Mindfulness meditation changed my life.

So it was a huge disappointment when, after years of translating its principles and practices for working people, I realized that there was a hard limit on how transformative it could actually be in professional settings.  

That limit was the culture of American work itself.

In our dominant American work culture, performance and productivity are fundamentally at odds with wellbeing.

Work is, by default, presumed to be somewhat stressful, unpleasant, and hard on our beings. Relationally, work is assumed to be characterized by power imbalances, competition, and occasional confrontation–a place where we must harden ourselves to survive. Performance and productivity, then, are naturally perceived as an act of focus, will, and resilience in the face of these expected hardships. 

The problem is that, in this universe, no matter how much we profess to value wellbeing, it is still separate from work itself, an act of triage performed after the important stuff is done.

And that is how the industry of workplace mindfulness, and workplace wellbeing in general, are positioned by the people who welcome them into their offices.

The end result is that mindfulness practices, along with a host of other “wellbeing” initiatives, only get utilized by people when they’re NOT busy putting out fires and marinating their minds and bodies in stress. We’re offering bandaids to the wounded, instead of teaching people how to work in a way that is actually healthy. 

And I’m done doing that.  

What we have not done, in the mindfulness and wellbeing community, is address the work itself. 

That is the project of Still Point Insight–to bring the necessary elements together with the principles of mindfulness to rehabilitate, redesign, and rebuild American work. 

The elements are nothing new, they just haven’t been integrated in a way that can complete the picture and generate whole, healthy work cultures. You’ll recognize all of them.

1. Leadership must be deeply engaged from the beginning, and internalize the principles of mindfulness, and the interdependence of life. They must see their role as defining “greater-than” and centralize purpose at every level of the organization. 

2. Work processes must be redesigned with this clear sense of purpose in mind, so that people at every level can transparently prioritize the most impactful parts of their jobs, clearly identify the roadblocks to that impact, and participate in collaborative redesign that reduces choke points and stress. People with balanced and purposeful work are greater contributors AND healthier humans. 

3. With clarity of purpose, more balance, and a less stressful workload, people can THEN attend to the relational work of mindfulness. Building stronger relationships with self, others, and purpose will heighten and reinforce the connections that drive the people and the work itself.  

With these three pillars in place, we see that work and wellbeing do not have be separate, and instead see the truth: that impactful work and healthy people can live in an upward-spiraling, symbiotic relationship.

This is the future of mindfulness in the workplace. As happened for me, it’s time American work moved beyond bandaids, and into deep insight and transformation.  

It’s time for an art of working.

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