Chapter 10

Using Mindfulness to Assist Different Business Functions

In This Chapter

Dealing with HR tasks mindfully

Tackling staff health

Helping the trainers

Improving customer service

Making marketing and PR more switched on

Cultivating mindfulness is a valuable skill for staff working at all levels of the organisation, in all business functions, in all industries. Mindfulness won’t diminish your drive for excellence and attention to what’s important. It won’t make you weak or ineffective, or brainwash you into donating all your worldly goods to a worthwhile cause in a far-flung corner of the world. Also, despite media portrayal of mindfulness, you do not have to sit cross-legged on a cushion, light incense or become religious!

To get the most from mindfulness, you really need to attend a course, and practise mindfulness each day, but these hints and tips should prove valuable to specific business functions. Many of the tips and techniques provided are equally applicable to multiple job roles. We make a start by looking at human resources.

Mindfulness for Human Resources

What’s in a name? ‘HR’ (human resources), ‘personnel’ or even ‘human capital management’ are all names for the business function responsible for recruitment and selection of staff, defining job roles and setting pay structures. HR teams may also develop policies on how staff should behave and be treated, including equal opportunities and employee assistance programmes. Where the learning and development function sits under HR, the department is also responsible for developing staff at all levels. Although some aspects of HR such as telling someone they’ve got the job or have been promoted are satisfying, other parts can be highly stressful. Potentially stressful parts of the job include dealing with grievances and dismissals. This sometimes earns the HR function the nickname of ‘the personnel police’ or ‘policy pushers’. In this section are suggestions on how mindfulness can help you to mindfully manage three key functions of most HR departments.

Managing downsizing and redundancies mindfully

The economic downturn has led to cost-cutting initiatives in both the public and private sectors. In many organisations, these initiatives have led to downsizing and redundancies year on year.

While you may not be able to halt the tide of redundancies, you can undertake the process in a manner that’s kinder to yourself and those people at risk of redundancy. We start by focusing on the impact that managing redundancies has on you.

Although managing redundancies and dismissals is likely to be a key element of your work that you’ve probably studied and practised over the years, this doesn’t necessarily make it any easier. Even the most cold hearted of HR professionals are likely to experience form of negative response to the task. As Chapter 5 explains, everything that you do or think has an impact on your thoughts, emotions and physiology, but in most cases you’re unaware of the impact. This lack of awareness can be a good thing because it frees up your brain to work on other things. It can also be bad news if you start to unwittingly activate your sympathetic nervous system, flooding your body with powerful hormones that can be damaging. You may also unwittingly carry around tension in your body, which can have a profound impact on your decision making. So although you may think that you’re giving your best at all times, your actions and responses may be being governed by a host of things you’re completely unaware of.

This is where mindfulness comes in. Mindfulness training progressively trains you to direct your full attention to where you want it to be. It allows you to passively observe the interplay between your thoughts, emotions and physiology, and make conscious choices about how to best respond, rather than being governed by your unconscious mental programming.

Another factor to consider is the potential impact of mirror neurons. Mirror neurons may cause you to experience the emotions of the people surrounding you, which may impact on your decisions and behaviour. Mindfulness helps you to focus attention on the present-moment experience, allowing you to notice when your emotions are being influenced by mirror neurons, and decide on a wise course of action.

While you cannot necessarily ‘manage’ the emotions of others, you can take steps to avoid any negative emotions you are harbouring from spiralling out of control. By being fully present in meetings with others, you can observe as and when emotions start to spiral and take steps to avoid things escalating.

Here are a few mindful ways in which you can keep your meetings on track when strong emotions arise in others:

• Take a few moments out. Change the course of the conversation or just pause for a few moments to avoid adding more fuel to the fire.
• Acknowledge the emotions, and try to help the person identify the thoughts driving them. You can ask them, for example, ‘I can see you’re really upset. Would you like to share with me what’s going through your mind?’
• Demonstrate empathy. Although you’ve a job to do, the world may be falling apart for the employee in front of you. Be as kind and compassionate as you can be while still ensuring that you deliver the organisational messages you need to.
• Cultivate empathy. If you find yourself suffering from compassion fatigue (common in the caring professions) and becoming immune to the suffering of others, make it a personal priority to cultivate empathy. Mindfulness can help you do so. You need to care about the people you are dealing with professionally while at the same time ensuring that you do the right thing for your organisation.

