PEACE FOCUS WORK

How leaders are using mindfulness to improve productivity

- SONAL KHETARPAL

At PeopleStrong’s office in Gurgaon, at 11 am sharp, lights are dimmed and, for ten minutes, the speakers play music that can calm nerves. People stop working, focus on their thoughts, and are expected to just be with themselves. The aim is to help them incorporate mindfulness in their everyday routine so that they live better lives and, more importantly, are more productive at work.

Mindfulness became popular in corporate circles in 2007 when Google developed a course, ‘Search Inside Yourself’, for its employees. Soon, from a way to relieve stress, it became a productivity tool and is now part of employee engagement programmes at several companies, says mindfulness coach Sapan Shrimal, also a co-founder of HR services platform Strat-Board. Bill Ford, Executive Chairman of Ford Motor Company, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, SalesForce Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff, all vouch for how mindfulness — a form of meditation — has helped them overcome their biggest challenges and changed the way they run their businesses.

So, what is mindfulness? The father of modern mindfulness, Jon Kabat-Zinn, describes it as “the awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally”.

A range of Indian companies, such as Steel Authority of India (SAIL), too, swear by these mind management techniques and say these have helped them improve outcomes substantially. SAIL, for instance, has reported a sharp fall in near miss cases among crane operators at its Durgapur steel plant. Auto company Tenneco Powertrain India has reported a substantial fall in workplace conflicts after introducing mind management programmes. At the Hinjewadi site of Pune-based construction firm SJ Contracts, mindfulness has ensured that only 5-7 per cent projects are delayed as against 25 per cent earlier.