Chapter 1

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Using mindfulness at work

In this first chapter you will discover:

• How this book can address some of the daily challenges you face at work.
• An overview of how businesses are now using mindfulness to address some of these very same challenges.
• How practising and benefiting from mindfulness at work doesn’t have to get in the way of your day-to-day job.
• An overview of what mindfulness is and your first taste (in this book anyway) of practising it.

It’s hard not to recognise how the reality of work has changed dramat-ically over the last few decades. We now find ourselves working in ever more challenging, complex and ambiguous times. Workers and employers alike are all looking for ways to help them cope with change, uncertainty and the accelerating rate at which we work. Advancements in technology and the culture of incessant email communication mean that being at work no longer simply means being physically present at the office. We are now connected to one another in a way that we have never been before, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, go, go, go! This is all taking its toll on our resilience and none of this looks as if it is likely to slow down, any time soon. Understandably, this all brings into question our human capacity to continue to cope with it all. People are turning to mindfulness as a way to de-stress and deal with this 24-hour communication culture; they’re searching for an antidote to overwhelming and excessive workloads, all the constant doing, rushing around, thinking and struggling, and in doing so are also discovering that mindfulness offers our work and working lives so much more besides.

More and more of the corporate executives, managers and business leaders that we teach mindfulness to, are recognising the positive impact that mindfulness can have on their business in terms of productivity and more profitable decision-making. These days we are all being asked to work and perform at peak levels and succeed in an increasingly interconnected, demanding and rapidly changing global environment. Old and habitual ways of operating within a highly competitive market no longer seem to serve us so well, and our clients have reported how mindfulness has helped them to adapt and become more open and flexible while developing new ways of listening and responding to colleagues and clients and also innovating with more skill and a rejuvenated sense of equanimity. Furthermore, in our work delivering mindfulness training for teams we’re continuously told how collaboration and teamwork are greatly enhanced within a more compassionate environment following the team’s practice of mindfulness, which has often become a ‘must-do’ for many of them at the start of any team meeting and/or working day ahead.

So what is all the fuss about? Well, before you continue to read on we thought you might like to take a mindful moment right now to exp-erience a short taster of mindfulness straight away. Before you read any further, take a moment or two now to try the following exercise.

Exercise 1.1: Mindful on the job

Your starter for ten

We know we haven’t given you a lot of detail on what mindfulness is as yet. But just so that you get a flavour right away and see just how accessible mindfulness is (remember our goal is to provide you with as much experience of mindfulness as possible while you read this book), follow these ten steps right now to help you see just how mindfulness has the potential to offer up a moment of peace in among the daily chaos. You might like to continue to use this as your ‘must do’ at the start of a busy day (and at any other points in-between). So rather than starting your day in the usual way (like running through your ‘to-do list’), why not break an old habit and start it with this exercise instead. Go on, give it a try right now:

1. Just take a moment to think through all you have already done today.
2. Now consider all that you still ‘have’ to do.
3. Next notice the environment around you (colours, sounds, etc.).
4. Notice any sensations in the body (tension, stiffness, twitchiness, etc.).
5. Notice how you are feeling (overwhelmed, fired up, impatient, etc.).
6. Now take a moment to consider just the moment you are in.
7. Just for this moment put aside what has happened already and what is yet to happen and allow yourself to experience ‘just this’.
8. Give yourself ten seconds (you can just guess if you like) just to sit or stand where you are and not do anything else right now.
9. Just notice your experiences (sounds, sights, sensations, feelings, thoughts), as they naturally come and go, rise and fall; there is no need to follow any of them.
10. When you are ready you can now choose to jump back into the rush of your day.

Whatever your experience of doing this exercise was, maybe a sense of peace, stillness or calm or even frustration, confusion or boredom (or all of the above), any is absolutely fine. Just notice and welcome that too. There’s no need to try hard to work any of this out; all will be revealed and make more sense soon. So for now, let’s continue on.

Booming business

You’ve probably already heard that more and more businesses are recognising the benefits of mindfulness. Often and most mentioned is Google which has implemented its own internal mindfulness programme (called ‘Search Inside Yourself’) for employees since 2007. General Mills also invests in mindfulness, as well as other large corporations such as Yahoo, Apple and Unilever. The list really does go on (and on!). There are a rapidly growing number of companies encouraging their employees to practise mindfulness and, when reviewing some of the research findings specifically related to reductions in business costs, it is easy to understand why.

Let’s continue with our ‘top five’ listed success stories:

1. It is widely documented that Vermont-based Green Mountain Coffee Roasters includes mindfulness meditation as part of its offerings to its employees and it is worth noting that this company has also delivered double-digit net sales growth for the past 27 consecutive quarters.
2. eBay and Huffington Post ensure that mindfulness meditation rooms are available on site for their employees across all their offices. And it’s no great surprise that UK-based firms are quickly following suit too.
3. Transport for London (TFL), introduced mindfulness training to its workforce as part of its stress-management strategy following a review in 2003 which highlighted that mental health difficulties were one of the most significant health problems affecting its employees. Following the implementation of their stress--management programmes, TFL reported that absenteeism caused by stress, anxiety and depression dropped by 71 per cent. Eighty-four per cent of participants said they were ‘relating to others better’; 82 per cent increased the amount of exercise they did; 77 per cent improved their diet or tackled drinking and/or smoking problems; and 54 per cent improved their sleeping patterns following the mindfulness training they received.
4. Intel is another company that has been offering mindfulness training to its employees since 2012. A nine-week programme called Awake@Intel has just recently been rolled out to its 100,000 employees working across 63 countries. An initial evaluation of this programme showed some promising results. On average, the 1,500 employees that have participated in the programme so far reported a two-point decrease (on a 10-point scale) in their experience of stress and feeling overwhelmed, a three-point increase in overall happiness and well-being, and a two-point increase in having new ideas and insights, mental clarity, creativity, the ability to focus, the quality of relationships at work and the level of engagement in meetings, projects and collaboration efforts. Considering these results it is really no surprise that the firm is now backing the roll-out of this programme to its global workforce.

