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The mind business
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Financial Times
Posted: March 25th, 2014
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d9cb7940-ebea-11e1-985a-00144feab4...
For seven years now, a growing number of General Mills workers have been practising meditation, yoga and so-called mindfulness in the workplace. And what began as a side project by one executive has transformed the culture of a Fortune 200 multinational. Its about training our minds to be more focused, to see with clarity, to have spaciousness for creativity and to feel connected, says Janice Marturano, General Mills deputy general counsel, who founded the programme. That compassion to ourselves, to everyone around us our colleagues, customers thats what the training of mindfulness is really about. The General Mills initiative is at the vanguard of a movement that is quietly reshaping certain corners of the corporate world. With meditation, yoga and mindfulness, the foundational tenets of Buddhism, Hinduism and other pan-Asian philosophies have infiltrated the upper echelons of some of the biggest companies on earth. William George, a current Goldman Sachs board member and a former chief executive of the healthcare giant Medtronic, ... is one of the main advocates for bringing meditation into corporate life. The main business case for meditation is that if youre fully present on the job, you will be more effective as a leader, you will make better decisions and you will work better with other people, he [says]. Though the combination of mysticism and capitalism may seem incongruous, this interplay has found fertile ground at some of the best-known companies in the US and Europe. It is happening at Target, Google and First Direct, among others. Today, in organisations large and small, eastern wisdom is changing western business.
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