Mindful Leadership For Dummies

Chapter 17

Introducing Mindfulness to Your Organisation

IN THIS CHAPTER

Linking mindfulness to desirable workplace outcomes

Assessing the suitability of mindfulness training for your organisation

Making the business case for mindfulness

You can introduce mindfulness to your organisation in a variety of ways. You can allow mindfulness to grow organically, plump for organisational evolution or revolution. This chapter contains the basics you need to know to get started.

Starting with the Outcome in Mind

When considering how to introduce mindfulness to your organisation, don’t be tempted to rush immediately into doing mode –that is, contacting random mindfulness providers and asking them to pitch and re-pitch as your ideas take shape. Instead, first invest some time to identify and clarify the outcomes you want to achieve.

Defining desirable organisational outcomes

As a specialist in learning design and consultancy, I always start with the end in mind. Often what the client first asks me for is different from what they actually need. Busy people are prone to jump to solutions before they have adequately defined and explored what the issue is.

A good starting point is to examine the challenges your organisation is currently facing or is likely to face in the near future. Next, think of what staff may need to address these challenges. Use Table 17-1 to rank improvements in terms of importance at this point in time and within the next 6 to 18 months. Rank 1 for most important and 12 ...