The capacity to be mindful has become nowadays a rare asset within organizations. Daily fantasies such as multitasking, the continuous acceleration that should prevail in everyday work, in addition to the multiple technological distractions and the overabundance of information, amongst many others, seem to have been deteriorated our capacity to remain focus.
Attention can be considered as one of the most strategic assets that any individual or entity can have; in fact, this is being the center of analysis of various specialists and business strategists, given that many claim it has become a scarce resource in today’s world.
It may be why, recently wording such as mindfulness, appear to be a trend in many organizations. But, what is mindfulness, is it only another trend or an actual technology that can directly impact in the organizations performance?
Mindfulness is a natural human ability, present in all of us at certain extent. It is the ability to deliberately be aware of our experience, with an attitude of openness and curiosity. Nonetheless, it appears that what is familiar to us is the opposite, an absent minded, reactive state, commonly described as “autopilot”. This disconnection and lack of attention to the present experience, may cause we react to the daily challenges from habit and impulse, more than from care and consideration. From an organizational point of view, this often results in dysfunctional, ineffective environments, where stress and unhappiness prevail.
But if, organizational success depends just on factors that stress and unhappiness undermine, such as collaboration, creativity, cognitive flexibility, as well as effective decision making; it seems urgent that more organizations recognize that the emotional and cognitive resources of the individuals are decisive of an entity’s health, resilience and future performance.
Perhaps that may be the reason why -not only- more organizations such as Apple, Google, McKinsey, Lululemon, to name a few, but also entire nations -as it is the case of the United Kingdom-, are particularly interested in experiencing innovations that develop the internal emotional resources of the individuals and keep their minds healthy; as much as it is already invested in developing their individual’s professional abilities and keeping their physical health. Technologies that help to be mindful appear to be at the forefront of this tendency, it may be because when we connect to our own experience, we unleash our own potential to learn, to grow, creating more aware, more creative states to respond to our everyday challenges under any scenario.