There are a whole bunch of other firms who have also now jumped on the bandwagon and begun to implement mindfulness training for their staff. Among the growing number of blue-chip businesses, companies and public bodies encouraging their employees to take up mindfulness practice at work, this side of the pond are: Bank of England, NPower, The Department of Health, Innocent, the NHS, Virgin, BP in Canary Wharf (who have a meditation room on-site), Goldman Sachs (who offer their employees use of in-house meditation pods), Credit Suisse, KPMG, Barclay’s, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte. This ancient practice is now seeping into Parliament too where over a hundred MPs, peers and parliamentary staff have also had their very own kick-starter taste of weekly mindfulness sessions. (Please see ‘Useful resources’ for some links and documents listing these and other companies who are using mindfulness.)

Yes, mindfulness is becoming increasingly popular and a very hot topic and the interest from organisations continues to grow. And this doesn’t seem to be just another fad. One main reason for this is that over the past decade more and more scientific evidence is emerging that speaks to the multitude of benefits that mindfulness practice can bring. Understandably, companies can find it hard to ignore the hard scientific facts, and, with this growing body of research comes also a growing confidence around the positive effects of mindfulness, for both the individual employee and consequently the organisation as a whole.

Countless CEOs, business leaders and MPs are openly talking about mindfulness, their experiences and its benefits. We are lucky enough to hear feedback on a daily basis in our practice from our corporate clients as well as having our own on-going personal experience, but for those of you who do not yet know much about mindfulness, or are curious to hear about what some of the individuals and groups behind all the lists, data and research have to say, here are a few examples:

‘Stress-reduction and mindfulness don’t just make us happier and healthier, they’re a proven competitive advantage for any business that wants one.’

Arianna Huffington, Co-Founder and Editor in Chief, The Huffington Post
(Taken from huffpost.com; please see ‘Useful resources’ section for link to full blog post)

‘… That compassion to ourselves, to everyone around us – our colleagues – customers, that’s what the training of mindfulness is really about.’

Janice Marturano, Deputy General Counsel, General Mills, Founder & Executive Director, Institute of Mindful Leadership
(See a video of Janice Marturano speaking about mindful leadership listed in the ‘Useful resources’ section)

‘[mindfulness] Meditation is the best thing I have ever done to calm myself and separate from the 24/7, connected world. By centering into myself, I can focus my attention on the important things, develop an inner sense of well-being, and gain clarity in making decisions. My most creative ideas come from meditating, and meditation has built resilience to deal with difficult times. No doubt it has helped me become a better leader.’

Bill George, Professor of Management Practice, Harvard Business School, Former CEO of Medtronic & Goldman Sachs Board Member (Taken from huffpost.com; please see ‘Useful resources’ section for link to full blog post)

‘We find that mindfulness is a transformative practice, leading to a deeper understanding of how to respond to situations wisely. We believe that government should widen access to mindfulness training in key public services [health, education, workplaces, criminal justice system], where it has the potential to be an effective low-cost intervention with a wide range of benefits.’

Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Group (MAPPG) (Taken from oxfordmindfulness.org; please see ‘Useful resources’ section for link to the Interim Report of the MAPPG)

For employers, the improvement of mental health and an associated, increased ability to manage stress and enhance resilience easily translates into reduced absenteeism and higher productivity among its workforce. Among the other work-related benefits of mindfulness are enhanced emotional intelligence (that is, a greater awareness and improved regulation of emotions), improved decision-making and strategic-thinking abilities, and a heightened ability to focus and work creatively. With all these benefits it’s hardly surprising that organisations are beginning to weave this simple practice and set of principles into their company culture and the psyche of their employees, as quick as they can and in a number of ways. The implementation of mindfulness in the workplace can commonly take many forms, some of which may include:

• offering mindfulness-based stress prevention and management training programmes as part of larger health, well-being and wellness initiatives;
• providing mindfulness-based psychological therapy interventions for distressed employees;
• incorporating it into management and leadership development programmes, often in the form of training on emotional intelligence, self-management and resilience, communication skills, team effectiveness and performance, managing stress in others, creativity, well-being and strategic thinking;
• using it to inform executive mentoring and coaching practice;
• weaving it into corporate social responsibility policies;
• setting aside time and space (and dedicated facilities) within the work environment and during the working day to specifically engage with mindfulness practice.

As you continue to develop your own understanding of mindfulness, and start to experience its benefits for yourself, you may want to present this, together with the evidence from some of the studies listed throughout this book to support a case for investment in further training in mindfulness as part of your own workplace’s continued well-being, learning and development programmes.

So what exactly is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a term that specifically refers to practices, techniques and theory derived from Buddhist meditative practices and was traditionally part of a broad spiritual path. The concepts of mindfulness have been secularised over the past 40 or so years and it is not necessary to entertain any particular spiritual outlook in order to practise or benefit. That said, the principles of mindfulness – in essence the intentional, purposeful focusing of attention on the ‘here and now’ in an open and accepting way – brings up many observations of life ‘just as it is’ which may lead you to consider our reality quite differently and at times this shift in perspective can be, well, put quite frankly, absolutely mind-blowing (in a good way).

‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’

Socrates

Before we natter on with more definitions and descriptions of mindfulness and explanations of how it might be relevant to you and your work, we thought it probably best to begin in the simplest way, by inviting you to try the following exercise right now so you can start to experience for yourself what it’s all about …

Exercise 1.2: Work in progress

It’s all about discriminating (in a very PC way, of course)

You can do this exercise with any object that you have in reach right now (we usually hand people a marker pen, so if you have one to hand then great); it can be anything at all that you can hold in your hand: a pen, mobile phone, watch from your wrist, maybe an apple, a sweet, piece of gum or other piece of food that can sit in your hand comfortably or even this book you’re reading right now, whether in a hard copy or your Kindle itself. For the rest of the exercise we are going to refer to this object as ‘X’.

