Innovating Leadership:
Co-Creating Our Future

Maureen: [00:00:00] You are joining Maureen Metcalf and Katherine Goldman Skyler. Kathryn’s a leadership coach and OD consultant. She supports leaders in creating healthy companies, grounded in their own awareness and cultivation of inner peace and global impact.

What do today’s times ask for from leaders?

Kathryn: What a great question. Of course they ask for all of the traditional skills that leaders need. Listening, communicating, knowing their own business. But I think that what’s particularly important are two things, being able to focus on the larger system in which their organization or their company is functioning and working.

So understanding the context. Understanding, but it’s more than the context. It’s really understanding it as a system. Interconnected system. Ah,

Maureen: got it, okay.

Kathryn: In the sense of Peter Senge’s work with systems, for example, really [00:01:00] seeing that what you do in developing a product has to relate to how you market it in all different parts of the world, and the need for it, and how it will then affect people.

Really looking at all of the systems, and the larger holes, how does it affect the planet? very much. As well, because we see that human activity, even though it’s well intentioned in many ways, has been harming the planet. And we’re seeing the impacts of that now. We’re seeing it in many ways. And so I’ve been quite interested in the work that’s happening in the International Leadership Association in sustainability leadership as well.

And looking at how the work, which I can talk about in a bit, that I’ve done with awareness development, seems to make leaders naturally more aware of the natural environment in which they live, which surprised me. It wasn’t what I was looking for. But anyway, helping them focus on these larger holes and how the success of their [00:02:00] organization really is interdependent with the success of other organizations.

And I think also a sense of Margaret Wheatley said it in my recent book, Creative Social Change, but a sense of humor, a way of finding the goodness in the people and in the situation that you’re in, rather than the darkness, because at all times right now, it seems like it’s partially dark and partially light, right?

Whether we’re looking at the U. S. politics or what’s happening in other parts of the world. There’s always both going on. And if we focus on the darkness, we get depressed, we depress other people. It’s hard to have the energy to do anything. And I think there’s more and more research that’s showing us, too, that there is a tremendous amount that’s going on to make people healthier.

And there’s a sense of well being, there’s lots that’s [00:03:00] working in the world, yet most of us, much of the time, get really wrapped up in what’s not.

Maureen: It’s hard when I look at the news not to get overwhelmed, and yet having a good gratitude practice, close friends, a sense of purpose, when we have regular practices, We’re able to use that as an antidote

Kathryn: regular practices, I want to pick up on that, is so important. I have always felt that myself just because it seemed to make a difference to me if I was regularly, whether it’s both exercising and meditating, adding in the eating right, that how I feel is different.

And then I noticed that in my clients as well, but also there’s a very interesting book that Which I wish I could remember the name of, by Sandra Waddock, that showed that of all of the people that started the social responsibility movement and started [00:04:00] organizations, she interviewed 24 different people.

They all had some kind of personal practice. Now, they didn’t all meditate. Some of them took walks in the woods. Some of them went running. Some painted. Some wrote poetry. But everyone had a practice that connected them with themselves, so they were, in a sense, daily reminding themselves of their wholeness and of their connection with the world.

The word, as I called it, the goodness in the world, the goodness in oneself and in other people. Because it’s easy to forget that.

Maureen: It is when we get overwhelmed by the stuff. For all of us. There was some similar research, I think by Josephson Joyner, who looked at people who were developmentally highly mature.

So mature leaders. And All of them, in the research group that they looked at, had a personal practice. And again, I don’t think it was limited to meditation, but it was [00:05:00] some sort of inward reflection practice.

Kathryn: What’s interesting to me in what you just said, you were referring to the developmental maturity.

And I got interested. You know I wrote this book recently about creating a healthy organization. And I got interested in the notion of organizational health, Oh, maybe 15 years ago. Okay. And realized that at the beginning of the, creation of the profession of organization development. They focused and spoke explicitly about organizational health and in the intervening years people started speaking just about effectiveness, which has a much colder feeling than organizational health.

