How corporates can increase productivity through meditation

Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn, meditates daily. He has said that part of his philosophy for success involves appreciation for health, love and time. He has led the charge for LinkedIn to take membership from 33 million to 430 million. Jeff is joined by Bill Ford (Chairman, Ford Motor Company), Mark Benioff (Founder, Salesforce) and Ray Dalio (Founder, Bridgewater Associates) among others in a league of super-achievers who use meditation to stay calm while managing multi-billion dollar companies and make better business decisions.

Till a few decades back, meditation was considered to be a purely religious or spiritual practice. However, research at Harvard, Yale and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in recent years has shown that meditation has incredible effect on productivity, physical and mental health too. In fact, American Psychological Association and others list a number of benefits for meditation:

1. Increased focus: Meditation during short breaks helps declutter the mind and focus on the task at hand. It reduces the distractions during work, thus helping employees do more in the same amount of time.
2. Emotional control: Employees who meditate are able to manage their emotions better, thus reducing the chances of breaking down or lashing out at colleagues. Meditation underlines the importance of staying calm and balanced regardless of external situations like heavy workload.
3. Decreased stress: With tight deadlines, long working hours and family expectations, employees are on the edge more often than not. Research has shown meditation helps trigger the 'relaxation response' which shifts the body from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic nervous system, thus restoring normal body functions and countering the effects of stress.
4. Creativity: Unless you run a company where the task is purely physical, it's important to have new ideas coming from the people on the frontline of your business. It might be your salespeople who can suggest a new offering for your clients or your technology team which can come up with an ingenious new software for internal process management. Meditation helps employees become creative by taking the mind off repetitive and meaningless thoughts, hence allowing new ideas to incubate.

Both scientific and experiential evidence show that meditation has tangible benefits for professionals and is not just a recreational exercise. Transcendental and mindful meditation have taken Silicon Valley by storm, and have been adopted by CEOs and entry level professionals alike.

So start a meditation program at your company today to create a more productive workplace. If you have any questions or would like to know how to get started, please email me at [email protected]. Cheers !