4. Review Chapter 10A - Leadership Development Through Mindfulness Training and answer the following questions:

a. What would be the most challenging aspects of completing this training for leaders? How might the challenges be different depending on the industry?

b. As an OD practitioner, what would be challenging about facilitating this program?

c. In what ways can mindfulness help leaders deal with change and in their work lives generally?

Please include references. Thank you!

"Close your eyes. Sit up straight, but relax. Take five deep breaths. Place your hands on your abdomen and feel yourself breathing from your diaphragm. Clear your mind. Now, take the tangerine on the table in front of you. What I want you to do is peel the tangerine. Very slowly. In fact, I'm going to set the timer for 5 minutes. That's how long I want you to take to peel and eat the tangerine. Yes, 5 full minutes. Begin." Tony grabbed his tangerine from the table and began peeling. At first it felt uncomfortable and even awkward. Five minutes to peel a tangerine? Who has that kind of extra time? And if you did, couldn't it be used in more efficient and productive ways, like responding to the latest barrage of e-mails? But something happened after the first few minutes rolled by. Tony stopped thinking about his e-mail and the next task on his to-do list. His breathing slowed and deepened. His muscles stopped tensing. He didn't even realize how tightly he had been clenching his jaw. His focused just on the simple task at hand: peeling and eating a tangerine. When he was finished, the facilitator, Joe, chimed back in. "Folks, we've been on a nice journey over the last 7 days. Congratulations! You've completed the 7-day self-guided mindfulness training program. Take 10 minutes to journal about your biggest takeaways from the past week." As Tony grabbed his pen to write down his takeaways, he reflected on the whole process. He remembered when his boss, Jake, first told him about the 7-day leadership mindfulness training program. Jake mentioned that he would bring Joe on board to take his team through mindfulness training to help with some of the issues they faced at work. He was intrigued but definitely skeptical.He had heard some of his coworkers talking over the past year about the mindfulness \"movement\" that had been increasing in popularity in the United States. In fact, in the weeks before the coaching program started, Jake had forwarded the team a few articles about mindfulness. He remembered, for instance, that Google offers employees a course called \"Search Inside Yourself ' that has been completed by more than 1,000 Googlers since 2007. The article noted that veteran engineer Chade-Meng Tan, who developed the course, instructs his team to pause before sending important e-mails and silently wish happiness upon diicult coworkers. Another article he read from the New York Times talked about a \"Mind Fitness Training\" program that the Marine Corps is testing to help soldiers relax and boost emotional intelligence. It went on to highlight that companies like Goldman Sachs, Farmers Insurance, Nike, General Mills, and Target all have mindfulness classes or training for employees and leaders. According to the things he was reading, the science on mindfulness was becoming clearimindfulness has personal and organizational benefits. \"If these big companies that face constant change in hypercompetitive environments are beneting from mindfulness training, there has to be something to it,\" Tony thought. \"Even the Marines are getting value!\" It seemed like Jake's timing on sending the articles and introducing the topic of mindfulness was spot on. For leaders, in particular, it promised a way to help slow down and be present, listen carefully, and remain calm under pressure. At a higher level, Tony had read that mindfulness has been connected to big-picture thinking and visionary leadership. For Tony, this meant it helped with strategya topic right on point for him and his team. Tony is a leader on the strategy team for the communications department at a large university, a job that has speed and ongoing change in its DNA. Not only is he personally responsible for staying on top of the latest trendswhich change daily, it seemedhis ofce is also responsible for staying informed on issues in the higher-education landscape as a whole. Some of the specic challenges that faced his team pertain to the constantly evolving world of social media, tools, and metrics. It seemed as though expectations around engagement with audiences were growing, but without always having clear guidelines around engaging in a smart and effective way. In addition to a lack of guidelines around what tools canand shouldbe used, employees struggled with knowing how to incorporate social media into their daily work. To help understand and begin to address these challenges, 2 months ago Tony's team had convened a focus group of the communications strategy team. The focus group's goal was to explore some of the changes around social media generally, but then also look at social media's role in the institution. As Tony reviewed his notes from the focus group transcripts he had brought with him to the workshop at Joe's request, he highlighted a couple of quotes that stood out to him: \"I'd like to have a presentation of different types of social media that could be used, with some cool examples.\" \"I think we're missing metrics on how our social media has developed over the years. I'd like to see if there were any patterns over the year, and look at the dialogue (highs and lows) that came from it.\" In addition to the challenges highlighted in quotes like these, such as understanding the ever-changing tools available and how they develop, other critical challenges they faced were not taking the time to step back and assess the big picture (e.g., \"why are we using this tool?\"), lack of time to make important decisions, having space and time to come up with innovative and creative ideas, and staying calm under pressure at work. Tony remembered how excited Jake was when he reviewed these findings and told him about Joe's mindfulness program. \"Tony, these are big challenges for us and for all others in our field. But I really think we'll get some great value out of this training. It'll help us as leaders lead better and see the big picture as a team.