And what Chris Argyris, who first wrote about it, believe it or not, in the 1950s in the Harvard Business Review. I remember reading his books early on. I did, too. I was reading his books when I was a graduate student, and then years later I went to a conference and heard he was [00:06:00] speaking, and I was amazed.

I thought, how could somebody I studied still be around and speaking? But of course he was, and I got to meet him, and What he said then was that what was a healthy organization was one that enabled mature human functioning. So back in his earlier work in the 1950s, when he was developing the field of organizational behavior in a way, what he was saying is that what a lot of people regarded as a healthy organization, which just had to do with profitability, in fact reinforced immaturity in people.

And he had a sentence that was something roughly like people would say I’m going to have to say, and I think he said in the Harvard Business Review, To hell with my personality, I’m going to just do what I have to do to make money. Wow. And we don’t think now that kind of thinking was happening in the 1950s, but there it was in the Harvard Business Review.

So I thought that was

Maureen: Fun. Our field has now taken [00:07:00] 65 years to get back to what he was talking about. That is

Kathryn: interesting. So to look at what I mean by a healthy organization, because people often ask me that, what I’d love to do is just. Describe to you how we chose to describe that in the book.

Yes, because I think it has a very human feel to it. There’s a lot of research on it, but this is the more human version. And what we said was a healthy world is a place that nourishes humans and all other living beings.

Maureen: I love that you’re talking about all beings. We only function on a planet that is interconnected.

If we attend to the other parts of the planet.

Kathryn: And we often forget that. We often forget that. And, actually, I was reminded of that by a Buddhist teacher of mine. We were walking in the woods, and I had been, more or less, taught by most of [00:08:00] my professors that it was really a stretch to think about all human beings, that I thought too big.

And, so I was saying something to him about all human beings, and he put his hand on my arm and stopped me and looked me in the eyes, and he was a wonderful man who, actually it was as if I’d found Yoda in real life, really, that was the feeling, and he stopped and looked in my eyes and said, Kathryn, not human beings, all beings.

So that, that got me to remember all beings.

Maureen: Which, again, probably circled you back to where you were at an earlier point.

Kathryn: Very possibly. Very possibly. What we said beyond that was that a healthy world is a home in the full meaning of the word. A place that we think of with love, which gave us birth, and where those we love reside.

I really like thinking [00:09:00] of the earth in that way. To me, thinking of nourishment and love has become finally something that we are allowed to talk about in relation to organizations and business. I have a doctoral student who’s doing her, dissertation research on love, and it was not my idea, it was hers.

She’s a high level executive in HR, and she’s worked mostly in Silicon Valley in technology, and she decided that she wanted to study non romantic love in Silicon Valley firms.

Maureen: That would be interesting.

Kathryn: And she is. She’s finished her interviews, and I don’t know the results yet, but that’s what she’s found.

That there is some. Oh, yes. Yes. But it wasn’t what she expected. She herself views love as a choice that we make. That we choose to love people in order to be able [00:10:00] to create the organizational environment that we want to create, that we have to choose love. What I think she found was more that people were just falling in love, not romantically, but in love with the people they were working with as they worked so hard to get these products out.

Maureen: It makes sense to me, having come out of hardcore consulting, that you’re working so closely and to really be effective. And again, it’s a non romantic love, but an intense love. connection in Simpatico to get stuff done. Yes. You have to.

Kathryn: And it has been so fun for me to be able to mentor young women in studying things like that are important to them.

So these are women that are already out there working in the world, whether in HR or in production or in organization development, and you’ve probably heard as many stories as I have of people having been told 20 years [00:11:00] ago, don’t study that, whatever that is that they were interested in.

For some it was meditation, for others it might have been organizational health. Don’t study that, it’s a career killer. And so I’m so happy to be the person who helps people study what they love. We didn’t

Maureen: even get to talk about it. I was told you can go do whatever you want. Just when you come to work, you put the wall down.

