Workplace Meditation: Why Leaders, CEOs, and Entrepreneurs Should Get Involved.
21 November 2014
Read by 2083 persons
What do Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, Larry Brilliant, and Rupert Murdoch have in common? They are CEOs, yes, but what else? They all share a common practice: meditation, and it helped them achieve success.
No, meditation isn't just for a small segment of the population. It can also interest those who, a priori, have a lifestyle opposite to this relaxation practice: business leaders and entrepreneurs. These decision-makers who meditate and commit. A bridge between wisdom and business is the title and subject of Sébastien Henry's book, published this year by Dunod. The Huffington Post met with him.
This forty-something has been a meditation practitioner since 2000. "It's become as important as taking a shower," he says with a smile. After his studies at ESSEC, he decided to start a business in Asia, which was very successful. "We worked with half of the CAC 40 (top 40 French companies), we had prestigious clients, subsidiaries in Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore... In short, I earned extremely well."
But after eight years, he decided to sell his company, feeling the need to change his pace of life. In the mornings, when he took his meditation time, often in monasteries, he realized that something wasn't right. More existential questions arose: "What is my role in life?", "What role do I want to play in society?" This questioning led him back to a stronger societal commitment, as at the beginning of his career in economic inclusion. "It is in a time of inner silence that these questions can emerge," he points out.
Loss of Meaning
It was quite naturally that Sébastien Henry wanted to look into the reasons that led some "decision-makers" to take up meditation, and what it brought to their personal and professional lives. "The business world, with the advent of contemporary capitalism, has cut itself off from the world of wisdom that has existed for thousands of years," he explains.
The consequences of this divorce are, according to him, environmental: "business as we know it leads to the destruction of the planet." Added to this is "the absolute priority given to profit," as well as a set of factors such as time spent in front of screens, pressure that can lead to burnout, the result is that "people are tired of this lack of meaning. They can no longer escape this isolation, say what's on their hearts."
Sébastien Henry is not the only one to have observed this loss of meaning in work. "One of the main sources of contemporary workplace malaise undoubtedly lies in an excess of abstraction," noted Matthew Crawford in a dialogue with Pascal Chabot published in the October 2013 issue of Philosophie Magazine. This philosophy PhD, we explained in a previous article on The Huffington Post, spent six months in a political think tank before resigning to open a motorcycle repair shop. He explained this radical change by weighing his words: "I touched a new form of alienation, performing tasks that had literally no meaning."
Worried about the evolution of work and the growing place of screens in it, Pierre Rabhi, writer, thinker, and farmer, added: "We spend more and more time behind screens. Of course, this is part of the evolution of the informal, invisible world. But in doing so, we move away from a tangible reality, we forget that our mind is a component of a complex whole."
Less Stress, More Creativity
For his book, Sébastien Henry interviewed 60 decision-makers who meditate. Among them, Tristan Lecomte, founder of Pur Project and social entrepreneur of the year 2013. Most testified anonymously.
These leaders and other decision-makers are particularly subject to pressure and likely to lose sight of the meaning of their work. "Most of them started meditating after an overload of work, burnout, or a personal problem (death, divorce)."
Gradually, the practice brought them a great deal, as Sébastien Henry points out: "they feel less stressed, have a greater ability to stay focused, are more benevolent, more creative, find themselves less at the heart of conflicts. The work climate is much healthier."
A finding shared by Andrew Hafenbrack, a doctoral student who co-led a study on the subject and was interviewed last year on mindfulness meditation by The Huffington Post. "I noticed that I made better decisions when I was calm [...] "From what we know today, I think we can say that mindfulness meditation can help leaders who find themselves in situations where they need to abstract themselves from past decisions and investments in order to make the most rational decision," he explained to The Huffington Post.
Beyond these effects, meditation has, over a longer period, another positive consequence: "it promotes the emergence of an altruistic willingness to become more involved in social and environmental problems."
Without hoping that overnight, all business leaders will start meditating, Sébastien Henry believes that if some of them do, "they will influence others."
Gap Between What We Want and What We Do
But how can we change mindsets about meditation, which seems at the opposite extreme of management practice? "It won't happen overnight," concedes Sébastien Henry. "But it only takes one person at the top who wants to change for others to follow. We could also imagine training in business schools, programs integrated into leadership development."
How to get started with meditation? "Try it, and if it doesn't bring you anything, then so be it. I'm not a religious fanatic, I don't want to convince anyone. There are many ways to reconnect with our heritage of wisdom, of which meditation is simply a part."
More concretely, he explains, it is by asking ourselves questions that we realize the gap between what we do and what we want. "If you ask someone what is most important to them, and they say their family, and they realize they only dedicate half an hour a week to it, you understand."
