Building a mindful culture
Thoughts on mindfulness in the tech industry
Step into a boardroom at TWG on a Tuesday morning, and you might be surprised at what you find: capped whiteboard markers, closed laptops, and several TWGers sitting quietly amongst each other, eyes closed. A gentle voice projecting from the glowing TV screen guides participants through a series of exercises that progressively aims their attention onto the surrounding environmental sounds, sensations in their bodies, and movement of their breathing — all tactics to sustain focus on the immediacy of the present moment. At the end of the session, teammates slowly open their eyelids and reluctantly make eye contact with each other, a relaxed slant in their eyes, a calm alertness informing their demeanour. A short conversation ensues, after which the team disperses into the fast pace of studio life, rich with collaboration and creative challenge.
This is the face of the mindfulness habit that is finding its way into today’s top technology companies — a respite and recharge for the smart creative, powered by technology, backed by neuroscience, and designed with the mind in mind.
There’s nothing new about mindfulness training. Its origins date back to a 2500-year-old meditation technique called vipassana — one of the core trainings in Buddhism’s oldest tradition, the Theravada. Vipassana (also known as insight meditation) is a widely-researched contemplative discipline. Adaptations of the original technique have been adopted by healthcare, education, and, more recently, technology companies, to reduce stress, enhance cognition and radically bolster well-being. Mindfulness refers both to the secularized remix of vipassana, as well as the mental faculty cultivated therein: a steady, impartial attentiveness to the changing contents of consciousness.
The beginner’s instructions are deceptively simple: “Pay attention to the breath, and if you find the mind wandering, observe that, then gently return to the breath.” Try it for yourself. Chances are, your investigation of the breath as an object of focus is relentlessly interrupted by thoughts of the past, plans for the future, and other self-referential narratives. This is a characteristic of what neuroscience dubs the default-mode network of the brain. Such mind-wandering is our attentional baseline, and it can be staggering, at first, to see for ourselves the extent to which we are embedded in — and ruled by — this mental circus. Mindfulness training offers the possibility to break the spell of our discursive thinking, and reprogram another baseline. With practice, we learn to observe subjective experience with greater precision, resolution and equanimity. Instead of grasping at the pleasant and recoiling from the unpleasant, we observe all sensory input — and our reactions to them — with presence, non-reactivity and clarity. We cultivate a mind that is sharp, collected, free from agitation, and open to whatever comes next.
Over the last 20 years, there’s been an explosion of clinical and academic research aimed at quantifying the effects of mindfulness. The research, still ongoing, suggests a wide range of benefits that amounts to a profound rewiring of the brain. Mindfulness training is found to produce:
- Improved cognitive function, including changes in grey matter density
- Improved outcomes in concentration, memory, creativity and emotional regulation
- Mitigation of stress, anxiety, depression and addictive behaviours
- Modulation of pain
- Positive changes in immune function
- Better sleep quality
- More empathy
- Enhanced relationships and social behaviour
- Positive changes in the multi-tasking practices of computer-based knowledge workers
With such a track record, it’s not surprising that mindfulness training protocols have become established fixtures in healthcare, education, professional sports teams, the workplace, and even the military. The pretence for its adoption varies, from corporate wellness, to performance enhancement, to psychotherapy, to professional development. And now, with more resources devoted to tracking its impact within the workplace, another, more compelling, rationale is emerging for corporate leadership: ROI. One American health insurance company estimates that, since instituting its mindfulness program, it’s saved about $2000 per employee in healthcare costs, and gained about $3000 per employee in productivity, from over a quarter of the 50 000 employees who have participated in at least one class. Mindful employees, it appears, are healthier and more focused.
In the tech sector too, mindfulness is taking root. Companies like Google, Intel and Medium have rolled out innovative mindfulness training programs for employees. Leading entrepreneurs, engineers and VCs are touting its impact on their lives. Consultancies are emerging to coach entrepreneurs and startups with a contemplative bent, offering mind training as one their core services. A community of well-connected practitioners is forming, giving rise to high profile conferences like Wisdom 2.0, which facilitates conversations between top Silicon Valley CEOs and contemplative luminaries around the intersection of technology and contemplation. On the grass-roots level, a meetup called Consciousness Hacking, with strong parallels to the Homebrew Computer Club of the 70s, has active chapters in San Francisco, NYC and Toronto, among others.
But what happens as mindfulness becomes an information technology, converging with advances in neuroscience, wearable computing, machine learning and UX design? Startups like interaXon, Spire and Headspace are answering this question, leading the first wave of consumer contemplative technologies, each with funding to scale growth. Stanford University’s Calming Technology Lab is also part of the wave, offering a course at the acclaimed d.school called Designing Calm, whose mission is to:
Invent, study and implement technologies that can induce calm in at least one of three areas — cognition, emotion and physiology.
Even the open source, quantified-self, and maker communities have a contemplative off-shoot in OpenBCI — a Kickstarter funded, open-source brain-computer interface that can be used to sample electrical brain activity (EEG), muscle activity (EMG), heart rate (EKG), and more.
The excitement in startup tech, then, is about more than transforming the mind of the practitioner. It’s also about transforming the technique itself, augmenting it with the best that the industry has to offer. What mindfulness training will look like in 10 years is anyone’s guess.
At TWG, we’re invested in mindfulness training, and are using principles of user-centred design to develop a mindfulness program that is tailored for the unique disposition of our team, culture and values. The motivations for TWGers to engage with mindfulness training varies: from increased focus, to stress management, to performance enhancement, to self-awareness.
We’ve been using Headspace and have found it to be a great starting point for group mindfulness practice. We meet twice a week to practice together, and may up it to a daily regimen. We’ve hosted Monk ’n Learn sessions with a Buddhist monk, as an extension of our regular Lunch ’n Learn sessions, to better understand the roots of modern mindfulness. And we’re a member of the Tech Founder Circle at The Centre for Mindfulness Studies to support mindfulness in the larger community. This, we think, is a strategy for building a mindful company; one committed to cultivating goodness in people, and greatness in work.
A few months in, and TWGers are praising the benefits:
“I love this initiative. Already feeling the benefits and it’ll be a continued fixture in my routine.”
Keep following us at @twg to see how the program develops.
