Why a Mindfulness Practice is Important for Every Manager

Every Manager is not a Leader even though good leadership qualities and skills are what makes a great manager.  Leading and managing go hand in hand, yet there is a distinct difference between managing and leading.  

Simply put, managing is about the hard stuff - productivity, quality, money, resources and outputs etc. – that can be measured.  

Leadership is about the soft stuff – to be mindful, have respect, listen, appreciate and inspire to create a positive, appreciative and happy work culture, so people meet the organizational goals and objectives and meet their own too.  

On the other hand, when things are not going well, a good leader will become mindful to park the emotions and know when to have a rational coaching conversation - and it does not mean there are no consequences for mistakes or failures.  

A good leader will manage these situations strategically by being present and aware - may even impose penalties, yet create learning and change without impacting on people’s self esteem.

Why is this important?

Lightning speed of change, high expectations, changing priorities, and doing more with less in today’s organizations creates tremendous stress and emotion.  If that is not complex enough, diversity of people and varied expectations add to the challenge of managing and leading.

Leadership gurus Kouzes & Posner in their book - “Leadership Challenge” identified five timeless virtues of great leaders; 

·       Challenging the Process

·       Inspiring a Shared Vision

·       Enabling Others to Act

·       Modelling the Way

·       Encouraging the Heart

 <http://www.leadershipchallenge.com/home.aspx>

Every manager has to balance all these to be a good leader.

Apart from critical thinking, analytical, problem solving and decision making skills – the hard stuff requires, logical and rational intelligence, yet it is these soft virtues that keep organizations humming.  

They require emotional intelligence - being aware to manage own feelings, needs, thoughts and actions, as well to understand others - their feelings and needs. 

 

This is where mindfulness comes in. Being mindful and self aware, we can find the balance between our cognitive skills, mental acuity and emotional intelligence. 

A regular meditation practice helps keep the mind sharp and aware to improve the ability to become present and introspective when needed - to listen well, get clarity and to be intuitive to know and witness what is happening in the team.

 

Becoming present and aware enables the manager to know the subtle nuances, the body language of others and the energy in the room.  All this emerge as useful information in the process of managing, especially when there is a need for a difficult conversation with a team member or a client.   

 

Being able to move from thoughts to awareness mindfully when there is push-back, enables the manager to pause, even for a minute, to gain some space to move away from emotion to logic and reason.  This way the manager can respond with an appropriate strategy to approach the issue more skillfully.

The Practice and Process

Meditation with a focused concentration on the breath at the tip of your nostril is the first basic step for mindfulness.  It is like learning the scales of the piano as knowing and embodying the sound of the notes, we can make music.  

Meditation helps us to stop the thought process, which usually speaks to us at about 750 words per minute.   Our thoughts also have a life of its own, taking us on wild trips of fancy or fear, based on the past or expectations of the future.   This is called the “monkey mind” -  as the monkey jumps from branch to branch, our thoughts flit from one to another.  It is akin to being on a bucking horse and at the mercy of the animal, and what meditation does is to take a hold of the reins, and take control of our mind.

Meditation’s practical purpose in organizational management is to help us get a hold of our runaway thoughts that can lead to an emotional reaction.  This way we can actually stop and examine, inquire into, think critically, question and validate those thoughts, as most of the time, they may not represent the reality of a situation.  

Our thoughts may stoke fears from the past – for instance; a new colleague who reminds you of a bully from your school days – hence those old fears may dominate your current thoughts and actions.   

The Four Questions for Clarity

I use and teach a simple tool called Four Questions for Clarity, based on non-violent communications (NVC) that will help stop the thought process - breathe in and observe; acknowledge the feeling and need; diffuse the emotion and take skillful rational action to move forward with.

Stopping the thought enables us to pause and inquire, think critically to validate the “truth” of that uneasiness about the new colleague.  This helps to acknowledge the dominant emotion – feeling of fear or anxiety - inquire into the need that is not being met - safety - to manifest the feeling.  

Bringing these emotions to the surface of your mind, helps to take the power away from them and put things in perspective. 