Kathryn: A young man who was a student of mine, was a passionate long distance runner. Not marathons, ultra running. Do you know ultra running? Yeah, I have a colleague who does the hundred mile runs. Yes, that’s what he does. He was going to do his dissertation on something about payroll and finance, because that was what work he did, and all the light would go out of his eyes.

And then when he was talking to us in the research seminar about his running, he said, He would start sparkling. And so we all told him, study motivation in ultra running. And that’s what he did. And he finished his dissertation faster than almost anyone I know because the [00:12:00] same discipline he applied to ultra running, he applied to finishing a dissertation.

Maureen: Anyone who can run a hundred miles in a day has a level of running all night.

Kathryn: Yes. And over mountains. I don’t really understand that. But do you know what he found? He found not that these were people who liked to be alone, but that they loved the fact of running, and that they really had a sense of community, and often loved that they were doing the running to help various causes, that the runs were supporting, and that they were doing the running And in a sense they were really very giving and there was this sense of generosity that he found in the interviews that he was surprised by.

Maureen: Fascinating. So he interviewed a series of ultra runners then? Yes.

Kathryn: Yes. And that’s what his dissertation was about. There’s that movie, the Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, and I think we all expected to find that instead he found the compassion and caring of the long distance runner.

It was very interesting to me. I, it almost brought [00:13:00] tears to my eyes when I was reading his dissertation to see that.

Maureen: Oh wow. Yeah. Again, it feels like it’s coming back to. What sparks us to be alive? You pointed to the life in his eyes, and how do we help people connect the work they do to the passion that does bring the life and joy?

Exactly. Because they bring it to the organization.

Kathryn: So that what I think is really important for leaders, too, is that how they are Is a huge part of their leadership and their effect and their, with their people, both close to them and at a distance. So I think that it’s really important for you and me and for lead all other leaders, yeah.

To be learning how to nourish ourselves so that our being is transformational, so that our being is a source of nourishment and we can’t nourish other people if we feel undernourished as we go through life. Yeah, and depleted and stressed. [00:14:00] When I was working in one big company, I won’t mention the name because of what I’m about to say, what I decided fitted best in that culture, if people asked, how are you, was to say busy.

It wasn’t to say okay, and it certainly wasn’t to answer the question. But if I said busy, they’d look at me knowingly and move on, and everybody was happy.

Maureen: I was taught early on that you, everywhere you walked with purpose. You had a pad, a notepad. If I was walking to the restroom, I would pick up my notepad and march purposefully to the restroom, looking busy.

And so it reinforced that sense of, You always looked like you were a person

Kathryn: with a purpose and going somewhere, but not the kind of way we’re speaking of purpose now, meaning really. Inter directed.

Maureen: No. It was marching to a busy To a task. Yes. It was task focused. Very task focused. Focused. Yeah. Yeah.

And it was so I’m glad I don’t have to use a notepad and march to the restroom these days. [00:15:00] Oh gosh.

Kathryn: Right. What I’ve been doing recently, in addition to the consulting and the mentoring of these wonderful students, is action research on what I call waking up at work. Waking up at work. And I sometimes use the term mindfulness because it’s become something that people think they know what it means.

They mean so many different things by it, so I chose the term waking up moments because I know many people who have meditation or mindfulness practices who somehow that doesn’t carry over into their behavior in the workplace. It’s almost like when they’re meditating, whether it’s for ten minutes or a half hour, they can feel very peaceful, and then when they get to work, they Everything becomes distracting again.

Now one ancient definition of meditation [00:16:00] is the state of non distraction.

Maureen: And that, again, we’re supposed to be meditating in every moment, especially the loving kindness meditation. I can be loving and kind until I get in my car. There’s someone in front of me that’s driving slow.

Kathryn: Or until someone yells at you idiot, which somehow has been happening to me driving around San Francisco recently where I live.