\" Other participants had voiced similar problems in a follow-up survey to the focus group. Reflecting on their concerns really helped Tony crystallize how the mindfulness training program helped him as a leader: \"As a working manager, BALANCING my time to be strategic with tactical details while allowing enough time to connect with, and guide, my team. I have to constantly remind myself to find the balance.\" \"The quick pace and constant needs of 'customers' makes it challenging to accomplish deep work that will move the university forward.\" Beyond these comments, one manager responded that he would like to \"review various ways great leaders have made decisions,\" and another said \"decisiveness\" was a key skill she wanted to develop. All of these things, Tony now fully understood, were targets of the 7-day training Joe had been called on to lead. One week before the training began, the facilitator, Joe, had visited the strategy team to discuss and introduce the program. After Tony's boss, Pam, introduced Joe, he gave the team what he called \"the 10,000-f00t view\" of the program: The first part of the training will include individual, private training. It will take place with app-guided meditation sessions and journal reections over the course of 7 days to facilitate the regular practice of mindfulness as a habit, and allow it time to sink in and have an impact. You'll have a participant's guide that accompanies the training. Use it to guide you through the practices and draw connections between what you're doing throughout the day and some key takeaways each day. Short (10 minute) morning meditation practices will begin the day with a focus on a particular mindfulness skill, such as breathing or noticing thoughts. These will be followed by daily morning e-mails from me that will tie the focus of the day to an aspect of work, such as paying attention to your thoughts, focusing, and listening carefully to others. Finally, the work day will end with a journal reflection on the events of the day as they relate to the daily focus. The week will wrap up with the group with a workshop that will reect on the practice and the lessons learned. The group will finish with a letter to their future selves reminding them of what they learned over the course of a week. \"Are there any questions?\" Joe asked. \"Um, yes!\" Tony thought but didn't want to speak up since no one raised their hand. Aware of the somewhat puzzled look on some of their faces, Joe encouraged the team: \"I know this will push many of you out of your comfort zone, but I need you to stick to the process. After the 7 days we'll come back together as a group to unpack and apply everything. See you then!\" A week later, Tony received the first e-mail from Joe. The subject of the e-mail was \"Mindfulness Day 0: Welcome!\" As he opened the e-mail to read the content under the heading \"Preparing to Begin,\" he reviewed the foundational steps needed to be ready for the week ahead: DESIGNATE a quiet place to meditate (e. g., your ofce) SCHEDULE 10 minutes for a.m. meditation over the next 7 days SELECT a notebook to use for joumaling, or use the notes pages in your participant's guide DOWNLOAD the free Calm app or bookmark Calm.com Tony was ready to get started. The next morning, Joe's e-mail was one of the first he noticed in his inbox. The subject read: Mindfulness Day lBreathing, \"Just Breathe\" Stress is often caused when we xate on what we have done in the past and the deadlines and projects we have in the future. Being aware of your work is of course necessary, but too much dwelling on the past and future takes away from what you can accomplish at this current moment. As an introduction to mindfulness, bringing your attention to the basic practice of breathing is a way to center you on what you need to do now, calm down a racing mind, and manage unproductive stress. It sounded great. But Tony didn't have much to journal about. In fact, he had only one entry that read \"Completely forgot to notice my breathing all day.\" This was going to be harder than he thought. But it was just the beginning. As a leader, Tony had never thought too much about how he might be sending \"unconscious signals\" to his team through his behavior and body language. After this day, he had a little more in his journal: At different times found myself with tense shouldersalmost like I was shrugging them. Tend to cross my arms when people come talk to me. Sometimes look at my computer screen when people are talking to me. After his morning meditation, Tony kept thinking how bizarre this practice was \"thinking about thinking\" or \"noticing.\" He felt like he was decent at paying attention to others but hadn't really thought about paying attention to himself. Joe's participant guide notes on this seemed intriguing: The skill of paying attention can help with taking a moment to look up from your day-to- day work and notice the big picture, and what your \"north star\" objectives and goals are. This can help keep the daily tasks to your overall annual goals, as well as see opportunities for creativity and innovation that you might not have otherwise seen. At the end of the day, Tony felt like he had struggled to think about his thoughts. But he had tried. His journal notes told the story: This was hard. I want to think about what to do next rather than think about my thoughts. I worry a lot. About my team, my wife, and kids. But I'm also excitedimy work is fun. It's different and always Changing. Is fun but daunting. The uncertainty of change is a two-edge swordkeeps you on your toes but is stressful. As Tony reected honestly on Day 4, his head was spinning. \"The most precious gift we can ever offer anyone is our attention\"Thich Nhat Hanh. The end-ofday comments in the palticipant's guide summed things up concisely and powerfully. Similar to his reection from Day 2 on his body language, he hadn't thought fully about how often his listeningior lack thereofiwould impact other people. His work demanded speed to keep up with things because that's the way the work is. His journal notes reected these thoughts: Talked with Justin today after our lunch meeting and found myself thinking of my response the whole time. At the end I just said, \"OK do whatever you think.\" I'm not sure if he was done telling me his idea. Things move fast around here, so sometimes I send a quick reply back by e-mail without thinking about it. Tony had more questions than answers, but some patterns were emerging. Tony found this topic the most intriguing one so far. \"My brain has an autopilot?\" he thought. As he reected on his day with this in mind, it made more sense. Despite how rapidly