Mindfulness in the workplace:

Transcription

1 Mindfulness in the workplace: What do we really know and how can we advance the field? Dr Silke Rupprecht Mindfulness in Organizations, Utrecht

2 People don t enjoy their time at work Increasing lack of employee engagement People are unhappy and not engaged at work Mappiness data showed that people s unhappiest activity is work (second only to being ill in bed) Only 8% of UK employees are engaged at work 19% are actively disengaged Bryson and MacKerron, global Gallup survey

3 Systematic reviews and meta analyses 6 +2 Mindfulness in the Workplace - Quality of Evidence Randomized Controlled Trials Other intervention studies Cross-sectional Studies Case reports and qualitative studies 17 Systematic Review by Lomas et al. 2016, N=153 studies

4 What do we really know? Good et al. 2016

5 1. Does MT impact wellbeing and resilience It s likely Reduced stress 1 Improved immune function 2 Improved sleep quality 3 Reduced symptoms of mental health challenges including depression, anxiety 4 Resilience, ability to bounce back from adverse experiences 5 Increased coping skills 6 Conducive to flourishing, e.g. by way of broaden and built theory 7 1 Lomas et al., 2016, 2 Davidson et al., 2003, 3 Hülsheger et al., 2015, 4 Goldberg et al., 2018, 5 Chambers et al., 2009, 6 Garland et al., 2011, 7 Kok and Fredrickson, 2010

6 2. Does MT impact relationships at work? It might, by increasing prosocial behavior and decreasing conflict 1,2. Following MT Physicians feel greater empathy and compassion 3 Teachers experience greater self-compassion which mediated changes in stress and burnout 4 Students behave more compassionately towards strangers in need 5, Relationship quality of intimate partners improves 6, 1 Kreplin et al.,2018; 2 Donald et al., 2018, 3 e.g. Shapiro et al. 1998, Krasner et al. 2009, 4 Roeser et al. 2013, 5 Condon et al. 2013, 6 Carson et al. 2004

7 Does MT impact leadership? We don t know. Leaders Mindfulness LEADERS Flexibility 1, authenticity humility 2 LMX-quality 4 EMPLOYEES job satisfaction, psychological need satisfaction, exhaustion 3 1 Baron et al., 2016, Reb et al., , , 4 Pircher Verdorfer, 2018

8 Potential of training leaders in mindfulness Mindful Communication Impact of Mindful Leadership Training on Attitude of Serving Others Adaptability to Change People sometimes come to me crying. I used to get annoyed because I was feeling guilty. And now instead, I try to listen without making any judgement neither of the person that is in trouble, nor making a judgement of myself. But just listening to what is being said, looking at the feeling of this person. ( ) I realized it s about redimension the feeling so that it is less scary and less troubling. Rupprecht et al., in review

9 3. Does MT impact job performance? It s complicated Brief mindfulness inductions Improved negotiation outcomes 1 Improved test performance 2 (via decreased bias) 3 Improved team performance 4 Negative effects on task motivation 5 Mindfulness training Improved self-rated productivity 6 Improved classroom performance of teachers 7 Had no or negative effects on work engagement 8 1 Reb and Narayanan, 2012, 2 Mrazek et al. 2013, 3 Weger et al., 2012, 4 Cleirigh et al., 2012, 5 Hafenbrack et al. 2018, 6 Kersemaekers et al., 2018, 7 Flook et al. 2013, 8 Rupprecht et al., 2018, Van Berkel et al. 2014

10 Words of wisdom? I think it would be wonderful if meditation boosted productivity. I just don t have any reason to believe that it does so with any consistency. For some people, the enhanced focus and creativity that often comes from training the mind through meditation might translate into getting more done. For others, greater intimacy with their bodies and the inner workings of their minds might result in getting less done as they reconsider what is most important in their lives. Having discussed this with a fair number of meditators over the last 30 years or so, my sense is that one outcome is about as likely as the other. Dharma Teacher, Kenneth Folk

11 Mindfulness and motivation NYTimes, 14 June 2018

12 How motivated were they and how well did they perform? Cafe book Teaching Facebook Cheating Hafenbrack, A. C., & Vohs, K. D. (2018). Mindfulness meditation impairs task motivation but not performance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 147, 1 15.

13 How motivated were they and how well did they perform? Hafenbrack, A. C., & Vohs, K. D. (2018). Mindfulness meditation impairs task motivation but not performance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 147, 1 15.

14 Some questions Why should mindfulness practice produce significant increase in performance? Why should encouraging people to practice mindfulness change the demotivating and damaging effects of high performance pressure and dysfunctional leadership? Why would introducing mindfulness to working environments characterised by bullying or blaming make a difference to that culture? Rupprecht, Koole, Chaskalson, Tamdjidi and West., in press

15 From being mindful to collectively applying mindfulness to work processes Team Mindfulness: collectively paying attention to the team experiences ( ) in a periodically consistent and non-judgmental way (Rupprecht, Koole et al., accepted). Organizational Mindfulness: tbd

16 Stronger theory How can we advance the field Research beyond individual Practice standards

17 Thank you for your attention With gratitude to Wibo Koole, Michael Chaskalson, Chris Tamdjidi, Willem Kuyken and Michael West