Inside Yoga 107 (12/5/14)
There is something going on in company boardrooms, which has to be kept very quiet; with stress being all around including at the very top, some financiers have discovered the benefits of meditation.
In a recent report by FT journalist, Andrew Hill, he asked “why must financiers meditate in secret?”.
He commented: “There is no reason for the industry to be coy about embracing mindfulness.”
In his article he describes how he joined a class: “Somewhere in the heart of London’s financial centre, in an office I have sworn not to identify. It is quiet for a midweek lunchtime. In fact, it is silent. Along with the ex-chairman of a blue-chip company, a handful of executives and board members, a former senior central banker, a Buddhist software engineer, a Benedictine monk and 60 others, I am meditating. Or trying to.”
It was an interesting read for me, because there appears to be plenty of lip service given to meditation and yoga, of how good it is and so forth, yet getting a class into the offices to teach staff can prove very difficult. I teach in some companies and would welcome the opportunity to teach in many more.
Hill says in his article, “The main thought I am attempting to ignore is this: if the benefits of such ‘mindfulness’ are as clear as science and millennia of human experience suggest, why is the financial services industry not boasting about the practice and rolling out the meditation mats across the sector?”
He adds that individuals including Lord Myners, currently working on reform of the governance of the UK’s Co-operative Group, and Bill Gross, founder of Pimco, have talked publicly about how meditation helps them clear their minds and set priorities. A number of big US groups already host mindfulness sessions. They include General Mills, of Cheerios fame, and Google, whose people development expert Chade-Meng Tan is addressing this audience of financial folk about how mindfulness encourages compassionate leadership.
And according to Hill, at a recent global financial group event, about 1,200 out of 10,000 staff tune in to regular updates about mindfulness, with 150 or so taking part in weekly meditation sessions. The participation rate has “increased dramatically”, says a senior executive.
Hill added that the problem is that high finance remains a bastion of corporate conservatism: fear of ridicule and industry scepticism means even enlightened institutions such as this one are coy about publicising such initiatives.
“You do not have to believe mindfulness will lead to world peace to agree it is an obvious and relatively cheap way to reduce a growing business risk,” writes Hill.
“How, then, should companies go about introducing it? Not by compulsion. The biggest successes – including the nascent programme at our anonymous host – start at the grassroots and only later get endorsed by senior staff. Treating mindfulness as a productivity tool is unwise, too. ‘This should not just be about making us better performers,’ says the executive cited earlier.”
Hill concludes: “Meditation must take a winding route to the workplace, much as physical fitness did. It should get there. Aspiring masters or mistresses of the financial universe would never neglect their physical wellbeing. Yet most gym regimes make disciples look far more ridiculous than a mindfulness workout would.”
I share a lot of Hill’s observations. I teach in some companies and would welcome many more opportunities.
Making meditation accessible is important and one way this works is through exercise. Many of us cannot sit still without restlessness and physical discomfort, and this is why I use the form of yoga asanas (exercises) as a way of bringing our body and minds to the stillness of meditation.
I believe this is where a mindfulness-based yoga, along the lines of what I teach and practice, balancing both body and mind to help us get the best from meditation.
If you are interested in meditation and/or yoga at your work, please contact me: the session can be a lunch class or part of a team-building programme. It could be one-off or regular booking. Contact gary@yogabristol.co.uk or call 0789 903 4645
To read Andrew Hill’s article, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ef9b7d86-cc5f-11e3-bd33-00144feabdc0.html#axzz31UTajSVQ