We’re going to invite you do two mini ‘experiencing’ exercises with X; the first one involves experiencing X with your five senses. Then when we’ve done that, we’re going to invite you to experience X in your mind. So grab X now and hold it in your hand/s. Ready? OK.

1. First we invite you to experience X with your sight. Take your time to gaze and look upon X carefully. Notice what you see. Its shape, colours, markings, the space around X (do this for at least 10 seconds or so before you move on to step 2).
2. Now, we invite you to experience X with your touch. Notice the weight of X in your hand, acknowledge the temperature of X: is it cool, warm maybe? Run your fingers around X and really notice the texture, lumps, bumps, markings (again take your time).
3. Next, experience X with your sense of smell. Hold it up to your nose and take a few whiffs (if you don’t feel comfortable to do this, that’s ok; just acknowledge the absence of any smell from X).
4. Now (this may sound weird, but) we encourage you to experience X with your sense of taste – take a lick. (We know, YUK! Again, if you don’t feel comfortable, just notice the absence of taste.)
5. Finally, it’s time to listen to X. Notice what sounds X makes – nothing noticeable? Great, then just notice and acknowledge the absence of sound – or you might like to give X a flick or tap with your finger – ah, we have noise!

Right, now, put X down to one side and close your eyes (if you don’t feel comfortable doing that, then rest your gaze on a still object or spot in front of you and droop your eyelids slightly). We’re now going to experience X through our mind. Ooooo! Ready?

• Bring X to mind, and try to remember and imagine what it looks, feels, smells, tastes and sounds like. Don’t rush this part; take your time to bring these senses to life in your mind, one at a time (do this for at least 10 seconds or so).

So, to end this exercise, we want you to answer two quick questions:

1. Did you notice any difference in the two types of experiencing (five senses versus in the mind)?
2. Whether you answered yes or no, take a moment now to reflect on WHO is it exactly that is noticing whether there is a difference?

Well, who is it that notices the difference?

That’s right, it’s YOU!

So, there you have it; you have the ability to be aware, notice and therefore discriminate between being present, in the ‘here and now’ (i.e. five senses experiencing) versus being caught up in your mind (i.e. experiencing X mentally). That’s what it takes to practise mindfulness (the ability to notice where your attention is: either focused on the here and now or lost and caught up in your mind). If you can notice that difference, then we’re good to go (if you didn’t, that’s absolutely fine too, just take your time to try the exercise again, you’ll get it soon enough). By the way, this exercise forms part of ‘The Matrix’, which is a model designed to understand and engender psychological flexibility. It has been developed from the excellent work of Dr Kevin Polk and if you want to find out more about this model and his work you might like to follow the relevant link listed in the ‘Useful resources’ section at the end of this chapter.

From an exercise like the one above we come to realise that there is in fact a larger, more spacious part of the mind, a wider perspective, which can notice whether we are either focused on our present moment experience or caught up in distraction and mental experience. This wider perspective is awareness and that is what mindfulness is: awareness of what is, just how it is, right now, just in this moment. Implicit in this kind of awareness is acceptance, no judgement or evaluation, just openness and curiosity to how our life and experience is unfolding moment to moment. It is from awareness such as this that we have more clarity of mind and can then make choices: for instance, we can choose to bring our attention away from distracting thoughts about the past or the future or how life should be, and return it back to observing our experience, just as it is, in that present moment.

Most of the time our attention is not where we want it to be and mindfulness training is all about purposefully maintaining a present, moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations and the surrounding environment as best we can. We may choose to use our sensory experience (the breath or bodily sensations, for example) as a focal point in our mindfulness training, to return our wandering mind to, again and again without judgement or any expectation that our attention should stay focused on any one thing/sensation, in any given moment.

Mindfulness training is like training a muscle in the gym, where we might engage in repetitive exercise to increase muscle mass and strength; in mindfulness training we train the mind to stay where we want it to be, by remaining aware and returning our attention to a focal point, again and again. To extend the analogy further, just like going to the gym we also need to take care not to overwork (over-effort), to be gentle with ourselves, compassionate towards our inevitable struggles, busy minds and challenging emotional states. This requires a caring attitude, which can also be practised, so that we are able to meet ourselves more fully in mindfulness. Mindfulness training is not only about focused-attention training (more on what mindfulness isn’t below). Although our attention and focus is likely to improve by noticing where our mind is, so too will our capacity for patience, kindness and compassion as we continuously bring our attention away from distraction back to a chosen focal point with the utmost acceptance and care.

Furthermore, just like training in the gym, there will be times when our interest wanes or wanders, and so to maintain our passion and to enhance the benefits of practice we also need to keep an attitude of curiosity, as Jon Kabat-Zinn (a very well established secular mindfulness teacher) says: ‘When you pay attention to boredom it gets unbelievably interesting’ (more on this in Chapter 6). Curiosity keeps mindfulness fresh, joyful and creative and allows us to see and appreciate the infinite subtleties of life. The beauty to recognise about mindfulness training is that we don’t actually have to go to a gym but can instead choose to do our mindfulness training anywhere, even on the job, while we are at work, or wherever we are and in whatever we may be doing.

What mindfulness isn’t

We have previously given a rundown of some of the common myths and untruths about mindfulness and what it isn’t about (Sinclair and Seydel, 2013, p. 10); however, we thought it might be useful to have a recap of some of the most common misconceptions here once again and to clear these up straight away. Here are our top four reminders on what mindfulness isn’t:

Mindfulness is NOT …

1. … about escaping work, relaxing, missing out or being lazy (when you could be doing something more productive!)