You may also wish to try out some of the mindfulness exercises described below.

Dealing with discipline and grievances mindfully

As with redundancies, dealing with discipline and grievances involves both care and doing the right thing (legally and ethically) for your organisation.

Preparing well for these sorts of meeting is crucial. Most HR people are fully aware of the need to check the facts from all concerned, company policy and the law. What you may fail to do is check that you’re mentally prepared for the meeting. In other words, you need to ensure that you enter the meeting in the present moment rather than your body being there but your attention continually being hijacked by thoughts about other jobs you have to do or what you’ll be doing when you get home. You also need to try to ensure that your thinking isn’t overly influenced by past experiences or by what people may be saying or how they may be behaving.

Only through practising mindfulness regularly do you gain an appreciation of the elaborate stories that your brain creates when trying to anticipate the future. The problem with these stories is that your brain can treat them as reality, and you can start to experience emotions in response. For example, if when entering a grievance session you think that the manager concerned will become angry and the employee tearful, you may unconsciously interact with the manager in an assertive or even aggressive manner and treat the employee with patience and concern.

By being in the present moment and following an appropriate meeting structure, allowing each part to unfold moment by moment and responding to present moment facts, your meeting is likely to run more smoothly for all concerned.

Increasing employee engagement

Several research studies suggest that training staff in mindfulness can increase employee engagement. In addition, mindfulness has been shown to improve interpersonal relations, help employees improve the quality of relationships, increase resilience and improve task performance and decision making. Mindfulness training can improve your ability to cope effectively with your own and other’s daily stresses, thus improving the quality of your relationships.

Applying some techniques

The following techniques have been developed for HR staff, but may be equally applicable and useful for other business functions.

Dropping into the present moment

When dealing with difficult issues, maintaining your balance and well-being by dropping into the present moment every now and then is important. Doing so helps you to:

• Observe what’s grabbing your attention and regain control when your thoughts are spiralling.
• Release any tension you’re experiencing and reduce the risk of your physiological responses impacting on your decisions.
• Shift yourself from avoidance mode to approach state of mind (see Chapter 1), which helps you to become more productive.

This exercise can take as little as three minutes or be extended to take up to ten minutes.

Sit yourself in a comfortable upright position. Close your eyes or hold them in soft focus. Regain your equilibrium using the NOW technique:

1. Notice (but don’t judge or start to interact with):
   • The sounds in the room and nearby
   • How your body is feeling – any tensions or sensations
   • Any emotions you may be feeling
2. Observe the impact (if any) that the points under ‘Notice’ above are having on one another. For example, does a certain sound make your body tense? Are your emotions having any impact on your thoughts? Is a trend or theme emerging as you observe your thoughts? Again, you don’t need to do anything or solve anything; just observe what’s happening in the present moment.
3. Wait. Resist the temptation to jump into action based on what you’ve noticed and observed. Just let everything go and give your brain a break by focusing on nothing but your breath for a short while. Fully experience the present sensation as the breath enters your body and leaves your body; do so playfully, as if for the first time.

Open your eyes and make a decision on what’s the best use of your time NOW, in this moment.

Mindfully managing difficult meetings

When planning difficult meetings such as discussing job losses or giving notice of redundancies, being in the present moment is important so that you can judge the situation as it unfolds based on present-moment facts rather than mental projections about what may happen in the future or did happen in the past. Doing so can make the meetings less stressful for all concerned. Follow these steps:

1. Ensure that you’ve all the relevant documents ready and are fully acquainted with all the facts and people involved. Be as well prepared as you possibly can be.
2. Practise mindfulness for a short period. Try Mindful Breathing, or the Body Scan or Mindfulness of Sounds and Thoughts, which can all be found in the audio downloads. If you’ve less time, try the three-minute focus break (see Chapter 5) or a mindful minute (see Chapter 7).
3. Start the meeting by stating its purpose and what you are going to cover and specify when people will have the opportunity for questions. This last point may sound obvious, but it’s amazing how often this detail is missed when emotions are running high.
4. Check in with yourself regularly to check that you are operating in approach mode in the present moment. Periodically observe your thoughts or tune in to how a specific area of your body feels.
5. Try to see things through the eyes of your audience. They’re likely to be feeling threatened, which will influence their thoughts and behaviour. When in the grip of the strong emotions, they’re unlikely to be fully aware of their words and actions. This situation is natural; try not to take people’s responses personally. Try to remain kind and considerate, bearing in mind the situation these people find themselves in. Remember, while managing meetings like this may be a regular occurrence for you, being threatened with redundancy may be new to them.
6. Be kind to yourself! Meetings about redundancies or grievances, for example, can be unpleasant and emotions can run high. You are a human being and not a machine, and as such you’re entitled to feel emotional (angry, sad or even anxious). The important thing to remember is that the emotion is transient – it will come and go – it won’t last forever.

