a 30-45 minute mindfulness session and make a longer-term plan after that.

As businesses grow, leaders discover the value of softer skills like mindfulness. Mindfulness in the workplace isn’t just a trend—it’s a proven way to foster creativity, productivity, and collaboration.

May your mindfulness practice bring you the perspective, power, and insight to lead your team and grow your business.

— Donald