Mindfulness in Critical Conversations

I was talking to a friend last week who has been practising mindfulness for a few years and she was sharing her experience of how it has helped her at work.

She is an Employee Relationship VP for a large financial institution, and so part of her job involves having challenging conversations with the banks’ employees when things have gone wrong, rules have been broken or truths have been covered up.

Just entering into these conversations is emotionally stressful; they are what we would call “critical conversations”: high-octane conversations that can quickly derail.

She told me about how her mindfulness practice has helped her to notice when her mind is filling up with judgments about the person, or the event, under investigation, rather than staying with the facts. She also notices more when her mind wanders, which she can’t afford to do in these conversations, as that would risk missing an important piece of information, and she feels more aware of when her thinking becomes cognitively rigid, when unconscious bias starts to take over.

It made me reflect on how often we have these critical conversations throughout our days, whether we are talking to a team member, coaching a direct report or challenging a decision we disagree with. Whilst they may not be of the level of the legal implications of my friend in employee relations, they are equally a time to dedicate to practicing being present, and being aware of our thoughts and reactions. 

As we practice mindfulness more deeply not only can we be in a more calm, clear and open mental state during these critical conversations, but we can also start to use the discomfort of a critical conversation as the trigger to pull us into presence.

Sarah Robertson, Potential Project