Mindfully supporting staff

In your role you’re likely to have many one-to-one informal and formal meetings with staff who may be worried about a variety of work-related issues. Your role isn’t only to provide them with sources of information and support, but also to tap into how you can best help them in this specific moment in time. Unfortunately, if you’ve been involved in many meetings with staff over the years, acting on auto-pilot is all too easy. You need to remember that each meeting is unique and should be approached with a beginner’s mind – as if you’re experiencing it for the first time. Although approaching meetings this way may require a little more effort, the outcomes make it worthwhile. Follow theses steps:

• Jump into the present moment by setting aside thoughts of what you were doing before the person walked in or what you need to do later on. If you’ve time before the person arrives, practise a short mindfulness technique.
• Closely observe what’s unfolding in the present moment. Rather than responding in a routine manner to what you think the person’s needs are at this stage of the process, really listen to what is being said and how it’s being said.
• Respond based on what’s being asked for in the present moment rather than on what you think you should be hearing. Be honest, open and authentic.
• Recap and summarise at key points in the meeting to clarify understanding and reassure the other person that you’ve heard and understood what they’re saying. A quick overview gives the other person the chance to correct your understanding if necessary.
• Provide a quick summary at the end of the meeting and agree on what should happen next.
• Check in with yourself. After the other person has left, let go of any tension or negative emotions you may be harbouring so that you’re ready to tackle the next part of your day. A three step body check (See Chapter 6) or three minute focus break (see Chapter 5) should help you do this.

Mindfulness for Occupational Health

A great deal of research has concluded that mindfulness is great for well-being. Hundreds of research studies over the last 40 years have demonstrated the effectiveness of mindfulness in reducing anxiety, stress and depression. Mindfulness has also been proven to help people with chronic pain, such as back pain, and even to boost immunity. Several workplace studies have demonstrated its effectiveness in reducing sickness absence.

Improving staff well-being with mindfulness

Taking proactive steps to improve staff well-being is now more important than ever. Ongoing restructures and redundancies are taking their toll on those who are ‘lucky enough’ to still have a job. Research conducted in 1997 identified that, not only do survivors of redundancy frequently feel guilty, but continued uncertainty can have a huge impact on people’s health and increase long-term sickness absence. A constant sense of uncertainty can cause excessive stress; which can also lead to increased occupational accidents and serious illness such as heart disease, high blood pressure or diabetes.

The Chartered Management Institute recently estimated that illness at work costs UK employers £12.2 billion a year, as a result of sick days taken. According to the Integrated Benefits Institute, which represents major US employers and business coalitions, poor health costs the US economy $576 billion a year.

Organisations can work to improve the well-being of their staff in many ways. Offering mindfulness courses to staff is a good way to improve not only well-being but also productivity and interpersonal skills. Some organisations offer staff mindfulness courses in work time and some outside working hours; some make attendance on mindfulness courses compulsory for certain staff, while others prefer it to be optional. While some organisations prefer to stick to the most widely researched method of teaching mindfulness (an eight-week MBSR or MBCT course – (see Chapter 12), others integrate aspects of mindfulness training with other well-being initiatives. See Chapter 12 for more information on introducing mindfulness to your organisation.

Tackling stress with mindfulness

It should come as no surprise that stress has become one of the greatest causes of long-term sickness absence from work. Mindfulness has been used to treat stress since the 1970s. MBSR was developed specifically to deal with mental distress such as stress, and thousands of research studies demonstrate its effectiveness in doing so.

As with all mindfulness at work interventions, evaluating staff both before and after taking part in a mindfulness course using well-recognised measures is important. If you wish to reduce stress specifically, you first need to meaure individuals current levels of stress. Consider getting staff to complete the DASS 21 (a shortened version of the DASS (Depression Anxiety Stress Scales), developed by the University of New South Wales in Australia. The DASS 21 measures the severity of a range of symptoms common to depression, anxiety and stress. This measure can then be used as a benchmark pre-and post mindfulness training.