This way, we may clear our mind to become logical and have an inquiring conversation with the new colleague to realize, he is not the kind of person that you judged him to be.   Such is the power of mindfulness.   

A Commitment to a Practice

These mindfulness tools require a commitment and patience to practice and embody them.  This practice enables access to them to gain space to think rationally when you most need it – at the heat of the moment, a time of stress and when your limits are pushed to the edge. 

The mark of a good manager is the ability to take this stress with equanimity - to not indulge in emotions, but to learn to acknowledge them and find ways to act logically and rationally on a consistent basis.      

Being mindful enhances your leadership qualities and virtues, as then you may win the team’s trust and inspire them to action.   

As a mindful manager, you may find more meaning and purpose in the good work you do, not only to get the hard stuff done, but also balance it with the soft, so your team finds meaning and purpose in their work too.

Feelings, Illusions and Critical Thinking: Lessons from Brexit and Trump

I could not dig; I dared not rob: 
Therefore I lied to please the mob. 
Now all my lies are proved untrue 
And I must face the men I slew. 
What tale shall serve me here among 
Mine angry and defrauded young?  - Rudyard Kipling 

Kipling’s poem Dead Statesman amply describes Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson "defrauding the young" in propagating Brexit in the United Kingdom and then running for cover when they won.  

The surprising outcome of Brexit based on emotions rather than logic is evidence of yet another example of why we have to be educated differently – contemplative, reflective, inquiry based, with mindfulness so we learn about self first – our own strengths and weaknesses - and then to be inquiring - think critically, to complement the analytical and logical.  This way, we may take a holistic approach to the rights and responsibilities the universal franchise gives us in a democratic world.     

In the UK - it was a shock to many who realized they had just left the European Union, then to experience cognitive dissonance – the buyer’s remorse with the choice they made.  This ill conceived referendum showed how vulnerable we are, when we let our emotions of frustration, fear and insecurity dominate and not think deeply and critically about important decisions that impact so many in an interconnected world.  

So, what do we learn from Bexit?

The key here is whether everyone who exercised their right had all the information or did they get duped by spin and their own emotional biases?.   

Is it a phenomenon of the 20^th and 21^st centuries where we have been educated somewhat, but not quite and then we have the media?.    As a result we know a little about a lot and when it comes to the crunch, our emotions get the better of us.

This is why, even with a small critical mass of supporters, sociopaths and psychopaths like Pol Pot, Hitler, the apartheid leaders in South Africa, and leaders of DAESH (ISIS), Farage, Le Pen and the Trumps of today – gain so much power and momentum to possibly do horrendous deeds to humanity.  

They seem to prey on the vulnerable, who hand over their power under the delusion that these leaders will save them, from whatever “evil” they lay blame on – immigrants, Islam, infidels – even if the perceived threats are real or not.

This article is not to condemn the likes of Farage and Trump, as none of this is black and white.  Part of their diverse following likes their "disrupter"politics that challenge the status quo - the establishment - corporate and Wall Street driven republican and democrat emperors who are being shown without their clothes. 

My purpose is to inquire into how well, we the people, can differentiate their good vs not so good assertions and policies, to find a balance, to think for ourselves and make informed decisions on extremely important issues that face us today for our sustenance, resilience, peace and harmony as a world.    

Emotional Conditioning

Our vulnerability emerges from emotional biases embedded in us, as significant people and influences – our parents, grandparents, teachers, religions, political leaders, culture, the media and the movies – have shaped our thinking, our worldview, which form our mental models.     

However, as our brains grow and our capacity to think and reason evolves from the child mind to the adult mind, we have the mental capacity to move away from being self-centered and emotional - to expand awareness to higher order learning to become more rational, so we adapt to changing society and surroundings.    

Yet, the human mind is averse to change - we cling to how things were - culture, religion, language, familiar surroundings – as an anchor, even though, every second, every day, with time we take a step towards our demise.  