This is the most common concern and misunderstanding that we often hear from our busy and high-achieving corporate clients. The truth is that mindfulness is not passive in any sense; it is about training the mind, and as we’ve said already, much in the same way that we might train our bodies at the gym. Just like a physical workout, mindfulness training takes practice, energy and effort (although usually there’s less sweating involved). Mindfulness training involves a transformation of the mind from an unconscious, impulsive state of reactivity to a state of awareness and more effective responsiveness. Furthermore, mindfulness is about facing the reality of our working life head-on, seeing it just how it is, the good as well as the bad, being honest with ourselves and recognising how we truly operate and function as a person. With mindfulness training you will begin to understand yourself with more accuracy and clarity and feel more in control of yourself and your actions. You might also be pleased to know that mindfulness doesn’t mean that we simply have to accept or ‘put up’ with everything and never make important changes or take action when our needs are not being met. Instead it gives us clarity of mind and skills of self-regulation to act effectively in ways that truly matter to us in our work.

2. … about sitting around crossed-legged, meditating for hours on end

Although finding a quiet place to sit down and meditate is a great way to practise, cultivate and reinforce the qualities and principles of mindfulness (read here: present moment focus, non-judgemental awareness, open curiosity, acceptance and compassion), it is not the only way to do it or what mindfulness is per se. Mindfulness is really about how you go about your life and carry yourself through your working day, moment by moment, bringing these qualities with you. Mindfulness can be practised in many ways, in any moment and in whatever we may be doing, like while talking to a colleague, sat in a meeting, delivering a presentation, using your phone, walking around the office or eating your lunch at your desk. Although some of the practices in this book will encourage you to close your eyes and focus on your breath, we do hope that you’ll soon realise that the real mindfulness practice is how we choose to conduct ourselves in every moment throughout our busy working day.

3. … about clearing the mind of thoughts

Despite popular beliefs (and hopes!), mindfulness is not about elim-inating, changing, or suppressing our troublesome thoughts and worries about work. Trying to do that will just lead to more upsetting thoughts and frustration; it’s impossible, the thoughts will just rebound (don’t think about all the unanswered emails in your inbox)! Likewise, it’s not about problem-solving or analysing our thoughts away. Mindfulness is about bringing awareness to our thoughts, noticing them and in doing just that we may find that the mind begins to settle and clear all of its own accord. It’s inevitable that you will become distracted by thoughts while you practise mindfulness, and it is important to remember that this is a natural and human phenomenon and just what to expect; distraction is not a sign of failure but something to also be aware and mindful of (read here: notice distractions with non-judgemental awareness, acceptance and compassion). When we bring these qualities to noticing that our mind is distracted in this way, bam(!), we are back in the present moment, practising mindfulness once again.

4. … a sure-fire, quick-fix solution to all your work-related problems

Mindfulness will bring many benefits, relief and effective solutions to many of your work-related dilemmas; however, it is certainly not a panacea. Mindfulness practice is all about cultivating awareness – which is implicitly non-judgemental and accepting (no other agenda, just that) – yet from this a multitude of benefits will no doubt arise for you and your working life generally, simply as a fortunate by-product of your regular practice. Although it is natural to want more of these bene-fits (like feeling calmer, less stressed, more level headed, energised, productive and creative on the job), it is important not to become too preoccupied or attached to them as that is bound to backfire and get in the way of your practice and you actually realising them for yourself. Wanting a specific outcome or wishing things were different is only human, so bringing mindful attention to that ‘natural wanting’ itself too will help to lessen disappointment and frustration when times feel bleak and/or you don’t get what you want. Working life is tough and stressful and mindfulness cannot change that. It can, however, help you to cope and perform better in the face of the inevit-able daily stress, hardship, challenges and struggles that your work is bound to continue to present to you. It is important to remember also that there are many other effective ways to deal with challenges at work (like prioritising items on your agenda to make the most of your time or going for a run on your lunch break to de-stress); mindfulness is all-inclusive, so it is OK to use these strategies too alongside your regular practice.

More about mindfulness for work …

At the most basic level mindfulness comes as a highly effective form of stress-reduction: a relatively simple set of techniques for helping you get through the working day with a little more ease and grace. However, as you start to become more aware of what is really going on in your working life (not just the panics, daydreams and yearnings about what might be) through these simple-to-learn techniques, you will find that a whole range of benefits will become increasingly available to you. Instead of becoming caught in distracting, irrelevant or time-wasting struggles, mindfulness helps the development of more meaningful, clear and focused decision-making. As the use of mindfulness too increases our discernment, we can step back from habitual reactivity, urges and impulses and instead have more clarity of mind, a sharpened focus of attention and the capacity to engage with level-headed creative and fresh approaches in the workplace. These can then also be implemented conscientiously, effectively and in ways which enhance our working environment both in terms of our individual well-being and productivity and in the development of a thriving, healthy business.

We hope that this is all sounding as great to you as it does to us. No doubt, by now you’re just itching to find out more and get started on practising mindfulness some more yourself. So, enough of the blab (for now); let’s keep keeping this real. Here is a classic to get you started:

Exercise 1.3: Mindful on the job

Mindfulness of breathing

We can’t rabbit on enough about this practice. This is the most useful practice of all as it has the wonderful benefit of always being accessible. Whether travelling to and from work, sat at your desk, in a meeting or while public speaking, your breath is always there too. There are simply no excuses (although you are bound to think of loads anyway) unless you have actually kicked the oxygen habit, and then hopefully work-related worries will all be over anyway (but as we have no data on this, we do not recommend this form of stress-reduction).

1. Begin by noticing your body now either sitting, standing, walking, lying down or however it is on this earth at this very moment.
2. You do not need to adjust yourself or your breathing in any special way, or refrain from doing this. Just notice yourself exactly as you are. Whatever thoughts, sensations or emotions arise, they are the ones you want, just exactly as they are.
3. As you become aware of your body, notice the breath being breathed by the body.
4. Notice the physical sensations of one inhalation and one exhalation wherever you notice these most strongly (i.e.: the tip of the nose, over the lips, the back of the throat, the stomach, the rib cage – it doesn’t matter which; just allow one or more of these sensations to take centre stage in your attention).
5. Track each in-breath from its entry point into the body (i.e. tip of the nose, flowing over the lips), as it travels on its journey, down the back of the throat, filling the lungs, and the stomach.
6. Track each out-breath as it makes its outward journey along the same route up and back out of the body.
7. Thoughts, other sensations, urges or emotions may arise: this is nat-ural; there is no need to hook into these, push them away or act on them in any way. Simply notice that this happens (it’s absolutely fine and normal) and be as attentive to the breath as you can be. From each distraction simply return again and again to noticing and tracking the breath. You need do nothing else. Just watch one breath at a time, just for now.
8. Repeat the above from anything between once to hundreds of times a day (we do recommend that you keep this practice going at least once a day – even for a few minutes or so).