Yeah, I don’t know. But I’ve heard, various versions of that, even Ruder, and so it’s interesting to try to learn to let that go. But in this work, and what I like about the action research, let me tell you the origin of it first. So We’re here talking at the International Leadership Organization, I’ve been involved with other organizations and one does a workshop and then goes home to one’s work.

I wanted to do something that would create a sense of community out beyond that and encourage people to practice. So I created a workshop that would invite people [00:17:00] to look for these moments of being present or awake. In their work, and that we would come back a year later and meet again and have another symposium and discuss what the effect of that was.

So we did and we created a project where we were doing research on our own exploration, on our own practice. And co creating that. And we had, finally, about 30 people started, but about 15 actually did it. Okay. And we either took notes on these moments or talked into our phone, just describing the moments.

And some people went into this with an idea that a moment of waking up must be a moment when you felt blissful. But that wasn’t what I meant. I meant helping everyone discover and discover. When do you feel present? Often it’s when you’re looking in someone else’s eyes and are talking with them. [00:18:00]Or when suddenly something that’s going on shifts and you were expecting to be Arriving somewhere on time, and you discover you’re much later.

Do you just get irritated, or do you shift and figure out, How do I deal with this moment right now?

Maureen: I think Peter Senge, one of the teaching, things I teach in a class, used to call it moments of awareness. And in this moment, what do I choose to happen? If I can have the presence of mind to ask myself that question, rather than go into a reaction where I call someone an idiot.

Exactly.

Kathryn: Exactly. So we encourage people to look for moments of silence. Like that, whether you call it moments of awareness, mindful moments of waking up, to look for them ideally several times a day several times a week, four, three or four weeks, and take notes on it.

Maureen: Okay.

Kathryn: And, Then, as a group, several of us looked at all [00:19:00] of this, we used that as data, and wrote a paper about it that we published in a good journal, but it’s a very readable paper, that when we first presented a draft at a conference, this man who I didn’t know, who was a scholar who’d published a whole lot, looked at me, he was supposed to give feedback, he looked at me across the table, my co author and I thought, Oh no, what’s coming now?

He held up the paper, held it to his heart, and said, I love this paper. I couldn’t believe it.

Maureen: Oh, how wonderful.

Kathryn: Here. That led to finally being able to get it passed all of the peer review and publishing, and we’ve published that. And if you like, I’d be happy to tell you more about the second phase when we took this into an organization, and also what the results were.

One

Maureen: thing I’m

Kathryn: delighted

Maureen: about, and you mentioned this, is that you’re now able to do research and publish. And support others in their [00:20:00] dissertations on topics that when we started our careers were undiscussable and career limiting. And now this is part of your research and part of your nurturing others as they do their research.

Kathryn: And also consulting. One of the things I’m excited about is that I picked up on a chance comment from, I mentioned that I had gotten to know Chris Orgeras. Yeah. He said to me that he never would do consulting unless people agreed to let him do research on it as well.

Maureen: Oh, wow. Okay.

Kathryn: And mostly what I have seen over the years is a huge gap between the people who do research and the people who do consulting.

And there’s very little. Documentation of what occurs that works really well in consulting, and people are so busy with their consulting, back to our theme of busyness, that it doesn’t get mined for the richness that’s probably going on in, in many [00:21:00] organizations. So along the way, I decided that’s what intrigued me about the notion of action research, which is focusing on learning from what you’re doing.

And in a disciplined, structured way. And there’s no particular rules about what kind. Some people are measuring things and counting things. Other people are looking at people’s stories. Some people are looking at behaviors. But it can be many different kinds of research. But the point is learning from what

Maureen: you’re doing.

I do a lot of that. I’m probably one of the odd ones that I’ve ended up publishing and publishing. And a lot of it is in the form of case studies and then developing processes with clients. Wonderful.

Kathryn: Wonderful. Let me backtrack a bit out of where we got to with that because I want to tell you what led to being able to take this research into an organization.

So when I first imagined the research, by the way, I pictured that first we would do it and it was [00:22:00] individuals on five continents who were reflecting on themselves and by the way, what they saw was that it energized their work. That they felt more connected with students. That colleagues who they’d found a pain to interact with suddenly were easier to deal with.