This reality of inevitable change and death manifests suffering that leads to our fears and vulnerability. This is why it is crucial to take control of our wild and ruminating mind through the inner work of reflection, contemplation and mindfulness practices, as then we may quiet the mind to gain the wisdom and accept nature’s impermanence.   

If we do not take control of our runaway mind, we depend on the outer world, the five senses seeking external solutions for our problems and challenges and not take personal responsibility. Many adults then remain in the child mind, dependent on “experts”, political leaders or the media and make decisions based on superficial knowledge.  

This is why so many took a high profile campaign such as Boris Johnson’s Brexit bus boasting - "We send the EU £350 million a week - let's fund our NHS instead”, seriously without asking questions for deeper clarity.

Nick Cohen wrote after the fact in his Guardian article - There are liars and then there’s Boris Johnson and Micheal Gove (June 25^th, 2016);

Never has a revolution in Britain’s position in the world been advocated with such carelessness. The Leave campaign has no plan.

Our Unconscious Incompetence

The trouble is that most of us do not realize that we do not know – unconscious incompetence.  

Psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University attribute this to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize our own ineptitude to evaluate our own ability accurately.   Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which many of us suffer an illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing our ability to be much higher than it really is.

Their research shows the scope of our ignorance is often invisible to us.  This meta-ignorance (or ignorance of ignorance) arises due to lack of expertise and knowledge, often hiding in the realm of the “unknown unknowns” or disguised by erroneous beliefs and background knowledge that only appear to be sufficient to conclude a right answer.

So, we take hard stands on serious issues without considering the complexities, the web of interconnections and implications on the whole system - often driven by our emotions.

These result in many delusions that we are seeing in seemingly educated and well informed people as they support Donald Trump or the Brexit leavers who are now having second thoughts.  

According to David Dunning in his article The Psychological Quirk that Explains Why you Love Donald Trump in Politico Magazine (May 25^th 2016);

 In voters, lack of expertise would be lamentable but perhaps not so worrisome if people had some sense of how imperfect their civic knowledge is.  If they did, they could repair it. But the Dunning-Kruger Effect suggests that some voters, especially those facing significant distress in their life, might like some of what they hear from Trump, but they do not know enough to hold him accountable for the serious gaffes he makes. They fail to recognize those gaffes as missteps. 

That is really dangerous, as Hitler’s supporters did the same.  Hitler’s architect and minister of armaments, Albert Speer’s book Inside the Third Reich gives a chilling account of how ordinary people went with the flow to do horrible things or stand by as they happened.  

His reflections on his personal struggle shows how easy it is to get swayed to aid and abet, even genocide, in the self interest of what he thought of was good work as he focussed on his duties in return for acceptance, praise, recognition and privilege.  

This why we have to become aware of;

• Misinformed political participants who can be so confident in their knowledge to support the worst tyrant without realizing so, with the expectation that they will have some gain.
• The intellectual inability to grasp complex policies and the inability to recognize our own lack of that ability – this causes delusion.
• Leaders pandering to those deluded masses who are misinformed and misguided to reinforce them to keep them on a hook 
• How leaders use bravado as a means of keeping supporter interest and focus them away from the reality. 

Donald Trump is a master at this.

The Importance of Critical Thinking

It is also interesting at a time when the education system is focussing on critical thinking, young people are actually thinking critically, judging by Bernie Sander’s supporters and the UK percentage of the young that voted to stay.

According to the 21^st Century Lexicon, critical thinking is, “the mental process of actively and skilfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information to reach an answer or conclusion.”

It requires us to be reflective to interpret what we see and hear based on our own skills, attitude and most importantly, our biases and prejudices.  Knowing of the Dunning-Kruger effect makes it even more important for us to be aware of those, especially the emotional biases that railroad us into making bad choices. 

Critical thinking involves the mind, hence being mindful and present helps us to recognize what is intended to mislead, to listen to eloquence without being carried away, and learning to live a life of inquiry.  A habit of asking “why” a few times helps to get to the root cause and test what we are hearing and believe is really true.

