No topic has evoked more F bombs in my research than workplace spirituality. In the late 2010s, I interviewed dozens of organizational leaders about mindfulness in their working communities. I was looking for practical spirituality. I kept finding obscenity. To be fair, these leaders were mostly dismissing woo-woo stuff. When it came down to it, they were sympathetic with genuine spirituality at work. But still, one business owner, Corey Kohn, heard a recommendation for Hawaiian spiritual retreats and shot back: “Like, f*ck you. I don't want to rage, but don't tell me that that's what I need to do to have a more balanced life.” Still, all the strong feelings made me curious. Why do people have such strong reactions to something so apparently benevolent as meditation and prayer? For one thing, cheap notions of mindfulness erode trust in the workplace. If you encourage your team to put their feet on the floor, you might sound like a know-it-all. As in, You’re clearly not in a good head space. Let me help you get where I am. Imposing mindfulness on your team can transform a healthy thing into a device for unhealthy workism. Mindfulness talk, in other words, isn’t just obnoxious. It can also be an oppressive managerial tool.1 If you’re feeling skeptical about mindfulness at work you have a point. It can indeed evoke trauma or induce uncomfortable feelings. It can be moralistic and invasive and culty. Worse, it can serve as a cover for structural problems in the workplace. Feeling stressed? What you need is more deep breathing! (Actually, they could use more honesty from leadership.) But mindfulness at work still represents a vital mode/switch for you and your team. Our guest this week on the Mode/Switch Pod, Irene Kraegel, sees your skepticism and raises you a better definition. If “becoming more mindful” sounds like, ya know, chilling, this week’s pod helps redefine the practice more resourcefully. Actually, I shouldn’t say practice, singular, because Irene differentiates between formal and informal practices, plural. Some of what she has to say is useful as a formal, collective practice in meetings, in one-on-ones, in conference calls. But some of what she recommends is informally helpful for you in moments of stressed-out lonesomeness. But the goal of the Mode/Switch is not just to help you feel more serene, more luminous. The goal, instead is to help you be present to what’s actually happening in your organization. If you can be more mindful, you can help your team be more fully human at work. (And maybe help your senior leaders act more human, too.) Whether you lead from the middle—as project coordinator, middle manager, program director, department chair—or whether you are led from the middle, I encourage you to listen to this roundtable conversation. It offers you two kinds of tools: Intergenerational perspectives: Ken the Boomer, Josh the Millennial, Madeline the Z, and I the Xer discuss how mindfulness gets carried differently, depending on your generational standpoint. Internal communication: Irene’s careful definitions of and recommendations for mindfulness will shape the phrasing you use with your team, the metaphors you select, the stories you tell, the framing you offer. You’ve experienced, I hope, moments of awareness and flow on your team. You’ve seen your people laugh in tense moments. You’ve heard coworkers de-escalate a tricky 1:1. You’ve witnessed leadership be humbly transparent. You’ve run a meeting or two when things seem paced just right for thoughtful collaboration. Wouldn’t it be great if these gifts weren’t just random moments of goodness but characteristic parts of your organizational ethos? To achieve that sort of steady mindfulness, you’ll need a no-nonsense and down-to-earth guide for being there with your people in a world of work. Irene and the team can help you get there!
