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Be intentional
The question is, how could mindfulness be best incorporated into workplace culture? And why should we even think to do that or want to do that? The answer is any way you can. But the first thing is, well who wants to do it? Linking into the whole question of like where this is all coming from? Intentionality or what the Dalai Lama likes to talk about is motivation. It’s like your essential motivation is the most important thing. Why do you want to bring mindfulness into the workplace? Does somebody want a workforce to be more mindful so that they can be exploited to work harder, faster on an assembly line or something like that? That would not be an ethical use of mindfulness. If we’re talking about bringing mindfulness into the workplace because that’s where we spend almost all of our time and it can be so stressful that we need to, in some sense, fine-tune the instrument so that the work gets done. But a lot of work that gets done probably shouldn’t be done. And a lot of the work that needs to be done, very often isn’t done because we’re multitasking so much of the time. And we’re so eyeballing the next result that we’ve lost touch with the reason we’re doing the work in the first place.
Maybe we need to recalibrate or reassess what we mean by work even. And what is the value of that work in the world? Because work that doesn’t add value to the world, in some way, it really shouldn’t be. And then work that does add value to the world, everybody who does the work needs to be equally honored for it. So that has to do … because very often in hierarchical corporations or companies and so forth, it’s only the people at the top of the organization that wind up benefiting. And everybody else is, in some sense, doing the work, but not benefiting equally from it. Because we haven’t created a culture, and that’s not true for all corporations, where everybody feels that they were a part of it. The word organization is the same root as organism, every cell contributes to the life of the organism. So the people who are like cleaning the building, or who are taking the phone calls, or who are doing the xeroxing or whatever it is, those people are contributing as much to the overall end contribution of the work as anybody else.
Aim for mindful leadership
And there have been instances, remarkable instances, Aetna an example where the CEO, Mark Bertolini instituted mindfulness and yoga programs for their employees. And more than 10 or 13,000 people have been through that. But not only that, but one day he woke up, mark Bertolini did, and he decided that he wanted to raise the wages significantly for all of the workers in the bottom tier of the Aetna Corporation. Now that to me is kind of enlightened leadership. That is mindful leadership. That is heartful leadership. And it doesn’t mean that he’s lost his mind and he’s gone daft and will soon be ejected by the board of directors. It’s probably, he’s, I’m guessing, as competitive as anybody else, and maybe seeing a competitive edge in being kind, and in being wise, and being compassionate for the people who are actually delivering the goods for the benefit of whoever your customer base is or whatever language you want to use. And for the greater good of the society.
Because if we bring mindfulness into the work setting in an infinite number of different ways, that’s only limited by our imagination and creativity, then people will be much happier at work. And when they go home, they’ll be much happier because their work will have been recognized. And we all want that, the recognition that you have contributed to something bigger than you is huge. And that’s where the wisdom comes in. That’s where understanding what the real calling of the work is. So you have to have your ear to the rail pretty much all the time, but of course not without stressing yourself out about it. So again, the love affair element of it comes in, why not love what we do? And I don’t mean that in some airy-fairy romantic way, but why not actually get right into the messiness of work and try to understand how we could restructure it so that everybody feels that they are deriving benefit.