Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader. Marc Lesser
Читать онлайн книгу.
Google’s primary business is as a search engine. In addition, Meng had consulted with Daniel Goleman, Jon Kabat-Zinn, and others and felt that this mindfulness program should be structured around emotional intelligence and have a strong science component. Encouraging and exciting data now links meditation practice with changes in the brain and more skillful responses to stress and emotional challenges.
Meng invited Zen teacher and poet Norman Fischer along with Mirabai Bush, who was running an organization called the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, to lead the first SIY program in 2007. I observed the way those two led the program and then provided one-on-one coaching sessions with each of the twenty-five participants. The next several iterations of SIY were co-led by Norman and me. The following year Meng and I co-led most of the trainings, along with Philippe Goldin, one of the world’s leading scientists studying brain science and the effects of mindfulness.
The program was well received and became extremely popular within Google. Employees throughout the company were curious about meditation and immediately felt the impact of having a regular practice. The science of meditation was new and convincing, and we used it as a central part of the teaching of mindfulness; this was important to the open-minded but still fact-based Google engineers. The program struck a nerve, addressing the demanding, fast-paced Google culture by connecting the dots between meditation, mindfulness, emotional intelligence, science, and leadership skills. And perhaps most importantly, we were able to create an open and trusting environment that led to building a more caring, learning community. Participants were eager to have real, vulnerable conversations with one another, to share pains and challenges as well as possibilities. The program’s reputation spread via word of mouth as program participants noticed they were becoming more skilled leaders and their overall well-being was noticeably improving. Several years later, pre- and post-self-report surveys confirmed these observations.
By 2009, waiting lists had grown, and as soon as a program was announced, it would fill up within minutes. In 2011, Meng and I decided it was time to offer Search Inside Yourself outside of Google, and the following year, Meng, Philippe, and I created the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI) as a 501c3 nonprofit organization. I was the CEO, Meng was board chair, and Philippe was the third board member.
By the end of 2012, the organization moved into its first offices in the Presidio in San Francisco. We had five full-time employees, were testing the program within a variety of organizations, and had just offered our first public program in down-town San Francisco. In 2013, in order to better meet the demand for mindfulness training within Google, we launched our first teacher training program for twelve Google employees.
An important aspect of teaching SIY includes teaching mindfulness and meditation. At an early meeting with these twelve teachers-in-training, we asked Norman Fischer to attend. As Meng spoke to the Google employees, I sat next to Norman, showed him the agenda, and pointed out that he was scheduled to speak next! Though he wasn’t aware of it, he was supposed to give a talk on what is most important in teaching mindfulness. Norman calmly began taking notes on a blank piece of paper.
The notes were a list of what Norman believed were seven core principles for teaching mindfulness, and he proceeded to speak on them extemporaneously. As I listened, I knew these practices represented a powerful approach and path to the art of mindful leadership, well beyond the training of new mindfulness teachers. Afterward, I posted these practices on everyone’s desk at SIYLI. I adopted them as guiding principles for establishing the type of work culture I wanted to create within the organization, for how I wanted to teach leadership, for how I wanted to show up as a leader, and for how I wanted to live my life.
I began to include these seven practices in talks I gave at Google and at mindfulness and leadership conferences around the world. In one of my early morning meditations, I envisioned these seven practices as a manual of mindful leadership, as something like what this book has become. As this image took shape in my mind, I phoned my friend Norman and asked for permission to use his teachings as the core of my next book.
Norman responded, “What teachings? I don’t remember what they are.” I read Norman the list of seven practices, and he said, “Oh, those are really good! I look forward to reading your book.”
Love is the quality of attention we pay to things.
— J. D. MCCLATCHY
One of the first times that I co-led a Search Inside Yourself training at Google headquarters in Mountain View, we had participants practice what we call “mindful listening” — where one person speaks and the other person just listens, without asking questions or interrupting. This is a way of taking the awareness involved in meditation practice into engaging with another person. Just listening, with your full attention, can be a great gift and an important skill in cultivating healthy communication. Whenever I instruct participants, I suggest that the person speaking experiment by being willing to risk not knowing what you will say; perhaps even surprise yourself by what you say. Taking turns, each speaker is to address or answer two questions: What brings you here today? And what really brings you here today? Each person gets a few minutes to speak, and then as a group we take several minutes to debrief the exercise, to discuss how it feels to just listen and to speak without interruption.
At that early training, I could not help but notice a young woman in the back of the room wiping away tears as she spoke to her partner. As each minute passed, her sobs became more pronounced. When everyone finished, I asked the group how they felt. What was their experience of bringing meditation into speaking and listening? The young woman who had been crying was the first person to raise her hand. She offered to the group that she was an engineer and was surprised at the depth and intensity of her feelings, which arose as she expressed why she was here at this training, and then why she was really here. The questions helped her remember what first attracted her to meditation and mindfulness practice as well as the loss and sadness she felt by how busy and distracted her life had become. During the mindful listening exercise, as she was speaking, she touched something deeply inside herself, and she felt cared about. She felt seen as a person and not just for her role. This feeling, of being seen and valued, was something she yearned for, as was proactively cultivating more connection and appreciation in her work and relationships.
INSPIRE, ASPIRE, AND CONSPIRE: BREATHING TOGETHER
It is no accident that “love the work” is the first practice of a mindful leader. The work of mindfulness practice begins with love, with deep caring. Love is where body, mind, and heart come together. Love is more than an idea and more than a feeling.
“Love the work” is an instruction that is surprisingly practical; it can help us to overcome obstacles in many situations. What we love we pay attention to in ways that are palpably unique. Our task, our “work” in any given moment, may seem difficult or boring. It may involve many contradictions, hindrances, and setbacks. When we approach it with love, we see what’s important and embrace difficulties as part of the process, as necessities to be overcome. Love is the ultimate, most powerful motivator when taking action or relating to others, but it is a particularly powerful force when it comes to the practice of becoming more yourself, seeing with more clarity, and not being fooled by the illusions of deficiency or separateness.
There are many types of love. The kind I’m referring to here is much like the first step of the hero’s journey as described by Joseph Campbell, which he names “the calling.” The calling represents a profound shift of attention, a shift in one’s way of being in the world; the calling asks us to leave the ordinary