Being mindful and aware, helps control our own emotional biases, to view our own and other’s beliefs with detachment, so we can become rational and logical to judge issues on their merits by ascertaining relevant facts and weighing the arguments – usually, for or against.

Being mindful and aware also helps us to put a mirror on ourselves to become habitual to question assumptions. 

Philosopher and Logician Bertrand Russel on critical thinking (1) - advises us to learn not to be credulous, to apply constructive doubt in order to test un-examined beliefs, and resist the notion that some authority, a great philosopher or a leader perhaps, has captured the whole truth.

Finally, I end this inquiry with The Buddha’s Kalama Sutta who also gave us some sound advice 2600 years ago;

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.  Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.  Do not believe anything because it is spoken by many.  Do not believe in anything because it is written in your religious books. 

Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.

...But by observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and the benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it”

(1) https://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Educ/EducHare.htm

Letting Go to Create an Equitable World; A Needs based Approach to Values

I presented this paper on 20^th January 2016 in Ottawa, Canada as a part of a Canadian Association for the Club of Rome (CACOR) session co-facilitated with Sheila Murray and Gabriela Greff-Innis as an  emergent living inquiry on -The Search for Values that will Make a World of Difference, where we explored ways of “Learning to Live Differently”.  

The Context

Our economic growth model has been achieved at the expense of natural and social capital. The creation of wealth has resulted in an underclass of poverty, inequality and destruction of our natural ecosystem diminishing our bio-capacity. We have put value on GDP based on false assumptions and distortions to favor a growth at the expense of human well being and justice. This model values efficiency over equity, machines over people and development over the environment, leaving a majority of people not meeting their basic needs. 

In this context, this article inquires into Values that drive this world. Realizing the limitation of these superficial values, what other kind of Values should we focus on to create a more equitable, resilient and a sustainable world?.  

I also acknowledge how difficult it is to make transitions when a certain way of being is hardwired in us.  The article presents a few interesting models for transition, to consider both at a personal and a community level.

    

Emotions, Values, Ethics and Morals

A conversation about values, ethics and morals is not complete without looking at how one embodies and lives them based on our needs. Our behavior is shaped by our emotions, which arises through our feelings when a need is met or not met. 

As such;

•  We share many basic feelings, needs and values
•  Many needs go beyond those required for survival, so we can thrive not just survive
•  Feelings are the expression of met or unmet needs and serve to motivate us to fulfill our needs.  Emotions are the combination of feelings and needs.
• Everything we do - even our vile behavior - is an attempt to meet our needs.

As a human, our needs go beyond those required for survival - to thrive, to find power, meaning and purpose in life.  For most living the western multicultural model, apart from autonomy, it is to be valued, appreciated, respected as individuals and for others, especially indigenous and aboriginal communities, it is to belong and to be one with nature.

When those needs are not met, feelings of frustration and anger will arise to form emotions.  Those feelings will manifest themselves in thoughts leading to action - assertive or aggressive, and if there is a power equation, it may be passive. When there is a passive reaction, pent up emotions can arise, which later may lead to aggression or manifest itself as illness or despair.  When emotions arise, we do have a choice as to how we react and this depends on how evolved we are in our brains and minds. 

  

In the Inspiring Transition program of Andrew Gaines -  http://www.inspiringtransition.net/participants, he presents John Corrigan’s work – Group 8 Education - http://gr8education.com/, John Corrigan identifies the brain in two zones; the Red Zone – the child mind and the Blue Zone – the adult mind.

Red Zone – The Child Mind	Blue Zone – Adult Mind
Can undertake simple tasks Respond to reward and punishment Have emotions that are overwhelming Are self-centred Are impulsive Cannot imagine a future different from today Cautious in engaging with the world	Are self-aware Can expand awareness through higher order learning Are social and can adapt to changing surroundings and society Have the ability to imagine, plan and achieve a different future Don’t blindly react to emotions, have availability of choice and the ability to put off gratification

Many adults are yet stuck in the child mind for various reasons of nature and nurture.  The adult mind can reason, differentiate and discern, has high self esteem, and is confident, collaborative and creative.

