If you've been following my recent blogs here, and my posts in the Mindful Together community, then you probably noticed my passion for exploring the societal dimension of the mindfulness movement.
What you may not know is that I have been observing, monitoring, and documenting such corollary trends for the last 25 years as learning organizations, learning cities, and learning nations, curious of how they connect with the inner journey of a mindful culture.
Here's an example of the need and opportunity, to which the "shared mindfulness" focus of my work is responding, in the context of life in organisations:
"An increasing number of people pick up contemplative practices― meditation, prayer, yoga, walking in nature― and integrate these into their daily lives. Many organizations researched for this book have set up a quiet room somewhere in the office, and others have put meditation and yoga classes in place. This practice opens up space for individual reflection and mindfulness in the middle of busy days. A number of them go a step further: they also create collective moments for self-reflection..." ("Reinventing Organizations," by Frederic Laloux)
Why are such moments essential to better organisational results? Because building on solo mindfulness, intersubjective practices are enhancing the capacity for: mindful collaboration (that is more effective, efficient, enjoyable); boosting collective intelligence and wisdom; heightening situational awareness; contributing to greater personal and organisational resilience; and inspired engagement with fast-moving, strategic challenges and opportunities. Some of these benefits are well-documented by research, others are still waiting for researchers diving into the anecdotal evidence.
Those intersubjective practices include: Art of Hosting, Future Search, Open Space, U Process, Wisdom Council, World Café, and many more. If you're a practitioner of any of those disciplines, or even if you just got exposed to one of them, I'd like to invite you to share your reflection about the possibility to combine them with mindfulness practices.
Of course, irrespective whether you're involved with any of those practices or not, your comments and questions, are welcome, as always.