A word of caution – mindfulness isn’t a sliver bullet. Simply attending a mindfulness course will not reduce stress. Reducing stress takes effort and commitment on the part of the stressed participant, who needs to practise what they’re taught for a short time every day for the entire duration of the eight-week course. Research suggests a direct correlation exists between time spent practising mindfulness and the benefits experienced. In general, the more time spent practising, the more benefit is derived. Note also that, if a staff member is very severely stressed, a mindfulness course may prove unsuitable as the staff member may not be in a fit state of mind to work with the techniques they’re taught. In this instance, seeking clinical help would be wise.

Reducing sickness absence with mindfulness

Well people who are well managed result in a well organisation. Well-being at work isn’t the sole responsibility of the occupational health team but the responsibility of the whole organisation. Policies and working practices can have a huge impact on staff well-being, and are worth reviewing if staff absence and sickness are on the increase.

Mindfulness can equip staff with the tools to deal with life’s challenges more effectively, which can reduce stress and anxiety. Mindfulness can also help people to stop small things escalating out of control and causing unnecessary stress. Mindfulness can help people live with long-term health conditions, including back problems and even cancer, by giving them new ways of dealing with their mental and physical pain.

Offer staff a place they can go to practise mindfulness in work time when the need arises. Just knowing that there’s somewhere quiet that they’re allowed to go to centre themselves and regain a more positive frame of mind can make a massive difference. Organisations offering this facility to staff report that the facility is rarely abused and is highly valued. Allowing staff to leave their desk for 10 minutes every now and then can save hours of unproductive time in the office and weeks off sick.

Mindfulness for Learning and Organisational Development

In order to serve your organisation well as a member of the learning and development team or organisational development team, you need to be able to see the bigger picture and think creatively. You may also at times have to focus your attention on statistics and diverse organisational performance data. A major part of mindfulness is all about training your brain to focus your attention where you want it to be. You won’t be surprised to discover that research demonstrates that mindfulness does indeed improve your ability to focus on the task in hand. Evidence also exists that mindfulness training can increase your creativity and ability to step back and see the bigger picture.

Improving learning with mindfulness

Mindfulness can help improve learning within your organisation in two key ways:

First, practising mindfulness can improve your capacity to learn. It does so in several ways. Research studies have shown that mindfulness can improve your working memory. (Working memory gives you the ability to hold and use a limited amount of information in your brain for a short time; you couldn’t perform mental arithmetic or follow a set of directions without it.) Working memory is essential for learning and development. Research has shown that practising mindfulness can result in positive changes in the brain areas associated with learning and memory processes, among other things.

Second, elements of mindfulness can be incorporated into many development programmes to make them more effective. A few are described below:

Using mindful minutes at various points during a training day

How? You can use them at the start, after lunch or as a break between two different topics.

Why? Mindful minutes help participants to quieten their mental chatter, and put them in a more receptive frame of mind for learning. It helps them release any tension and make it easier to absorb what is being taught. (See Chapter 7).

Explaining that ‘thoughts are not facts’, they’re simply a mental process that you have created

How? Use this knowledge to help people to be more open when exploring new ideas or when challenging old, ineffective ways of working.

Why? Many people have a tendency to react to thoughts as if they were facts, especially when busy or under pressure. As an example, say that your boss likes you and is impressed by your work, but you think that your boss dislikes you. You start building up a story in your head about your working relationship. You may worry about being treated unfairly, overlooked for promotion or picked on. Your brain is then likely to treat these thoughts as facts, which in turn have a negative impact on your interactions with your boss.

Making mental constructs of the world as we see it is normal and helpful. However, if these mental constructs are different to present-moment reality they’re not helpful.

Explaining the difference between approach and avoidance modes of mind

How? Explain the motivations underpinning both modes of mind and how cultivating an approach mode of mind is more productive. Staff can use this knowledge when trying to generate new ideas or new ways of thinking about things. Understanding the modes of mind is also useful for exploring things that underpin resistance to change. See Chapter 1 for background information.

Why? Many people live their lives in avoidance mode of mind, their actions and thoughts motivated by the desire to avoid something happening. Living in this way closes your mind to new ways of doing things and new opportunities.