Values and Needs

Yet we have the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which informs us of the following;

1.  Biological and Physiological needs – air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep.

2. Safety needs – protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, freedom from fear.

3. Social needs – belongingness, affection and love, – from work group, family, friends, romantic relationships.

4. Esteem needs – achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, self-respect, respect from others.

5. Self-Actualization needs – realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.

When our first and second order needs are not met, unless we are highly evolved in our minds to control our emotions (adult mind), our values and ethics go out the window as our primal reptilian survival brain kicks in and we move into our child mind.  Even an evolved adult mind is challenged here and the most vile, reptilian behaviours - even to hurt and kill another, will arise when we are in this state.

Meeting these basic needs are essential for human survival and dignity. When basic needs are met, the person gains space to take positive action to meet the higher order needs. 

This action and behaviour has to be anchored sound values and ethics. Only then can we evolve as individuals towards self actualization, leading to a confident society with high social esteem that is based on respect, empathy and social harmony.                                                                                     

Ethics, Morals, Values and Decisions

If we look at ethics on its own, they describe a generally accepted set of moral principles.  Morals describe the right or wrong of actions.  Values then describe the individual or personal standards we hold these ethics and morals to, in terms of what is valuable and important.

William D. Hitt in his paper Ethics and Leadership: Putting Theory into Practice poses a question;.

What ground rules do you follow to determine what is the “right” decision? .  

He states that most people’s responses fall into four categories and ethical systems;

Category	Ethical System
Decisions based on expected results – the return on investment	End Result
Decision based on what the law states – the legality of the matter	Rule ethics
Decision made of strategy and values of the organizations, nations and the globe	Social contract ethics
Decision made on our personal convictions – our conscience	Personalistic ethics

The Wealth Divide

The modern world where a few of us seem privileged, the ground rules are more and more based on the return on investment, which is controlled by the rule of law that is expedient and transient, to favor those few.

If we do not create a balance, we have a majority of people who do not have physiological and safety needs met - with no respect, dignity and well-being.  This creates a dissonance.     

How can this planet be sustainable and resilient in this dissonance? 

How can the few of us privileged expect those desperate to live by expected values and ethics?.   

When someone is hungry, values and ethics do not figure in their action to survive. 

As such, our sustainability and resilience agenda has to let go of the old paradigms and power structures that created the 19^th century world based on the notion of manifest destiny and social Darwinism.  

All us privileged may have to let go and trust to share in the abundance.  It is morally and ethically imperative that the majority of the world living in poverty have to be invested in, so their basic needs are met. 

That requires then a healthy balance of Hitt’s four categories, not only for profit and end result, but what it does to individuals and to society for well-being and harmony.

The politics of consumerism, oil and terror driven agendas of the western alliances, WTO, IMF and even the opposing Chinese ideology for global control have to change. 

New York Times investigation found, just 158 families, along with companies they own or control, contributed $176 million in the first phase of the 2016 campaign.  

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/11/us/politics/2016-presidential-election-super-pac-donors.html?_r=0

Why are they giving their money to politicians? .  

Imagine the implications of this for the rest of the 318 million people and the 7 billion in the rest of the world that the USA dominates now through the media, business and the gun.  As China also competes with this agenda to control its own people and the world through technology, the people will lose their freedom and suffer.  

As civil society - we have to wake up and act to change this to bring the corporate and government driven political rights to align better with people driven social and civic rights.  This can be driven through an enlightened dialogue and crucial conversations.  

For that to happen, everyone must feel powerful and confident, which is not there when most depend on external sources, yet we do have those internal source driven by the power of the mind.  

Taking the Steps for Change – Inspiring Transition

The “democratic” world yet has people power to change things.  The first is to become aware and inquire into what is going on.  For that, people may have to look for information and news apart from the corporate controlled mainstream media.

