What’s the human cost of 12-18 month enterprise transformation projects? These are uniquely grueling assignments that bring together professionals with a diverse range of backgrounds and skills.
They are on a roller coaster ride that will require resiliency from both the team as well as the individual.
Change happens when individuals change. Large-scale change happens as the relationships between individuals change. If you skip the relationship part, you make it much harder to effect change.
The relationship shifts must start WITHIN the team that is driving the transformation efforts.
Some of the questions new transformation teams should tackle in their formation stages include:
—How am I personally being asked to change and grow?
—What are the most substantive things my colleagues should know about me? How can others support me?
—How can I best understand and empathize with people who are different from me? How can I support them?
—How does our team seek to interact with each other? What does it mean to be “us”?
—What practices support living our team values when the going gets tough?
When you start with the relationship aspects of a new team, you increase the odds of that team succeeding.
Experiencing Mindfulness
Leading mindfulness workshops within a corporate setting is quite different from most other business training programs.
Mindfulness—and its benefits—is not something you think about or analyze. You must experience it. The proof, so to speak, is in your personal experience.
People sometimes come to me and talk about research, or that they’ve read books on this subject. That’s all well and good, but it’s not enough. You have to be aware as you experience what compassion or empathy feel like “in the moment”. What does it feel like when you're emotionally triggered or challenged?
To take this one step further, having such experiences requires you to maintain a mindfulness practice. You have to work at it on a consistent basis. I can’t just tell you to be more mindful and (poof!) it happens.
It’s ironic that sometimes business leaders are resistant to mindfulness programs because they don’t see the point in “stepping away” from work. In reality, the opposite is true. Making a commitment to mindfulness equals a willingness to do the hard work to cultivate greater awareness.