Explaining the human threat response

How? Explaining the human threat response can help people understand why people find it difficult to focus or think straight at certain times. This understanding can also help them recognise when they’re feeling under excess pressure, thus allowing them to take steps to return to peak productivity and put them back in control. See Chapter 1 for background information.

Why? Modern-day stressors can lead us to a high state of arousal, triggering a surge of strong hormones through our body that are intended to keep us safe from moral danger. In this state our brain is focusing on keeping us alive, so our capacity for higher-brain functions (which are unnecessary for survival) are diminished. These higher-brain functions include decision making, strategic planning and big picture thinking.

Improving strategic thinking with mindfulness

In order to offer maximum value to an organisation, learning and development initiatives need to be linked to organisational strategy. Organisational development teams work to improve organisational performance, and need a good grasp of strategy and the bigger picture.

Many mindfulness techniques help you develop the capability to think out of the box. Research demonstrates that practising mindfulness helps you to see the bigger picture. Other research studies suggest that practising mindfulness can help you to let go of your personal agenda. It can also help to increase creativity.

When undertaking complex planning and strategy work, you can easily get bogged down in the detail. Juggling stakeholder wants and needs with financial targets is never easy. When you can’t see the wood for the trees, try this mindfulness technique. It helps you to step back and view things with a fresh mind, and encourage creativity. This exercise takes about 25 minutes, which may seem like a long time, especially when you’re really busy. However, you can easily waste 25 minutes getting nowhere if you just continue working as you are. The act of focusing on your breath and body brings you back to the present moment (even if your mind does keep wandering!) and encourage an approach mode rather than an avoidance mode of mind.

Mindfully seeing what’s important

1. Find a room where you won’t be disturbed for the next 25 minutes.
2. Write down the questions you’re struggling to resolve. Identify a maximum of three key questions and write each on one sheet of A4 paper.
3. Settle yourself into your chair, sitting in a comfortable, upright position. Close your eyes or hold them in soft focus.
4. Focus your attention on the present-moment experience of breathing. If thoughts arise, that’s fine; just part of the process. Just acknowledge them, let them go and refocus on your breath.
5. Spend five minutes seeing how your body feels in this present moment. Start at the feet and work slowly upwards to your head. Notice any sensations, and how they differ. If you notice any pain or discomfort, try breathing into it on the in-breath, and letting it go on the out-breath.
6. Open your eyes and concentrate your attention on the questions. Restrict yourself to a maximum of two minutes to answer each question. Write down whatever pops into your head, however random, without judging or trying to make sense of it.
7. Close your eyes or hold them in soft focus. Spend around five minutes focusing your full attention on your breath.
8. Look at what you’ve written on your A4 pad. Identifying any key themes or things that leap out at you.

If you’re really pushed for time, follow only steps 1 to 6, or better still, just focus on one key question.

Introducing mindful practices into the workplace

Unlike many other development techniques, mindfulness isn’t a concept that you can grasp intellectually and then instantly benefit from. Most benefit is derived from practice. Practising mindfulness helps you, over time, to change the way you think and behave. This means that in order to introduce mindfulness into your organisation, you need to find an external mindfulness teacher (unless you’re lucky enough to have a qualified one working for you already!). As a long-term goal, developing internal capacity to deliver mindfulness programmes is desirable, but this is likely to take a minimum of 24 months from start to qualified teacher status. This time can be reduced if you develop a member of staff who has already been practising mindfulness for some time.

You can also cultivate and encourage mindfulness in the workplace by starting meetings with a mindful minute or using the three-minute focus break technique when things are going round in circles or getting stuck. You may also wish to provide a quiet room where staff can go to spend a few quiet moments practising mindfulness to recharge their batteries and regain clarity of mind. No special equipment is needed – just comfortable, upright chairs and maybe a few large cushions for people who like to sit on the floor. Decorate the room with calming colours and install a blind at the window that staff can adjust to their liking. Lastly, a CD player with an MP3 socket would be useful, as staff may wish to follow guided practice on a CD or on their MP3.

For more information on commissioning mindfulness training, see Chapter 12.

Mindfulness for Service Delivery and Customer Service

Customer service and customer-facing staff are among the most important personnel in the organisation nowadays. They’re the face of the company, interacting with customers on a day-to-day basis. Top companies appreciate the need for excellence in customer service, and the importance of achieving customer loyalty.

