Workplace Mindfulness

At the 2019 Mindful Leadership Summit, David Forbes and Rich Fernandez debated the question,is mindfulness changing capitalism, or is capitalism changing mindfulness?

At the 2019 Mindful Leadership Summit in Washington, DC, two critics and two pioneers of mindfulness met and debated. What happened during it was a fascinating look into different sides of the same issue with well-considered points and a wealth of detail. This was enough to make this one of the top-rated sessions of the...

By Christian Greiser, Jan-Philipp Martini, Liane Stephan, and Chris Tamdjidi

Does mindfulness foster an organization’s collective intelligence? A recent study conducted by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Awaris demonstrated a connection: 31 teams (totaling 196 people) that participated in a ten-week mindfulness program showed an average increase of 13% in collective intelligence, as measured by tests developed by the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. 

The concept of...

Community Sourced Best Practices and Insights
Created from the Mindful Leader & Garrison Institute 2019 Unretreat

Introduction: What is Mindfulness and What Does it Look Like in the Workplace?

Definitions of mindfulness vary considerably. The traditional and most widely accepted definition is perhaps one which was put forth by Jon Kabat-Zinn, MIT Professor and creator of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), who defines mindfulness as: 

Paying attention on purpose in a particular...

By Deborah Hendricks, EdD, CFLE, Director of Pre-Health Advising & Mindfulness Coach, University of Toledo 

Mindfulness Phone Apps 

As the popularity of mindfulness meditation has grown in the last few years, so has the number of mindfulness phone apps, such as Ten Percent Happier, Calm, and HeadSpace. Also increasing is the number of businesses incorporating technology into their workplace wellness programs. Last year, I stopped into my local Apple store to purchase a product....

By Ted Meissner

Today you can find mindfulness just about everywhere, from classrooms to corporations, PBS specials and TIME magazine, and even in your grocery store checkout line. But that hasn’t always been the case, and mindfulness going mainstream has been a relatively new development.

Much of that is due to the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, who created a detailed curriculum for learning, practice, and even scientific research about mindfulness. Kabat-Zinn founded the Stress Reduction...

The following article is an excerpt from a bonus resource called "Mindful Awareness Education In Schools: Creating Programs Of Integrity" shared by Laura Bakosh during the 2019 Mindfulness@ Work Summit. Thank you to her as well as the others who worked on these recommendations. 

The original recommendations were to discuss education, mindfulness, social-emotional-learning, social-justice, law, and religion in mindfulness education in public schools. A number of public schools...

By the Mindful Leader Team

At the 2019 Mindful Leadership Summit in Washington, DC, two critics and two pioneers of mindfulness met and debated. What happened during it was a fascinating look into different sides of the same issue with well-considered points and a wealth of detail. This was enough to make this one of the top-rated sessions of the weekend, with reactions that ranged from, "The debate was amazing!" to long, thought out opinions on the format and arguments, but one thing was...

By Gillian Secrett, CEO, Møller Institute, Cynthia Cherrey, President and CEO of the International Leadership Association, Rebecca Curry, Senior Community Development Specialist, ICF, Rachel Thomason, Programme Manager, Møller Institute 

The Power of Purpose Symposium was launched in 2017 as a joint venture between the Møller Institute and the International Leadership Association (ILA). The symposium grew out of a need to bring theory and practice together to...

By Karen Alexander

Student levels of stress and depression have been climbing at an alarming rate, and science is showing the negative effects of such states of mind and emotions on learning. With a persistent national achievement gap, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) affecting almost half of US children, and a staggering 52% national rise in adolescent major depressive episodes from 2005 to 2017, more states and school districts are recognizing the need for a holistic view of education...

By Kathryn Goldman Schuyler

As the use of what is called “mindfulness” expands in the workplace, I have been reflecting on what mindfulness has meant over the centuries. Although mindfulness-based practices can be used to reduce stress, they have long been intended for more profound purposes. Rather than becoming a “technology” of stress relief, such practices can develop an understanding of interdependence and impermanence. This, in turn, generates compassionate...