What effect does this have?

You may already have observed a multitude of things in this practice, such as many distracting thoughts, a sense of calm, questions about ‘getting it right/wrong’, physical sensations, noises, boredom, frustration, curiosity. Bet that either you can think of several more or we haven’t even mentioned the ones relevant to you. Mindfulness can be likened to putting a microscope on your usual experience and seeing deeply into the minutiae of the mind’s constant activity. Often our normal response is to try and interfere with this – ‘Oh, I don’t like that grubby thought about the guy in accounts, I’ll try to shove that away’, or the like. We start to see the mind struggling and squirming away in the Petri dish of our life (see, told you we liked metaphors), generally not looking too pretty.

We can begin to see our tendencies to judge ourselves (NOT calm enough/good enough/mindful enough), our desire to be other than we are (better/richer/quieter) or elsewhere (Barbados/home/pub); basically we usually are struggling for anything other than this moment and this sets us up for perpetual dissatisfaction as life unfolds in a series of not-quite-right moments – bah humbug! The ‘good’ stuff doesn’t last; it isn’t enough, or is too expensive, health-damaging or difficult to sustain. Our world can shrink to one of lack. Work can look like: not enough pay, not enough appreciation, not enough time, energy or fulfilment. Our strategies for pushing all these depressing thoughts and emotions away are themselves exhausting and generally unsustainable, and our sad trick is usually then to label ourselves as failures or lacking in some way too, or the world as unfair or unforgiving and then it is time to lie on the floor in a puddle and weep . . .

OR … We use mindfulness to observe, like through the microscope, and we just watch. The squirmy thoughts and irritating little emotions stop wriggling about quite so much when we stop prodding them. When we keep our ‘hands off’, so to speak, they usually tend to still a bit and then we find, weirdest of weird, that we might begin to feel a bit … calm (we know, weird, right?). Even if those thoughts and emotions, backaches and odd air-conditioning noises are still being quite active, we realise that we don’t need to do anything with them, not for this moment anyway, and then, another weird thing is that we might notice a sense of … spaciousness – ah, freedom at last!

Before you drift off on a cloud of cosmic bliss, let’s just bring it back to earth. We need calmness and spaciousness on this planet and probably more so in an office near you! So the practicality of spending a few moments watching your breath is enormously beneficial as you will reduce your levels of stress and increase your mental clarity and all the benefits that may come from that, just by using this simple practice, which doesn’t have to take long at all, and, do you know what else too? Julie sitting across the desk doesn’t have to even know that you’re doing it (unless you want to tell her, of course). If you did not find these particular qualities in your brief foray into mindfulness, then leave the concern alone (we said ‘hands off!’) and just notice where you struggle and what arises for you out of this; it will give you clues as to the habitual operating of your mind and that this particular way of thinking/being is quite pernicious. Frequently thoughts can look like: ‘mindfulness is not for me’, ‘I’m not good at this’, ‘this book is cr*p’. The last one is a downright lie, but otherwise hold these thoughts lightly, the best you can, like a butterfly in the palm of your hand, and allow yourself time to develop a new skill; it takes practice, and there is much, much more to come.

‘The simple process of focusing on the breath in a relaxed manner, in a way that teaches you to regulate your emotions by raising one’s awareness of mental processes as they’re happening, is like working out a bicep, but you are doing it to your brain.’

Fadel Zeidan, PhD, University of North Carolina

We thought it might be a good time to share some of what the science tells us about the benefits of mindfulness in the workplace. So let’s get some hard facts down to begin to support all this. There is a fast growing evidence base for the multitude of positive effects that mindfulness can bring to our work and working life and we will continue to share some more of this research with you throughout the book. Here are just a few notes before we start to take a look at some of this research:

1. The benefits of mindfulness at work are also corroborated by an exciting and growing number of studies into particular workplace interventions which include mindfulness as a key element of bringing about psychological and behavioural change. Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACTraining) is one such mindfulness-based intervention which we will refer to now and again and that has shown promising results for both improving job-task performance and reducing stress within the workplace. ACTraining (which is based on the six core processes of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy or ACT, originally developed by the University of Nevada Psychologist, Professor Steven C. Hayes and colleagues) supports the development of workers’ psychological flexibility (more about psychological flexibility in Chapter 6), which involves the practice of a range of mindfulness exercises and techniques as well as many others. First and foremost we want to note that ACT is embedded in the science of human behaviour, language and cognition. Other than mindfulness there are a number of other salient processes and principles at its core, yet it does recognise the centrality of mindfulness in helping workers to more effectively manage thoughts and feelings so that they can ultimately take more committed action towards valued workplace goals.
2. We have collected together a number of studies that demonstrate the efficacy of mindfulness, either generally or specifically, for our work. Although the mindfulness interventions or programmes under investigation in these studies may differ in some way from one another, we have not always highlighted which specific one is being used but we do assure you that the ‘active ingredient’ (mindfulness) is always there and its qualities the same. For example, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) are two very similar eight-week mindfulness courses that are commonly used in the studies mentioned in this book. There is in fact a huge crossover in the content and delivery of these programmes and the mindfulness component is essentially identical in both so we did not feel that within the scope of this book it was always necessary to specify which is being used in each particular study mentioned.
3. We have picked and included some of the juiciest research for you so that you can add a greater sense of confidence to your own explorations as you develop your mindfulness skills at work. It is also extremely useful to understand and share the findings of relevant mindfulness research if you ever have to justify using mindfulness, as some folks are far more inclined to listen to the viewpoint of Professor Clever-Cloggs than to you (unless by weird coincidence you also happen to be Professor Clever-Cloggs). If you wish to make a proposal for including mindfulness programmes, training and implementation at work, you may want to refer to this and the other research related sections in this book and wave them under the noses of your colleagues.
4. PS: just in case you don’t know, a control group is a group which receives no change in their normal conditions (i.e. no mindfulness, medications, relaxation exercises, etc.). This is so that any group with a change (i.e. mindfulness, medications, relaxation exercises, etc.) can be compared to a baseline group. Any quantitative research without a control group is considered by some as quite meaningless. A control group picked at random (randomised control groups/trials) from the participants is usually even better as there will have been no intentional or unintentional biasing towards certain factors in the study (such as men or women, for example). For statistical purposes it is usually important that any research has a sample group of at least 30 participants in order for the results to be considered relevant for the general population (but this does not mean that studies with fewer are irrelevant; they may simply be quite specific to that particular population – e.g. Vietnamese factory workers – or they could just be preliminary findings).