And the colleagues weren’t changing. They were changing. That when they were really tired, they could feel refreshed just by taking a moment to look out the window at a tree. And go back to work and then they had the energy to keep going. So that was the first phase. I wanted to take this into intact work groups.

I wanted to see both what would happen in an organization if people were doing this on their own. How would it affect that organization and we haven’t quite gotten to my what may be the third phase is what happens if people Actually practice together and discuss their practice together, [00:23:00] which we had didn’t get there in this one I’ll tell you where we got to so I Had met a wonderful woman who I can mention because she’s allowed me to and we published Olson Taylor I met her through the first Women’s Conference of the International Leadership Association.

She came up to me to talk about my book, Inner Peace, Global Impact, that you alluded to, which is about Tibetan Buddhism leadership and work. And Michelle at that time was working in Utah Valley University. Which is a very rapidly growing university. It’s over the last, many universities in the last five, ten years have been struggling.

They’ve been growing. Are they a small private, like a liberal arts college? No, no, no. They started a long time ago as a technical school, and then became a community college, and then became a university. They now have 35, 000 students, so small, yeah, not small. Okay, I’m just thinking of liberal arts [00:24:00] colleges that are

Maureen: really struggling.

Yes,

Kathryn: so they’re not liberal arts, but they’re everything. And 35, 000 students now. And her organization was, because she’s moved on to another role, about 1, 000 people full and part time. And when she had just moved into the role of Vice President of Student Affairs, dream job, so happy about it. But it was in many ways turning out to be quite difficult.

And I don’t know if you’ve found that. I had a dream job one time that turned out also to be quite difficult. I think many people’s idea of what will be their dream job, we don’t see the hidden politics in it for the most part. Often it’s the interpersonal gnarliness of it that doesn’t show itself.

Maureen: Yeah, I had a very challenging boss.

And lots of great support, but it was the daily interaction with someone who was difficult.

Kathryn: Yeah, so this wasn’t her boss, who was quite [00:25:00] supportive, but in any case it was very challenging. And she read this book on Tibetan Buddhism. Now, Utah Valley University is in a Mormon setting. We were not.

Suggesting she practiced Buddhism, or anything in particular, but it was the kind of thinking that you and I have been discussing that seemed to really resonate with her. And she found it very helpful, and started looking for moments like this, found them, and realized that she felt happier going to work again, finally.

She was thinking that maybe she’d have to give up her job, because she just, it wasn’t She’s a very naturally happy woman. And she wasn’t happy. So one day she was leading her director meeting, which has about 50 people, looked out at the room, and said, I saw in their faces how I had been feeling, and I felt we needed to change that.[00:26:00]

Kathryn, will you come help me change that?

Maureen: How wonderful. What a great invite.

Kathryn: Yes. So we found a way to create a different version of the same process. Because when I described to Michelle what we were doing, with just taking some notes, it seemed very minimal. Instead, she said, Kathryn, you don’t understand.

It has to be simpler. They’re too busy. And then I would say something, and she’d say, Kathryn, no. Simpler. So I could almost hear this, the mantra. Yeah. It was like, no, Kathryn, simpler, less. So finally, by the time we were doing it, we actually didn’t ask anyone to do anything in particular except for look for the moments.

Now, by the way, if anyone wants to try this, and you can do it on your own, but they’re welcome to get in touch with me. I’m happy to help people create research or projects of their own. Because there is something wonderful about being able to reflect later and look back on the moments, which [00:27:00]isn’t in traditional meditation.

But we didn’t do it in that process. They just did the moments, and then she would invite people from her staff to come to the director’s meeting and talk about what they’d been doing with what we called mindful moments. We had to call this not only bringing Mindful moments to work, but joy. And she insisted that I add joy.

