Creating mindfulness in the workplace

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In life and in business, prejudice is something that troubles decision making and conditions the mind-set of individuals and communities. Creeds and collective thought processes solidify without knowing boundaries to the human mindset, and therefore place a limit n the capacity of people and organisations to think ‘out of the box’ and to thrive through creating mindfulness in the workplace.

In Western societies the child is introduced to learning in a very traditional way that follows a course from kindergarten all the way to college, and even on to the acquisition of a Master’s degree in digital transformation strategy or even a doctorate. [artificial intelligence in business] It follows a path that has already been travelled by others and gives very little space to create one’s own experiences. Creativity is normally challenged and the status quo of thought is normally considered the way to go. I believe that this happens because most human beings are threatened by change, by a difference of ideas, and by creativity.

Creating mindfulness in the workplace: The Leader's Journey

Not too long ago I was in a meeting where I was astonished to hear one of the salesmen in our corporation say: ‘In order to learn I must UNLEARN’, and I thought this was a really brilliant approach to what we have been trying to communicate through mindfulness, appreciative inquiry and social constructivism, and most importantly, taking people from order followers to creative goal pursuers.

During the last 20 years of enterprise data management, I’ve had opportunities to go through many facets of my life and have understood that we are here for a reason, and in my case, different experiences have brought me to understand that every day is unique, and that every minute that goes by is a new opportunity to do things better than in the preceding one.

I had the chance to learn mindfulness from the digital disruption teachings of Michael Chaskalson and Johannes Glarner (Yoga teacher) at EXMPLS at IE University in Spain. They introduced me to the new world of meditation, to something I knew existed but towards which I was heavily biased. Through them I had the chance to understand that meditation isn’t just calming down or relaxing, and I understood that the tool of meditation could empower me and change my habits. I understood that meditation could focus me and help me to save the energy that I’d been wasting all these years when thinking and ruminating about things that I really could change. Without knowing it, I understood that I had been taught mindfulness by my father all my life, and that I lived somewhat in this manner but that I could practise price optimization and enhance being present, in order to become a better person and leader and live a better life.

Creating mindfulness in the workplace: The Organisation

Esparcir Inversiones is a holding company that was created in 2001. Its societal purpose is to manage a ranch called Hacienda Gazul, manage real estate investments and stocks in the local market, and most importantly, to control a diversified industrial corporation, BYCSA, which has existed for 48 years and produces specialty metal finishing chemicals, lubricants and plastic films. Being a mediumsized enterprise in Colombia, it looks to differentiate itself from others in the market by thinking outside the box, and creating customer value proposition by understanding that  even though we make functional products the world can live without us. For this reason, we must make ourselves present in the market in terms of product and service.

Consequently, in my organisation I have sought, with my executive team, to introduce mindfulness and habit hacking in others to encourage our people to be focused and present. Through encouraging a regular mindfulness practice, as well as striving to change bad habits, our intent is to:

• Encourage creativity
• Capture what we do well as an organisation
• Become more resilient on both an organisational and a personal level
• Consequently become more productive.

So far, our people have responded in a positive way to all the methodologies implemented.

Introducing mindfulness into the organisation

On returning from my first week at EXMPLS, I knew that I couldn’t keep all this methodology to myself. This wasn’t just a business agility course, as there were tools to improve my life and give back to others. For this reason the executive team booked a room at a country club and we went there together to understand some of the theory. We had the chance to meditate and to start working on a methodology of empathy and the facilitation of others’ work. We then decided we would practise as a team on an everyday basis, and that we would focus on positivity while meditating.

The other issue that we identified as being important for us was embracing change, both in ourselves and in the way we wanted to lead our teams. Since then, we have encouraged this practice and meditations occur at the beginning of every meeting, every convention and nearly every day. One of the most exciting moments was a three-day convention with all the firm’s collaborators, where we had the chance to review pricing strategy, co-create and meditate with over 100 individuals, most of whom had already been introduced to the practice in smaller groups at different times. [how to fight a price war]

In order to reach people and encourage them to meditate, we had to consider the background of our people, who as Colombians have a very strong religious faith. Consequently, we communicated with everyone and helped them to appreciate that meditation, in this case, was about presence and mind training without any religious connotations.

Other key considerations were:

• Creating a space during the work day where people could meet collectively to meditate and be mindful
• Encouraging people to find what worked for them, i.e. prayer, activity, meditation
• Provide tools to encourage practice, i.e. recordings or live guided meditations.

A key enabler of our success was our decision to hold an appreciative inquiry workshop for the whole company over three days (one day at the factory and two days off-site for different pricing strategies). There was a very conscious decision to have a completely different focus away from a deficit-based approach and to a strengths-based approach, to help identify the good things we do individually and collectively as part of our organisation. We used meditation at regular intervals throughout the three days with all 110 attendees, who came from all corners in the premium pricing strategy of the organisation. In total, we had approximately four hours of meditative practices across the three days, which enabled people to be present and focused, while also enabling them to open up about their experiences and desires for the future.

This was an amazing experience, not only to have 110 people mediating together, but it was also a turning point for the company in terms of penetration pricing strategy as we achieved the following:

• We created a collective appreciation and awareness of what the organisation offers to its people, and just as importantly, what is the added value matrix that they can bring to the organisation.
• Attendees expressed a sense of feeling cared for, and consequently caring about the organisation.
• We agreed a change in approach to thinking outside the box and doing things differently.

ACTIONS TAKEN POST WORKSHOP AND RESULTS FOR WHAT HAS BEEN MEASURED

In order to maintain the momentum post-workshop and reinforce the positive change in mindset, we took the following actions, which are in line with the key considerations outlined above:

• Development of a regular strategic pricing practice; we encourage regular practice at the factory, and while a daily practice may not be possible due to production, we have created a workspace that allows for regular practice with access to recordings or live guided meditations. In the organisation’s headquarters we start every meeting with a meditation, as well as encouraging people to find the time for daily practice.
• We strongly encourage and support our people to undertake retail pricing strategies courses, for example using platforms like coursera.org for meditation, emotions, appreciative inquiry, etc. [big data in retail]
• We strive to capture this enhanced knowledge and practices in order to embed them into our organisation and are continuously moving forward towards building a positive work culture.

While I and my executive team have received many messages of positive feedback, we have also seen our reported engagement levels increase from 35% to 65%, and then remain consistently at these levels, which is quite extraordinary. Employee engagement surveys have been conducted by an independent company through calls where comments are made anonymously.

LESSONS LEARNED

I believe that the working climate at the company has improved although there is a lot still to happen. We have come a long way in understanding that we work to live and not live to work, and that as we spend more time with our colleagues than with anybody else, an open mind and a positive present mind-set is key. We have also understood that meditation is not something that you can force, but it is something that can certainly grow in people. A mindful and realistic organisation is aware of its strengths and shortcomings and has a better chance to regenerate every day.