So now that’s all cleared up, take a look at this:

Being in the moment and achieving goals

‘By operating “mindfully” and making critical adjustments in a timely manner, business organisations are better able to manage the unexpected in a challenging, highly competitive environment.’

Karl Weick, University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business

One commonly raised concern about mindfulness and business is that mindfulness and competitive business are at odds with one another. Mindfulness encourages present-focused awareness and attention to the ‘here and now’. Competitive business is focused on outcomes, predictions, goals and future based events. How can the practice of ‘letting go’ of judgements and thoughts and refocusing continually on ‘the moment’ help us to make sensible discriminations, decisions and plans to put these into action effectively? Is it even possible to be mindful and achieve a profit and reach goals or objectives?

Exercise 1.4: Work in progress

Deciding how we choose

Consider the next item on your agenda for the day, perhaps a phone call to a client, a meeting with colleagues or a report to write. Let’s just take a moment before you complete this task to consider what moves you to engage in this activity, what motivates you. Ask yourself:

1. What is motivating me to do this task? For example:
   • (a) Fear of not doing it (i.e. anxiety, fear of failure, being reprimanded, shame, job security, etc.)
   • (b) Desire to get something (i.e. excitement, praise, recognition, money, sense of self-worth, etc.)
   • (c) Automatic pilot (i.e. hadn’t thought about any of this – it’s just what I do!)
   • (d) Something else not mentioned
   • (e) Nothing comes to mind
2. What sensations arise in the body as I think about the task? For example:
   • (a) Stiffness in the shoulders
   • (b) Tightness/butterflies in the belly
   • (c) Stillness
   • (d) Something else
   • (e) Nothing
3. Just for now, what’s there if I don’t look to the answers to Questions 1 and 2 of this exercise (i.e: my habitual, knee-jerk responses) for my motivation? For example:
   • (a) Purpose/Meaning/Satisfaction
   • (b) Liberation
   • (c) Fear/Disorientation
   • (d) Numbness/Blankness/Nothing
   • (e) Don’t know
4. Where in the body do I feel these emotions/sensations? For example:
   • (a) Head, tension
   • (b) Hands, tingling
   • (c) Legs, restless
   • (d) Whole body, still, relaxed
   • (e) No sensations seem to arise
5. To a greater or lesser extent can I now notice both habitual motiv-ation (Questions 1 and 2) and an absence of or alternative kind of motivation to engage in the task (Questions 3 and 4)?
6. Do I now still choose to complete the task?
   Yes – Mindfulness has not hindered your ability to make decisions, in fact now you may even have some sense of a space for actively choosing to complete your task. You may even have a new way of seeing motivation when released from a habitual response. You are gaining insight into the nature of yourself and your relationship with work, and continued investigation with mindfulness practice will help you understand this process further; read on and keep practising.
   Maybe – With an awareness of your struggle to engage in the task right now, see equally, a new awareness of another aspect of this moment’s reflection which requires you to do what is necessary and needed in this moment. You can still complete the task even if you feel averse to doing it. This is because you can mindfully recognise that other factors seem more important than your reluctance to engage, and as such you can still choose to do the task. If you feel strongly that the task is not necessary or needed (right now), leave the task undone; it is not necessary or needed (in this moment at least)!
   Don’t know – How often do we allow ourselves not to know what we want? See if you can just allow this for a while, maybe something will change, maybe not, but you may be able to give yourself enough space to find out rather than simply reacting habitually. If not knowing becomes intolerable, then either look to the chapter on how to ‘Maintain peak performance’ (Chapter 6) or just repeat Exercise 1.3 from earlier on in this chapter, another time or two; don’t get too hung up on getting it ‘right’ and if you must you can still do the task not knowing if you want to do it (because this is probably what you’ve already been doing for so long anyway)!
   No – Mindfulness has aided you in making a decision not to complete this task (right now or maybe ever). You have clarity that this task is not serving you or aligning with your personal or work-related values and what really matters to you most right now (there’s more on ‘values’ to come, in Chapter 6) in this moment.

Take a moment to reflect for yourself if this brief process has enabled you to understand mindfulness as a tool for making sensible, clear and considered decisions. For instance, if a task could wait, but normally you would push on and skip lunch out of habitual impatience and anxiety (maybe you noticed in a tension in your back), this time you recognise the impatience and back pain, and see that if you don’t look to impatience for motivation you actually feel disengaged and have sensations of hunger, knowing that this task could actually wait (no urgent necessity or need) – then off you trot for lunch, coming back later refreshed and with increased energy for the task. And then you take a look at an article on how skipping lunch is actually detrimental to your overall performance on the job (take a look at the article from City A.M. listed in the ‘Useful resources’ section at the end of this chapter) to reinforce your new behaviour. Perhaps you are making the same choice you would’ve made if you just fired on ‘automatic’, but this time you have considered your motivation rather than just being reactive. This present-based focusing (which can be cultivated through regular mindfulness practice) can take no more than a few seconds and yet may be just enough to start a radical (and helpful) shift in how you choose to engage with your work. You may even develop a new passion and thirst for work as you look beneath your habitual responses and see something else there which offers you a choice and clarity in how you respond to your working day.