And I remember thinking, okay Michelle, I’m not sure I can deliver joy to your organization. I grew up in New York and in New York we don’t necessarily think we can deliver joy. It’s not a very New York thing. But this project was about mindfulness and joy. Okay. And by the close of. our work there because there’s a temporary pause.

Michelle has moved on to be president of another institution now. I heard the most amazing stories from people who were speaking of, I [00:28:00] was really reluctant to try this. So I thought this was really silly, but finally it seemed Oh, Why not? Doesn’t cost

Maureen: anything.

Kathryn: Yeah. Doesn’t take

Maureen: much time.

And we

Kathryn: looked very carefully to find books that were not preaching or teaching anything, but were simply talking from, in a very secular perspective about being present, about being mindful, and how it had affected people’s lives, and we used several different books that people could read or not read, and people could participate or not participate, and the kinds of.

that we saw, what people said, because we decided that neither of us would go interview the people, but another doctoral student would do that as part of her dissertation. So they were talking to somebody who didn’t have power over them and wasn’t the consultant. Okay. And they were saying similar things about, I suddenly noticed the connection with the mountains [00:29:00] around me.

I realized I hadn’t even been seeing them as I drove home from work. Suddenly I saw what a beautiful place I lived in. People saw that they felt more connected with each other. their purpose in doing this work in the first place, which as you know, one of the main things in human services kind of work is that people get burned out, whether it’s nurses, teachers, student affairs, all of those, that it’s really hard to be the carer professionally.

And so what they found, and we didn’t remember, we didn’t tell them that there was no should. There was no training. There was no telling them this is what will happen. So this is simply their reporting. Simply look for moments like that. And see what happens. So they felt more connected with their colleagues.

They felt more able to listen to the painful stories that they often heard as part of their jobs from students. And to deal with the [00:30:00] difficult situations that can happen. For more information, visit www. FEMA. gov They do happen. They do happen in student affairs, yes. And in every

Maureen: job.

Kathryn: In every job, yeah.

And then we were able to publish that, and it was so fun publishing, it’s a book chapter, with a portion by Michelle as the leader, a portion that I wrote as the consultant designing the project, and a portion by, or Reid is the student, writing from the perspective of the researcher. And so we have these three voices describing the experience, as well as including comments from the students.

Many of the people in her organization. So it was really heartwarming.

Maureen: So how does that translate? So I’m doing mindful moments. It sounds like that then translates to I become more present and happier in my work. I’m assuming that equals more engaged. What would

Kathryn: be the [00:31:00] difference in your mind? This is really interesting when you say that more engaged, because another student who wrote her dissertation on the first part that I was describing was originally going to study engagement at work.

And she told me, I was getting, She basically said I was getting less and less engaged with the engagement literature. So when I just skimmed it again, what I saw was that originally, as a field and as a concept, the people who were writing about it, it had a very human quality. Like I was saying, we describe what it is to create a healthy world.

And that, The humanness was somehow seeping out of some of the engagement literature.

Maureen: Oh yeah, I know what you’re talking about. And

Kathryn: it was starting to have a very dry quality to it, and I think that’s what was turning this woman off, who was Chilean and who’s back in Chile now as a professor, teaching in a school of business.

So I don’t know what the, how you distinguish between being happy and connected with purpose and engaged, [00:32:00] because to me that would be the same.

Maureen: Actually, what I use In my mind is the work of Jim Ritchie Dunham that really looks at vibrant organizations. I say the word engage because people know what that means.

So I think of vibrancy and his framework looks at when I come here to this place, how do I feel about myself? So I walk in and I feel better. I feel happy to be here. I feel seen or I feel like I need to duck. When I walk down the hall, I don’t make eye contact, I look down. Because if someone catches my eye, they’re going to do something that’s unpleasant.

Kathryn: You’re reminding me of one of my executive clients. Because The people in his organization used to refer to him as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. They never knew whether he’d walk in and be really warm and friendly or just almost vicious. And so they literally [00:33:00] would duck into the bathroom and hide. I’ve had those bosses.