For instance, the well researched yet controversial book Earth into Property by Anthony J. Hall sheds light into the history of this new world since the Colombian landings in the Americas.  When we are aware, we can take action based on the root causes of the inequalities we face today.  This interview with Prof. Anthony J. Hall summarizes this history, which may prompt people to a deeper inquiry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45UDDpAdkuM

When we research, think critically and become well aware, civil society can to come together and the worldwide web provides those platforms.  There are thousands of initiatives out there developed by astute people to assist in mobilizing change.

One way is the Inspiring Transition approach.  It is a platform developed by Andrew Gaines to support millions of us seeding transformative ideas into mainstream culture using engaging communication tools.

It is designed as a collaborative platform for communicating to inspire mainstream commitment to doing everything required to transition to a life-sustaining future.

The model promotes organisations and their members that care about climate change and social well-being to devote efforts to public education about the need and hopeful possibilities of systemic change.

There are ready-to-use tools so that communicating need not take an inordinate amount of any one individual or group’s time.  Individuals, communities and organisations can communicate to create action networks to promote change starting from a primary level.

This link provides access to a guide called  Accelerating the Great Transition: Engaging mainstream commitment to a life-sustaining future.  https://app.box.com/s/a8jervgtwkurwz28g430yxh05iwlgikc

Change at an Individual Level

However, all this requires some personal change.  Personal change is difficult as it means letting go.

Letting go may mean becoming vulnerable.  

There are many tools to mitigate this feeling of vulnerability from mindfulness through meditation to more structured process such as the U Theory developed by Prof. Otto Scharmer of the Presencing Institute (PI). https://www.presencing.com/overview

This is an awareness-based action-research community that creates social technologies, builds capacities, and generates holding spaces for profound societal renewal.   Part of this process is to let go.

The word Presencing means to sense, tune in, and act from one’s highest future potential—the future that depends on us to bring it into being.  Presencing blends the words “presence” and “sensing” and works through “seeing from our deepest source.”

Theory U proposes that the quality of the results that we create in any kind of social system is a function of the quality of awareness, attention, or consciousness that the participants in the system operate from.  So it focuses on the individual first.

The practice of meditation is a tool to help us become mindful and present as we open our mind and heart to inquire to comprehend our selves first.  Who are we?  What  motivates us?.    

With this self knowledge we may be able to better transform our thoughts to imagine a different future - perhaps become fearless to become more vulnerable, come out of our comfort zones - yet imagine a future that includes the other - the rest of this ecosystem, rather than a selfish pursuit of power and happiness.  

The Root Causes

Growing up as a Buddhist, I have always known the key teaching of the Buddha – The Root Cause of Suffering is Attachment - https://lalithanandagunaratne.blogspot.com/2016/03/root-cause-of-suffering-is-attachment.html.  

I also know that the laat 500 years of the western paradigm separated mind and matter.  That way, we honored the machine rather than the tree.  Being a product of both worlds, I have been torn between the two.  

I am realizing this folly, but old mindsets and habits do not change easily.   That is where I find marrying the mindfulness practice through meditation to the U Theory process, I can begin to let go without fear, so I feel free and unencumbered to look at things as they are.  

How do I link this to Values?

Many voices are calling for change.  Brave people like John Perkins, who was guided by his conscience, blew the whistle on the US government’s action around the world to promote the terror economy through his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.  http://www.wanttoknow.info/johnperkinseconomichitman

These kinds of one sided “development work” is what has kept the wealth-poor divide perpetuating, so we have to work to change all this.  

The internet has connected  most people to the web of information, so we cannot keep everyone in the dark anymore.  We have to mobilize when we can to change the world order so those systemically disadvantaged poor meet their basic needs, so they can start living their values and morals.

That means a compromise from us who have. In the Paris climate talks, when India says, it requires coal power for cheap electricity for its people, so their lives can move away from the kerosene age, the developed nations have to accept that or share in the higher cost of promoting renewable energy, as that is what will save the world collectively.

Finally, this world is one - pollution has no borders and its inhabitants do not have borders either, as when their lands become deserts or get destructed by war, they will fill other more hospitable places.  That is why, those of us who can have to come together to help create a more equitable world, then we can expect everyone to adhere to and live by a certain set of Values.

This is my life's inquiry.