Marine Le Breton.
Huffingtonpost.fr
Published November 17, 2014.
Posted online November 21, 2014.
No, meditation isn't just for a small segment of the population. It can also interest those who, a priori, have a lifestyle opposite to this relaxation practice: business leaders and entrepreneurs. These decision-makers who meditate and commit. A bridge between wisdom and business is the title and subject of Sébastien Henry's book, published this year by Dunod. The Huffington Post met with him.
This forty-something has been a meditation practitioner since 2000. "It's become as important as taking a shower," he says with a smile. After his studies at ESSEC, he decided to start a business in Asia, which was very successful. "We worked with half of the CAC 40 (top 40 French companies), we had prestigious clients, subsidiaries in Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore... In short, I earned extremely well."
But after eight years, he decided to sell his company, feeling the need to change his pace of life. In the mornings, when he took his meditation time, often in monasteries, he realized that something wasn't right. More existential questions arose: "What is my role in life?", "What role do I want to play in society?" This questioning led him back to a stronger societal commitment, as at the beginning of his career in economic inclusion. "It is in a time of inner silence that these questions can emerge," he points out.
Loss of Meaning
It was quite naturally that Sébastien Henry wanted to look into the reasons that led some "decision-makers" to take up meditation, and what it brought to their personal and professional lives. "The business world, with the advent of contemporary capitalism, has cut itself off from the world of wisdom that has existed for thousands of years," he explains.
The consequences of this divorce are, according to him, environmental: "business as we know it leads to the destruction of the planet." Added to this is "the absolute priority given to profit," as well as a set of factors such as time spent in front of screens, pressure that can lead to burnout, the result is that "people are tired of this lack of meaning. They can no longer escape this isolation, say what's on their hearts."
Sébastien Henry is not the only one to have observed this loss of meaning in work. "One of the main sources of contemporary workplace malaise undoubtedly lies in an excess of abstraction," noted Matthew Crawford in a dialogue with Pascal Chabot published in the October 2013 issue of Philosophie Magazine. This philosophy PhD, we explained in a previous article on The Huffington Post, spent six months in a political think tank before resigning to open a motorcycle repair shop. He explained this radical change by weighing his words: "I touched a new form of alienation, performing tasks that had literally no meaning."
Worried about the evolution of work and the growing place of screens in it, Pierre Rabhi, writer, thinker, and farmer, added: "We spend more and more time behind screens. Of course, this is part of the evolution of the informal, invisible world. But in doing so, we move away from a tangible reality, we forget that our mind is a component of a complex whole."
Less Stress, More Creativity
For his book, Sébastien Henry interviewed 60 decision-makers who meditate. Among them, Tristan Lecomte, founder of Pur Project and social entrepreneur of the year 2013. Most testified anonymously.
These leaders and other decision-makers are particularly subject to pressure and likely to lose sight of the meaning of their work. "Most of them started meditating after an overload of work, burnout, or a personal problem (death, divorce)."
Gradually, the practice brought them a great deal, as Sébastien Henry points out: "they feel less stressed, have a greater ability to stay focused, are more benevolent, more creative, find themselves less at the heart of conflicts. The work climate is much healthier."
A finding shared by Andrew Hafenbrack, a doctoral student who co-led a study on the subject and was interviewed last year on mindfulness meditation by The Huffington Post. "I noticed that I made better decisions when I was calm [...] "From what we know today, I think we can say that mindfulness meditation can help leaders who find themselves in situations where they need to abstract themselves from past decisions and investments in order to make the most rational decision," he explained to The Huffington Post.
Beyond these effects, meditation has, over a longer period, another positive consequence: "it promotes the emergence of an altruistic willingness to become more involved in social and environmental problems."
Without hoping that overnight, all business leaders will start meditating, Sébastien Henry believes that if some of them do, "they will influence others."
Gap Between What We Want and What We Do
But how can we change mindsets about meditation, which seems at the opposite extreme of management practice? "It won't happen overnight," concedes Sébastien Henry. "But it only takes one person at the top who wants to change for others to follow. We could also imagine training in business schools, programs integrated into leadership development."
How to get started with meditation? "Try it, and if it doesn't bring you anything, then so be it. I'm not a religious fanatic, I don't want to convince anyone. There are many ways to reconnect with our heritage of wisdom, of which meditation is simply a part."
More concretely, he explains, it is by asking ourselves questions that we realize the gap between what we do and what we want. "If you ask someone what is most important to them, and they say their family, and they realize they only dedicate half an hour a week to it, you understand."
Marine Le Breton.
Huffingtonpost.fr
Published November 17, 2014.
Posted online November 21, 2014.