Maureen: That when we thought he was coming, you’d shut your door. So I feel good about myself. I feel good about us. And so it would connect with Gallup’s, I have a best friend at work, but he’s very particular about, I see the best in other people. I look for opportunities to help them succeed so I can feel seen and appreciated and uplifted and what it really comes to.

And then the organization has a mission that we support. And. If those are in place, I can be creative, I can put forth ideas, and I can make the effort to do things I haven’t done before and innovate. But if I have to duck, I’m not going to put forward anything. I’m going to follow the rules and do what I’m told and zero more.

Because it’s risky to do any more. So in that space, I would put forward new ideas. So when I say not engaged, I’m talking about I’m going to duck.

Kathryn: [00:34:00] Okay so what you’re reminding me of is that some people are naturally that way, right? I actually have seen that they are that way. When I first started working, it was at a community college in Texas, and the first assistant that I had was one of the people you’re describing.

She had no particular training in related to interaction. She was a warm and friendly person who came to work, connected with other people, liked doing the work that she was doing, liked supporting me, and liked being at the school, and that just came naturally to her. So some people are that way, but most of us, sadly, I think either are not, or it’s just difficult to maintain that in the workplace, or to create an atmosphere like that in the workplace.

Maureen: So his work, and I don’t want to get [00:35:00] sidetracked, but he would say if you want people to be engaged, stop disengaging them. Absolutely. So his hypothesis is most people are innately that way. And when the environment promotes it, it shows up. So what I was hearing as you were talking is, the mindful moments are one path in to create that sense of, I’m connecting with myself in that part of joy, and I’m connecting with you, my colleague, who I appreciate and admire.

But if we’re marching down the road trying to get the stuff done so diligently without pulling our heads up We don’t connect with that. I’m working with a human being that I really like because we’re not making space for

Kathryn: it. So I love what you’re saying. And it reminds me too of what Carl Rogers said about empowerment and disempowerment some decades back.

I had the great blessing of getting to be at a workshop with [00:36:00] him and People were talking a lot about empowering people. And what he said was, you can’t empower people. All you can do is stop disempowering them. So it’s a similar thing. And that often what goes on in the workplace is we disempower people.

Which, different word, but it’s a similar notion. What intrigues me about this approach that I’m still playing with and evolving in an experimental way and seeing is that there is no dogma in it. That it can go across cultures. It can fit with people of any particular spiritual belief or none.

Maureen: I think

Kathryn: that’s really

Maureen: important because even meditation is so charged for some people.

It is. It’s just not accessible for some populations.

Kathryn: Also I think people have developed, frankly, [00:37:00] misguided ideas from my perspective, and from the perspectives that I’ve studied in of what meditation is. A lot of people, I think, and I think, My mom used to think this, she would say, she would call things navel gazing, you shouldn’t be gazing at your navel.

And meditation has nothing to do with shutting the world out, or with shutting your mind down. People think that it has to do with, you have to learn to drive out thoughts, but it’s not that. But they do, they really believe that. It really has to do with learning to be able to be fully present. To our minds as they are, and not jumping about and distracted, and not just in the mind, but also not in the mind in the sense of thinking about, but mind in the larger sense that includes heart, that includes caring, that includes compassion.

Maureen: I think that’s a really important point, . It [00:38:00] is a bigger entity that I’m engaging with.

Kathryn: Yes. And engaging does really fit there. Because what I feel like I see in the research and a lot of the training on Mindfulness, as it’s described in Western business contexts increasingly, emphasizes how it can help people do their tasks better and relieve stress.

Now, it can, in fact, do those things, but that’s such a small and, I almost want to say, wrong spirited part of what, Mindfulness really is about. Because mindfulness in its deeper meaning and deeper roots is about what you’re speaking of, Maureen. It’s that sense of being able to connect in a very aware, present, non distracted way with life, with human beings, with what one is doing and being able to be present.

