“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

-Herbert Simon, Nobel Prize winner in Economic Sciences

Our current work environments seem to be on a trajectory for greater and greater distraction. We are constantly keeping up with shifting priorities and an explosion of goals, initiatives, projects and trends.

Just as mindfulness practice can help you refocus in your personal life, integrating organizational mindfulness into the workplace will help the company advance towards its primary goals.

Finding Organizational Mindfulness

Identifying your company’s key pain points will help address the areas that need the most attention. Answering these two questions will help you find those areas for improvement and lead to better organizational mindfulness.

1. Is doing business with your company convenient for customers?

If you’re promising convenience, you must ask these questions when making organizational decisions (e.g. how does investing in this capital expenditure provide greater convenience for our clients?):

• What is the value of convenience to your customers? How do you measure it?
• How do you talk about convenience for customers in your meetings?
• How does your annual operating plan demonstrate investment in greater convenience for your customers

2. Does your organization claim to be unique or better than the competition?

If you’ve put a stake in the ground as the most innovative company among your peers, must include these as a filter for organizational decisions (e.g. how does investing in this capital expenditure promote greater innovation?):

• What does innovation mean? How do you measure innovation?
• How do you discuss innovation in your meetings?
• How does your annual operating plan demonstrate investment to improve innovation?

What Can You Do Now?

Focus is hard work, personally and professionally.  What are you doing to promote it in your organization?

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