In order to be fully effective in these roles, you need to be fully in the present moment and avoid auto-pilot responses. This can be easier said than done, especially when you’re dealing with customers face to face or on the phone all day long, many with similar questions and issues that need addressing. This section provides some mindful strategies for maintaining customer focus, communicating with clients and dealing with customer feedback.

Maintaining customer focus

Maybe you think that you know what your customers want and need, but are you sure? When was the last time you really listened and fully focused your attention on the customer? Many companies focus intensively on customer needs and desires when they’re bringing a new product to market, but fail to keep their finger on the customer’s pulse as soon as sales targets are being met. Wise companies dig beneath online reviews and recommendations, regularly making opportunities to hear what the customer has to say and act on it to ensure that their products and services continue to meet or exceed customer needs. When interacting with customers (one to one as a customer service representative or when running a focus group), mindfulness can be highly beneficial.

Take a few moments before talking to customers to observe your mental chatter, acknowledging whatever arises, and letting it go kindly without judgement or any further action.

1. Centre yourself for a few moments by focusing on your breath.
2. Focus your attention for the duration of your meeting or phone call entirely on the present-moment experience of assisting, advising or listening to your customer.
3. Start with initial questions, but if unexpected things arise, go with them, really listen and reflect on what’s said. This approach is particularly useful if you’re running a focus group.
4. Make sure that the customer feels heard and that their input is valued. Reflect back and summarise to confirm understanding, especially if the conversation is lengthy or complex.
5. Check in with yourself regularly to check that you’re 100 per cent focused on what’s unfolding in the present moment, and that your mind has not wandered to the past or the future. If your mind has strayed, be kind to yourself – you’re only human! Kindly and gently escort your attention back to the present-moment discussion or conversation.
6. Summarise after the call or meeting what you’ve gained from your interaction with the customer, and ensure that trends and new ideas are reported back to other areas of the business. Identify whether you felt any strong emotions during the discussion. Take a moment to explore the impact these had on your thoughts and body.

Dealing with customer feedback mindfully

While most companies have some form of procedure for dealing with complaints, few have a process for dealing with positive feedback!

Dealing with criticism and hostility can be particularly challenging. When people are critical or hostile, feeling threatened is natural, even when you know that it isn’t personal, and the customer is far away at the end of the phone line. Most customer service staff have been trained to deal with situations like this in a manner that’s professional, polite and that, hopefully, leads to a happy customer. Unfortunately, dealing with difficult customers can take a toll on the staff member, as customer service training rarely shows you how to manage your mind and the importance of self-kindness.

Mindfully working with customer feedback

The next time you have to work with a customer who is distressed or angry, try this:

• Be as ‘fully present’ as you can during the conversation. Remember that, while your product or service may have been the catalyst for their anger or distress, there may be hidden factors driving the intensity of their reaction that may have nothing to do with you, your company or products.
• Be compassionate towards them – think of them as a human in distress. Adopting this attitude does two things. First, it can help diffuse a volatile situation. Second, it reduces your threat response, reducing the pressure you put on yourself. By reducing your threat response, your hormones return to normal and you can think more clearly and act more calmly.
• Give yourself a few moments to check in with yourself after the call or meeting to make sure that you’re in the right mental and physical shape to deal with the next customer. Sitting at your desk, starting with your toes and working towards your head, see whether you’re holding any tension anywhere. If you find any tension or discomfort, breath into it on the in-breath, and release it on the out-breath. This small act of self-kindness does two things. First, it allows you to fully release any tension you may still be unconsciously holding (remember that bodily tension can have a major impact on thoughts and mood). Second, it puts you into a more receptive, open, present moment state for dealing with your next customer interaction, free from the baggage of your last meeting.

If you work in a call centre or in an environment in which you don’t have full control of your time, try to use your breaks to recharge your batteries and check in with yourself using step 3 above. Taking a few minutes out a few times a day is good for you and good for business. When in a state of (often unconscious) stress, your ability to provide an excellent service to customers is reduced, and you are much more likely to pick up bugs and viruses as your auto-immune system is diminished. Maintain your peak performance with these mini mindfulness exercises.

Communicating mindfully with customers

Chapter 7 shows you how powerful mindfulness can be when communicating with others. The same principles apply to your communications with customers, whether face to face or via the phone, email or letter.

Mindful communication spot check

When you’ve just written a letter or email, pause and take a few full breaths before you send it. As you do so, try forgetting the email and everything else and just focusing on your breathing. Then read the letter or email from your customer’s perspective. According to Mirabai Bush, who taught mindfulness to staff at Google, doing so helps to clear up potential misinterpretations.

