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MANAGING YOURSELF

A 10-Minute
You Solve
Monique Valcour Conflicts
Meditation
at Work
to Help
APRIL 27, 2015

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A 10-Minute Meditation to Help You Solve Conflicts at Work
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There are few things at work as stressful as feeling that you cant
communicate with someone who has an impact on how well you do your job
and on the quality of your experience at work. How many times have you
thought carefully about something you want to communicate to your boss, a
colleague, or subordinate, only to find yourself leaving the conversation
feeling angry or frustrated by how it went?

Karen (not her real name), a program officer for a nonprofit organization,
had an experience like this when she first tried to convince her boss, Maria,
to let her work from home three afternoons per week. She had thought
carefully about how to make the most persuasive argument. She was
prepared with a rationale that addressed her own needs as well as her
employers, details of how she would manage communication while
physically absent, and buy-in from colleagues.

Heres how the meeting unfolded:

Karen: Maria, I have a 14-year-old son whos struggling. Its causing a

great deal of stress in my family and making it more difficult for me to
perform at work. By being around more in the afternoons, I could provide
the structure he needs to focus on his schoolwork. So Id like to
telecommute three afternoons per week. Im confident that I can work
effectively from home. Ive checked in with everyone I work with and no one
has any objections. I have the technology I need in place. I think that I will
actually be more productive without the interruptions that go on in the
office. Ill be able to write my reports more quickly, which should be a help
to you as well.

Maria: I dont have kids, but it sounds to me like helping your son with his
homework would be a pretty big distraction during the workday!

Karen: Im not going to be sitting next to him helping him do his

homework, Im just saying that by being present at home, Ill be able to
redirect him to his homework if he needs structure.

Maria: Arent there any after-school programs you can put him in?

Karen: No. Look, my kid is having a really hard time, socially as well as
academically. You know Im totally committed to my job. I work many more
hours than Im paid for, and Im happy to do it. Cant you please just let me
have this? Its really not a big thing, but it would mean a great deal to me.

Maria: Im not comfortable with putting an arrangement like this into place
on such an ad-hoc basis. Its really important that senior leadership sees our
program area as solidly professional. I dont want to give anyone the
impression that were not totally focused on achieving our goals. You know
how people talk in this organization.

Karen left the meeting feeling defeated. Why, she asked herself, did Maria
have to be so rigid?

Karen fell into the same trap that ensnares leaders daily: thinking that a
strong argument alone is the key to effective communication. Equally
important is therelational agility to work with whatever comes up in the
dynamic environment of human interaction, especially all that is felt but not
articulated by both parties to the conversation. The trap shows up in
Karens defensiveness when Maria pushes back on her argument as well as
in Marias discomfort with Karens request.

The first step to building relational agility is to become more aware of how
you think about and interact with others, especially people you find difficult.
The second step is developing curiosity about and compassion for their
perspectives and experiences. A simple and effective tool for building these
capacities is the practice of metta (loving-kindness) meditation.

Practicing loving-kindness meditation yields two substantial benefits for

increasing relational agility. First, it helps you to become much more aware
of yourself and of how you relate to the other person. You learn to recognize
thoughts (such as I dont trust him) when they enter your mind and to let
them go without judging or reacting to them. This prevents you from being
ensnared by thoughts that can trip you up when youre navigating a high-
stakes conversation.

Second, the meditation exercise helps to cultivate greater awareness of and

compassion for the other person. This is especially crucial in relationships
marked by frustration or resentment because those emotions narrow our
perceptions and make our interactions more clumsy, rigid, and prone to
failure. Like caricaturists who exaggerate their subjects most prominent
physical features, we mentally distort our perceived opponents, reducing
them to a narrow collection of traits and behaviors. (Perhaps you work with
someone you think of as an ogre, a witch, a fool, or a snake.) Then we
interact with that caricature rather than with the whole person. Meditation
opens up our view to include the persons many facets, roles, and the
experiences that may have shaped their patterns of thinking and behavior.
The practice also helps us see how we engage in ways that break down
communication. With awareness and compassion, its much easier to find
common ground.

Reading this article alone wont develop your relational agility. Indeed,
intellectual learning can be a crutch for inaction. I see this time and time
again in leaders who say, Oh, yes, Ive read about how important
mindfulness is, but who have no direct experience of it themselves.
Practice is essential to developing and maintaining relational agility. As with
physical exercise, a single session of loving-kindness meditation wont make
you fit, even though it may well yield tangible short-term benefits.

Before you head into your next stressful meeting, take ten minutes to clear
your mind and tune your brain for interpersonal effectiveness. Heres the
practice:
Find a quiet place to sit or stand comfortably. Close your eyes if you wish.
Breathe in, filling your lungs with oxygen. Exhale slowly, releasing any
tension you may be holding. Let your mind settle gently on your natural
breathing, paying attention to the feeling of air flowing in and out of your
body. When your mind wanders off, gently bring it back to your breath. Lift
the corners of your mouth into a slight smile. Continue this mindfulness
meditation for two minutes.
Loving-kindness meditation begins with a focus on the self. Without self-
compassion, it is difficult to cultivate compassion for others. Continuing
with your breathing, slowly repeat the following phrases to yourself
multiple times:

May I be safe, may I be happy, may I be healthy, may I be free from

suffering.

As you repeat the phrases, settle into the intention of goodwill they convey.
Connect your breath to the positive intentions you are directing toward
yourself. Smile if you wish to.

Now bring to mind a person who has cared deeply for you, such as a mentor
or close friend. Focusing on that person and continuing with your breathing,
slowly repeat the following phrases to yourself multiple times, settling into
the positive intentions you are directing to this person:

May you be safe, may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free
from suffering.

Next, repeat the phrases and positive intentions while focusing on a person
with whom you are acquainted at work, but dont know well.

Finally, focus on a person with whom you have difficulty. Notice what sorts
of thoughts and emotions arise. If they are negative, it may help to repeat a
few phrases such as the following:

You have hopes and dreams, just like me.

You have anxieties and fears, just like me.

You have known suffering, just like me.

You wish to be happy, just like me.

Then, continuing with awareness of your breathing and focusing on the

person, repeat the phrases several times:

May you be safe, may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free
from suffering.

Conclude your meditation practice and continue with your day, carrying
with you the intentions of goodwill for yourself and others.
To understand why we get clumsy in difficult relationships, consider that
habitual patterns of thinking and behavior are like the deep grooves that
get carved into a dirt road by the repeated passage of tires. The deeper the
grooves, the more likely we are to get stuck in them. This is why we tend to
have the same argument repeatedly with certain people, and find ourselves
unable to free ourselves from the familiar script. Loving-kindness
meditation improves our ability to see those grooves more clearly, to lift
ourselves out of them, and to intentionally choose a better, more effective
pathway.

Monique Valcour is a professor of management at EDHEC Business School in

France. Her research, teaching, and consulting focuses on helping companies
and individuals craft high-performance, meaningful jobs, careers,
workplaces, and lives. Follow her on Twitter @moniquevalcour.

This article is about MANAGING YOURSELF

FOLLOWING
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