We hope that this book will show you how mindfulness can greatly enhance your decision-making abilities at work, improving your product-ivity and overall performance. Making decisions while on the job can be an arduous and at times frenetic task. Our fear of making the wrong decision means that we can put off making them for some time. Conversely, feeling under pressure means that at other times decisions can be made rather carelessly in the heat of the moment and we may regret knee-jerk responses later on. Mindfulness can help us along the way throughout the whole decision-making process, from identifying when a decision needs to be made, what decision actually needs to be made, acting on it, to appraising it. Here are three further ways that mindfulness can really improve your decision-making and performance while on the job:

1. Identifying when and what to decide

When the heat is on and we feel under pressure, our decision-making can be very poor. We may make quick and rash decisions, sometimes conforming to social pressure without any real consideration of how any decision links to our own personal objectives or values (again there’s more on values in Chapter 6, later on). Mindfulness can help us to pause and reflect, to consider whether a decision actually needs to be made now and if so what the best course of action actually is, based on what matters most to us at that given time. This way we can be sure that we will be comfortable with the decision we make later on and that the decision we end up making is meaningful and doesn’t take us away from our goals and objectives. Practising mindfulness strengthens our ability to retain focus and clarity around the dilemma/s at hand, helping us to weed out irrelevant information, meaning that we are less likely to rely on stereotypes in our decision-making and more likely to base our decisions on relevant and useful information.

2. Acting on decisions

Mindfulness helps us to gain some distance from our thoughts and emotions, which can often serve as obstacles to effective decision-making and taking purposeful action. All decisions will be accompanied with a degree of uncertainty, and mindfulness can help us to manage our fear of the unknown and increase our confidence and tolerance in the face of uncertainty (more of this in Chapter 3), meaning we are less likely to procrastinate around putting our considered decisions into action.

3. Appraising and learning from our decisions

Reflecting on our decisions (not just the ones that work out well!) is a crucial feature of the decision-making process that many of us tend to forget about. Mindfulness keeps us self-aware, meaning that we are more likely to consider the effectiveness of our decisions and learn from them, helping us to continue to improve our decision-making competencies in the longer term. Listening to feedback is not easy (more on this in Chapter 5), especially in the cut-throat reality of the corporate world. Mindfulness helps us to open up to negative feedback and use it proactively.

Arguably, making decisions mindfully may appear to take more time, but the care and attention given to each stage of the decision-making process may in fact save you time and lead to you making more effective decisions in the long run.

We do hope to show you that it is our focus on the present which actually frees us up to making the best possible choices about our future and in achieving our goals in ways which can maximise their success. What is actually required is a radical paradigm shift within ourselves to consider that there are alternative ways of operating which may be more beneficial to ourselves and our workforce than those which we may have previously been trying to utilise. Small changes in our perspective, such as when using Exercise 1.4 above, can have larger ramifications for our motivation and engagement with our workload, our teams, colleagues and our business as a whole. We can begin to see more clearly into the kinds of ways we habitually operate and then look beyond those to something new, which is not necessarily so driven, self-critical and ultim-ately damaging to our quality of work, our well-being or our company dynamics. For many years now, despite the boom of business in the Western world and developing countries, the motto has been aggressive business. But business paradigms are changing. For example, in the 1960s Nike’s mission statement was ‘Crush Adidas’. In the 1980s it was ‘Crush Reebok’. Nike’s current mission statement is ‘To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.’

Mindfulness calls us to explore this and challenges concepts which many of us are tiring of, such as the ‘dog eat dog’ mentality, which create so much stress, unsustainability and ultimately are bad for business (more on this in Chapter 7). We do not need to lose our ‘edge’ or eradicate competition, but actually hone these with cool clarity rather than aggressive reactivity. When we understand the exponential growth of work-related stress, depression or anxiety in the workplace (estimated in the UK in 2014/15 by the Labour Force Survey and reported by the Health and Safety Executive) to be 440,000 out of a total of 1,200,000 cases for all work-related illnesses, and how work-related stress accounts for 43 per cent of all working days lost due to ill health, and we can also see the emerging research on the effectiveness of mindfulness in the workplace, we cannot ignore that a shift is both timely and needed.

Indeed, the change in the ethos of business is already alive and kicking. This book has been commissioned, written and published because mindfulness has something to offer the business community and there is a thirst for that among the global workforce. First Direct, HMP service, The US Military, Nike, Monsanto (to name just a few more!) are investing their precious time and resources into mindfulness training programmes because they are showing results which benefit their employees, without whom there would be no business.

Mercenary mindfulness business

The other side of the coin regarding mindfulness’s role in business comes from a debate within and between Buddhist communities and practitioners for whom mindfulness is part of a broader spiritual practice which also involves ethics, compassion and community. Many large corporations with interests which sometimes conflict with local community and environmental concerns or issues of social welfare, use mindfulness, but not necessarily in an apparently ethical, compassionate or community-minded way. So are competition, individualism and profit-making at odds with mindfulness?

The main argument here is that businesses are using mindfulness not for the purpose it was originally intended (read here: to awaken people from delusion, animosity, selfishness and greed). Instead it is used as a watered-down quick-fix technique to become less stressed, more focused and productive in the hope of generating greater profit, and in doing so there is the danger of actually reinforcing and even exacerbating mindlessness and the exact distasteful human qualities (such as the greed that seems to fuel boom and bust) that mindfulness was initially intended to heal. It is all well and good should executives become more productive and better focused as a by-product of their mindfulness practice, but are their intentions to practise aligned with social ethics and genuinely held beliefs around the goodness of wise action for the enhancement of compassion and social harmony? Is their practice in the service of promoting human flourishing and the well-being of all others or just their own? It is further criticised that in a rush to secure greater profits via the reduction in stress and enhancement of cognitive prowess among their workforces, businesses are simply plastering over the wounds inflicted upon their employees while not acknowledging (but instead concealing) the real underlying cultural problems and causes of stress within their organisations. Further, as a decontextualised offering, easily and neatly packaged into wellness programmes, mindfulness may appear strikingly attractive to organisations as it conveniently passes the buck on to the individual employee: i.e. a way of providing Joe in compliance with a new self-help tool to manage his personal stress, rather than acknowledging and reforming the dysfunctional systems at a cultural and organisational level.