Mindfulness for Marketing and PR

In 2013 the job-finding website CareerCast listed public relations manager as the fifth most stressful job in the USA. Stress can be helpful, motivating you to strive and achieve more. But it can also cloud your judgement, have a negative impact on your mood, reduce your ability to make good decisions and cause serious illnesses.

In some organisational cultures, stress can be worn as a badge of honour; if you’re not seen to be openly stressed, you’re judged to be not working hard enough. Similarly, some organisations may encourage a culture of working long hours. Both stress and a poor life/work balance are bad for business. The statistics and research backing this up are hard to ignore.

When you’re really busy, stopping and ‘doing nothing’ – even for five minutes – may seem counter-intuitive. Spending five minutes practising mindfulness can sometimes feel like doing nothing, but in fact you are working hard to develop the neural pathways in your brain associated with directing your attention to where you want it to be, and switching yourself into a more helpful mode of mind. You may want to direct your full attention to communication, consumer trends, culture or your own working methods, for example.

Communicating powerfully

The foundation that underpins powerful communication is a deep understanding of yourself: your beliefs, perceptions, judgement and intentions.

Humans are strongly motivated by their beliefs. These beliefs are often unconscious, but can override or impede what you consciously intend to do or say. Remaining fully present is impossible unless you understand what’s motivating your feelings and behaviour in the moment. Practising mindfulness can help you develop a conscious understanding of your beliefs. This conscious understanding allows you to decide the extent to which your beliefs shape and influence your work.

As Chapter 14 shows, although you may think that you see the whole picture, your brain just picks out what it feels is most relevant at any given time and you make up the rest based on past experience and knowledge. If you accept that your perceptions of any given situation are likely to be limited, you can use mindfulness to help train yourself to see more and guess less.

Your judgement also plays a role in how you communicate. Again, this may be unconscious and can be highly damaging, both to yourself and others. When you feel judged harshly by others, your threat system motivates you to take defensive action. Practising mindfulness helps you recognise this response and minimise its harmful impact.

Lastly, but most importantly, you need to ensure that outcomes you desire from your communication are linked to your intentions. Make sure that you are fully aware of your intentions before you start to communicate, as these intentions gently steer you through your meeting or presentation. Try to remain open to what others are trying to communicate, and what a positive outcome looks like from their perspective.

You need to create a supportive atmosphere where powerful communication can thrive. For more information on mindful communication, see Chapter 7.

Keeping in tune with consumer and cultural trends

However much time you spend reading trade journals and industry reports, try to accept that you’ll never be 100 per cent in tune with consumer and cultural trends. A better starting point is accepting a 50–70 per cent level of understanding, and using your eyes and ears to fill in the gaps when working with consumers or conducting market research. Don’t forget that, while you only have one mouth, you have two ears and two eyes – use them wisely to see what’s unfolding in front of you in the present moment.

When analysing consumer research and sales data, quickly note down your top three observations immediately after reading. Take a mindful minute. This mindful pause can take the form of focusing your attention on taking 10 full breaths, or mindfully drinking a hot drink, focusing on nothing but the present moment sensations, smells and tastes. What you do doesn’t matter; the important thing is to quieten your mind, jump fully into the present moment and reduce your state of arousal so that you can view things with a clear, open mind.

Following the mindful minute, revisit the documents and look for any alternative trends or key facts you may have missed. Bear in mind that the researchers or authors of the documents will have interpreted the facts they were presented with according to their own judgement. They may have missed or discarded something that you think is important. Looking at the documents with a beginner’s eyes can yield surprising results and eureka moments.

Improving responsiveness

When you practise mindfulness, you discover that a distinct difference exists between ‘reacting’ and ‘responding’. Reacting is seen as defensive, often based on auto-pilot reactions stored in the fast to react primitive areas of your brain. Reactions are often fuelled by emotions, rather than rational, higher-brain thoughts. Responding is altogether more thoughtful. By pausing before acting, you allow yourself time to apply your more powerful higher brain. Responses contain reasoning, and are guided less by emotion and more by logic.

Although responding may seem more passive, a response is more active and can change the direction of an interaction. Practising mindfulness helps you to become more centred and aware of others. By embracing mindful prevention of reacting, you can focus on more beneficial responses that improve your interaction with clients and colleagues alike.