It seems like a turbo-charged irony
that when Debbie Jeremiah was the
Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of
Ferrari United Kingdom (UK), it was
yoga and meditation that helped her to
stay on track. In fact, she regarded
mindfulness and fast cars as fine
friends.
“I thought that driving a supercar was
essentially a mindful experience,” she
says. “If you were driving the car of
your dreams, how much attention
would you be paying to the sights,
sounds, smells and sensation of
driving that car, versus driving your
regular car … often with your mind on
autopilot?”
The pursuit of mindfulness usually
attracts those with a natural bent
towards the yogic but, as manager of
GE’s Mindful Leader Programme,
Jeremiah has the cynics in her sights.
She says that her core message, which
she delivered in Sydney last month at
the Mindful Leadership Forum, is that
there are two ways to deliver
mindfulness.
“One is the standard way: mindfulness
trainers, mindfulness apps, webinars
and so on,” she says. “This is great, but
it has a limited audience, it’s hard
work and it’s tends to appeal to people
who are interested anyway, and those
aren’t necessarily the people I want to
reach.”
Jeremiah, a chartered accountant who
has trained in neuroleadership, is
charged with running a global
programme to help GE employees
improve their performance and
resilience.
Given that the company is largely
comprised of engineers, developers,
scientists, researchers and sales teams,
who are also experts in the technology
they’re taking to customers, Jeremiah
is focusing her mindfulness training
around brain science.
“When people understand how their
brain behaves in a work environment,
they start to become naturally
mindful,” she says. “They check in
with what their brain is up to, then
they move forward in perhaps a
different way, such as taking a quick
break, stepping away from the
situation, breathing … That is simply
what mindfulness is. Paying attention
to your mind when you wouldn’t
normally do so, stopping and then
moving forward, perhaps in a
different way.”
GE employees in 180 countries around
the world can tap into a host of digital
mindfulness offerings, including free
apps, webinars and brain-training
classes, via the company’s Brilliant
You programme. Feedback from the
training includes: “I am always
sceptical on things of this nature,
however, I was delightfully surprised
at how much I enjoyed this seminar. It
… definitely appealed to the engineer
in me.”
Jeremiah knows that she’s faced with
Type A naysayers who think being
mindful is about as important as
alfalfa sprouts, but she’s confident that
once people twig to the clear benefits
that it can bring to their lives and
careers, she’ll have a multitude of
mindfulness evangelists.
“From learning about how my own
brain operated, I found myself
regularly ‘checking in’ with my brain
throughout the day, to see what it was
up to and to determine what state it
was in,” say Jeremiah of studying for a
Masters in NeuroLeadership. “Unlike
smart phones, our brains can vary in
performance throughout the day… I
began to structure my day to make the
most of my creative morning brain
energy, leaving the admin and emails
to later in the day. I deliberately took
mini ‘brain-breaks’ to conserve mental
energy so I had more left at the end of
the workday, and I deliberately
reduced the items needed to be held in
my short term memory, which uses up
precious mental resources. I was better
able to regulate my own emotions, as I
began noting and examining them,
and overall I felt less overwhelmed
and stressed. My work performance
and resilience both improved.”
There are few who wouldn’t welcome
a similar shift gained via such a
simple strategy, so even doubters will
surely dabble. Jeremiah is now
studying for her Ph.D. in “insight
creation through smarter, mindful and
more brain-friendly meetings.”
However, as kingdom men and women of
GOD's kingdom, the best way to make our
Minds productive is through meditations
And careful conscious and focused thinking.
This will help us become more productive.
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