However, even with all this said, another question occurs to us: is mindfulness even possible without compassion, community mindedness and ethics? Well, we’d say, basically, no, it isn’t. Mindfulness is awakeness, seeing things as they are. When our self-esteem and self-worth are attached to particular outcomes, such as achieving a certain goal or status, a sense of pressure, anxiety and tension is naturally activated. This clouds our vision and contact with our heart’s deepest desires. We can misinterpret this anxiety as something motivating; however, it can also be viewed as craving. The distinction is one that can arise from awakeness and then there is choice – whether to take prosocial, or unwholesome less socially harmonious action. Mindfulness practice cannot and will not eradicate the egocentric tendencies that exist in each of us but it can and does awaken us to notice these, and the very shackles that bind us tightly to them. From this awakened state we are then able to more freely choose personal actions that are aligned with what truly matters most to us, our colleagues, workforces and the welfare of society at large.

The debate about secular mindfulness is ongoing and complex, and often highly personal. We, as authors, offer you mindfulness in the same spirit that we practise as psychologists. That is, that we hope that you will use these skills, which we have developed through our own experience and practice, helping many others and ourselves, to alleviate suffering. If this suffering is alleviated through stress reduction, higher company profits or making deeply compassionate ethical choices, then welcome. Although we care deeply and hold some concerns about the secularisation of mindfulness and particularly how traditional Buddhist ideals may be lost in translation (more on this in Chapter 8), you can also hear that we don’t share the same level of scepticism held by the critics of the corporate mindfulness movement. Although it is early days and arguably there is not yet any hard proof as to the deeper or lasting wholesome impact that mindfulness may have on corporate working culture, we do nonetheless hold faith that in time a positive transform-ation will occur. We need this faith and there is also great value in patience while continuing to observe what unfolds moment by moment. For now, we would like to restate that in our own work with organisations and businesses, we have heard from self-report and witnessed first-hand how mindfulness training and ongoing practice has given rise to a more natural compassion towards the colleagues, superiors, customers, the wider organisation and even the competitors of the executives, managers and senior leaders that we’ve trained. This compassion has extended beyond the confines of the corporate world to wider society and specifically to those less fortunate. We also want to note the growing scientific evidence that supports the fact that mindfulness actually does train compassion and acts of altruism. And here’s some of it below, for you to consider yourself.

We’re not here, writing this book to change the world, nor to bring down large corporations or end global suffering in the widest sense, once and for all (as if we’d be so arrogant)! We write this book in our professional capacity, in the service of helping others to alleviate their suffering, others whose lives we may be fortunate to touch, as best we can and if that gives rise to a natural, wider, larger (or even organisational) transform-ation, then so be it. We are hopeful that as mindfulness continues to alleviate stress, more space is created from within which the human and inherent prosocial qualities and drives (which we believe we each hold) of kindness, compassion, openness, acceptance and goodwill can and will then more naturally flow.

We will see the themes discussed in this chapter of the book emerging and recurring periodically throughout the rest of the book as they are so central to mindfulness and business. But for now, simply consider that by engaging with mindfulness you are becoming part of a new wave of creative and intelligent individuals who are helping their businesses to be more successful.

Below is a list of some of the most salient action points that you might like to take away from this chapter.

So, we’ve come to the end of this first chapter. How are you doing? Sold? If you aren’t yet totally convinced, that is absolutely fine. A degree of scepticism will keep you inquiring and investigating as long as you are open-minded enough to give this a try. If you are not willing to invest some more energy and attention to trying mindfulness as a tool for yourself and/or your work/business, then neither are you in a valid position to knock it. But since you have chosen to even entertain looking at this book, then we think you might already be willing! Hopefully your questions and queries will become enlivened and enriched through this particular book which we hope will also engage you in the dynamic debates occurring about mindfulness and business.

• Adams, J. (2011, May). Mindfulnet organization: The business case for mindfulness – companies who have adopted mindfulness practices [Mindfulnet.org]. Retrieved from: http://www.themindfulbrain.net/uploads/8/7/5/2/8752798/the_business_case_for_mindfulness_in_the_workplace.pdf
• George, B. (2015, July 27). The power of mindful leadership [The Huffington Post Blog]. Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-george/the-power-of-mindful-lead_b_7878482.html
• Huffington, A. (2013, March 18). Mindfulness, meditation, wellness and their connection to corporate America’s bottom line [The Huffington Post Blog]. Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/corporate-wellness_b_2903222.html
• Marturano, J. [Institute for Mindful Leadership]. (2014, January 27). How to be a mindful leader [video file]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsaZjFS0aAU
• Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Group (January 2015). Mindful Nation UK: Interim report of the Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Group (MAPPG) [oxfordmindfulness.org]. Retrieved from: http://www.oxfordmindfulness.org/wp-content/uploads/mindful-nation-uk-interim-report-of-the-mindfulness-all-party-parliamentary-group-january-2015.pdf
• Morris, J. (2015, January 6). Bupa: Workers who skip lunch risk harming their productivity [City A.M. News]. Retrieved from: http://www.cityam.com/206521/city-workers-skipping-lunch-risk-hurting-their-work--performance
• Polk, K. [Dr. Kevin Polk]. (2015, April 26). How to do mindfulness in 5 minutes (or a lot less time) [video file]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaZNSgjdxuQ
• Wong, K. (2014, April 08). There’s no price tag on a clear mind: Intel to launch mindfulness program (sic) [The Guardian]. Retrieved from: http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/price-intel-mindfulness-program-employee