The middle way of management
An eclectic group of leading executives drawn from high growth industries have turned to a new source of inspiration to sustain their creativity and focus - meditation.
The recent converts include such luminaries as Bob Shapiro (former CEO of Monsanto), former junk bond king Michael Milken, Bill George (former CEO of Medtronic), networking guru Keith Ferrazzi and Marc Benioff (CEO of salesforce.com).The form of meditation this group advocates is Vipassana (”insight” meditation) as taught in 10 day silent retreats. These retreats were founded by S. N. Goenka, a Burmese businessman who experienced for himself dramatic improvements in health and wellbeing after he was introduced to this meditation technique.
Is this just the latest business management fad or are the meditators tapping into some previously ignored resource? Research by Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin would argue that the effect is real. In his studies, experienced meditators were found to have dramatically altered brain activity and he noted that the practice of meditation “involves temporal integrative mechanisms and may induce short-term and long-term neural changes.”
John advises entrepreneurs and high growth companies in the life sciences sector to help them realize the commercial value of their discoveries.
It is quite fascinating but intuitively not surprising that “meditator’s” brains are most suitable for high growth industries. To succeed in those highly unpredictable environments, an ability to recognize subtle patterns ought to be advantageous.
Method of meditation is integrative by definition, and it gives a practitioner a new perspective on a familiar set of facts.
I am most familiar with Advaita Vedanta, a 5000-year-old teaching of non-duality (for curious, a fun definition of this fundamental philosophy is here: http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/definitions/advaita.htm). Richard Davidson’s findings indicate that “meditation is the mental training involved in temporal integrative mechanisms and may induce short-term and long-term neural changes”. Could it be that meditation is an important evolutionary tool that propelled our brains into the technocratic civilization of today?
A related question: does the information flood produced by our highly distracting culture impede our ability to meditate? For further discussion, see:
http://blog.marsdd.com/2007/02/21/have-humans-stopped-evolving/#comments
Posted by: Veronika @ MaRS on August 7th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Thanks Veronika.
Our experience of the world and sense of “self” is largely a result of what we think, yet we rarely turn our attention to consciousness itself.
To use an analogy, it is almost like a physician who decides they will not learn anything anatomy, physiology or pharmacology before practicing medicine.
Consciousness is the last great frontier!
John
Posted by: John Mc on August 10th, 2007 at 5:05 pm