How Mindful Are You In Your Work?

“Work is only part of life. But work is life only when done in mindfulness. Otherwise, one becomes like the person who lives as though dead” – Thich Nhat Hanh

How mindful are you at work? To be mindful is to live in the present moment. That is hard enough to do on a meditation cushion, and the stillness of the morning or evening, much less in the cut and thrust of a busy workday. And how does one remain present whilst analyzing the past and forecasting and planning for the future? How does on remain present when customers are upset, orders are late, employees are disgruntled, or absent, or leaving, cash is short and profits are declining? How does one remain present in the crises, large and small that beset a business every day?

These are some of the questions that arise for business leaders who are attempting to close the gap between their personal and business lives. Work IS life, and a major part of life at that. We spend more than half of our waking hours preparing for, travelling to and from and being at work. Yet many of us are far from present in this huge chunk of our life.

Simply put, being mindful at work requires us to be totally focused on who we are with and what task we are performing at each and every moment. If we are on a phone call, we are on that phone call and nothing else – no checking e-mail or writing a report. We are totally present to and listening to the person on the other end. If we are in a meeting, we are in that meeting and nowhere else – not thinking about lunch, or furtively checking e-mails, or reading other material. We are totally present to the people in that meeting, what they are saying and the agenda at hand.

Now, you may think that you don’t have the time to be fully present – with so many things to do, how can you just do one thing at a time? Because that’s all a human being is capable of doing – one thing at a time. In the workshops that I facilitate, I ask participants to turn off their WMDs “Weapons of Mass Distraction”. The workshop ALWAYS works better and is more productive when participants comply. Always. Interestingly, I have facilitated a number of focus groups with high school students and I am always amazed at how quickly they get the work done. Why? Because they are totally focused and present. And these are TEENAGERS!

Doing your work in mindfulness will result in:

o Improved customer satisfaction – the customers you interact with will feel listened to and cared for. In this listening, you will learn more deeply about their needs and how you can satisfy them. Customers love to talk! Give them your full attention and they will give you many answers
o Improved employee satisfaction and productivity – the team members that you interact with will feel cared for and treasured. And, as the Harvard Business Review of Jan/Feb 2012 pointed out, happy employees are 31% more productive!
o Greater personal satisfaction with your work – and less stress! Nothing causes stress like our efforts at multitasking!
o A mindful culture – your team members will adopt the same behaviour over time, thus embedding it into the culture

THE BALANCED SCORECARD

The crux of the Balanced Scorecard is the measure. A “measure” defines how success in achieving an objective will be tracked. Simply put, it specifies what we will count. This is where the rubber hits the road in terms of accountability. It is at this point when I am facilitating the development of strategy that the group gets quiet and some resistance starts rearing its head, for measures define what people in the organization will be held accountable for.

A helpful analogy is sport. All sports use measures throughout the game. Cricket has a scoreboard that tracks every single play – bowling, batting, fielding. We don’t wait until the end of the game to declare a winner – the team knows at every step how they are performing and they are therefore able to adjust their tactics to suit. Tennis, football, baseball – all have measures that track performance. Anyone who has ever played a sport understands performance measurement and just needs to apply it to organizational performance.

Many people also have a hard time conceptualizing how we can measure objectives that are not financial or operational. Yet we can and we do. When identifying the Customer and Learning and Growth measures I suggest a simple approach – ask the customers and ask the employees. Ask customers what they want, how satisfied they are, what else you can do for them. Ask your team members what they want, how satisfied they are and what else you can do for them. Ask them how well you lead. Ask them regularly and track their responses over time.

Also track their behaviour through objective data – are they leaving (turnover)? Are customers referring your business to others (great indicator of their satisfaction)? Are employees performing to standard (performance evaluation scores)?

Always remember the advice from Dr. Kaplan: “What you measure you manage, and what you manage gets done”.

TAKE ONE ACTION

Try being present at work today. Even if just for one hour, approach a task as Thich Nhat Hanh does: “I clean this teapot with the kind of attention I would have were I giving the baby Buddha or Jesus a bath”.

Approach a meeting as if it were a meeting with Buddha, Jesus or some other enlightened being. Be fully present and observe what happens.

INTERESTING LINKS

Stephen Colbert addresses multitasking in his usual hilarious way. Watch, laugh and learn a very serious lesson: -you can’t be present if you are trying to multitask. – click to view article

Before you think of serving and satisfying your customers, think about how you hire them. This article outlines why you should think of customers in this way. Once you have read it, think about what you could do differently. – click to view article