Maureen: And that means present to the bad [00:39:00] stuff, the stuff we call bad. There are parts of our lives that are incredibly joyful. And I’m filled with deep gratitude and there’s no question. And then there’s other stuff. I left my backpack on a train the other day. I was looking at my map, love technology, and it started when I got on the train, I had eight stops to go, and then it was nine stops and ten stops and then I was 12 stops away, and so I jumped off the trolley.

I jumped off the trolley with my rollerboard, but without my backpack. So I’m at a conference to record interviews. No backpack, no microphone.

Kathryn: Oh my gosh.

Maureen: In a country where I don’t speak the language. Panic. And incredibly grateful that these beautiful people, someone didn’t report it as a bomb evidently and throw it out the window, all the scenarios that went through my head that this sense of deep gratitude, but then stuff goes wrong.

Kathryn: [00:40:00] Stuff does go wrong. That’s why it really is. a source of intellectual delight, I almost want to say, and also something to study further, that such a simple process as paying attention, just waking up one’s mind to notice, to ask one’s mind to notice, can lead to feeling more connected with one’s purpose at work, with the people one works with, and with nature and the planet.

It’s like My gosh, how nice to find something simple that does that. Now that doesn’t mean, by the way, because I do want to make this clear, I really do value deeper practices of meditation. And I think there is very much a place in life for deep training in that. But I don’t think that everyone needs that.

I think that people who are going to teach other people meditation [00:41:00] should have gone through deep training. practices and deep training. But I think it’s really important to see this perhaps as a continuum.

Maureen: That’s a great way to

Kathryn: look at it

Maureen: is it don’t have to do deep,

Kathryn: right? But to have it affect one, if one wishes to be a military leader, an executive, a teacher, a consultant, all of them require the capacity to be present, to make decisions clearly and to be with other people.

Maureen: Almost anyone, I don’t know many people right now, whose lives wouldn’t be better with that capacity. Even if it is so that they can be more present with their kids. It’s not even an even,

Kathryn: that’s not an even, that’s huge. My work has not been with children, but I feel more and more that if only children got the kind of nourishing that they need.

allows them to [00:42:00] feel whole and loved. They live differently.

Maureen: What I want to say for your work, I hear when I’m working with clients often, when I meet their spouses, they’re so different now. I can’t imagine that people who are going through this practice aren’t also significantly different with their spouses and kids.

They would have to be more present. It’s not just a work thing.

Kathryn: Of course. Of course.

Maureen: So that’s huge. The ripple of your work through the lives of the people

Kathryn: who are touched and then who touch them. Yes, absolutely. What’s been fun in this too is seeing that there are executives who are already, both involved with deep practice of their own, the deeper practices, and one of them, I think you interviewed recently, Subbanu Saxena, who’s now with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

And to see that [00:43:00] the understanding of the mind and heart and how it relates to effectiveness in addressing The world’s problems, health issues, just having our humanly created world be something that is, as we said in the book, something that’s a source of health and nourishment for people in the planet instead of a kind of après like Marie Antoinette said, and I think many people have that feeling now of a kind of hopelessness. And I think that it’s really important at this point in history that not to allow ourselves to get caught up in a drift towards hopelessness and to thinking that the problems are bigger than we can deal with.

Maureen: I think that’s a brilliant way to, to bring us to an end.

. How would people [00:44:00] get in touch with you and your resources?

Kathryn: My website is coherentchange. com, and people can reach me directly through there. They can read a lot of the things I’ve written. I have some webinars that are posted there.

So that’s really a very easy way to find me.

Maureen: And if they’re interested in bringing you in to consult or to do research, that’s how they would contact you? That’s how they

Kathryn: would reach me. and my books are listed there, three of them in all relatively recent. The first was inner Peace, global Impact, which is easily available as a Kindle book.

. And then the two that were done for the ILAs Building Leadership Bridges series. . . One is leading with spirit presence and authenticity, and the other is creative social change leadership for a healthy world. So all of them were easily available through Amazon too.

Maureen: Thank you so much.

This has just been delightful.