Marc Lesser's Blog, page 25

Interview: How to be a successful leader? | Project Mindfulness Podcast

Marc Lesser speaks with Christiaan Neeteson on Project Mindfulness about mindful leadership, the importance of habits, emotional intelligence, and his book Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader. You can listen to the conversation below.

The post Interview: How to be a successful leader? | Project Mindfulness Podcast appeared first on Marc Lesser.

Interview: How to be a succesful leader? | Project Mindfulness Podcast

Marc Lesser speaks with Christiaan Neeteson on Project Mindfulness about mindful leadership, the importance of habits, emotional intelligence, and his book Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader. You can listen to the conversation below.

The post Interview: How to be a succesful leader? | Project Mindfulness Podcast appeared first on Marc Lesser.

How’s That Working for You? The Practice of Right Livelihood

My first company, Brush Dance, originated 30 years ago (that’s hard to fathom!) as an environmental products mail-order catalog. Our first product was wrapping paper made from recycled paper. We were one of the first companies in the United States to produce wrapping paper that was made from more than 50% recycled paper, including 10% postconsumer waste. Our first designs were created when I proposed the idea of making environmentally friendly wrapping paper to Mayumi Oda, an internationally known artist. Mayumi loved the idea and appeared at my home a few days later with several extraordinary designs.

The first time that wrapping paper was delivered to the company I gained insight into some of the complexities regarding right livelihood. At this time Brush Dance was operating from my house, as it did for the first three years of its history. A truck pulled up to my home, and we unloaded thirty boxes of wrapping paper. My heart sank. I looked at this paper and thought, “Is this really right livelihood? Do people really need wrapping paper? It certainly doesn’t seem like a necessity.” Even though the paper was made from recycled paper, trees were still being used to make it. The truck that delivered it was burning oil to bring it to us. I actually thought that the world might be better off without it at all. At that moment I realized just how complicated this issue of right livelihood can be.

The classic definition of right livelihood in Buddhism is work that does not include dealing in arms, slave trade, the meat industry, the arms industry, or in predicting the future. From the perspective of our complex, interconnected lives if we eat meat or dairy products we are connected to the meat industry. If we pay taxes to a government that makes weapons, we have a relationship with the arms industry. If we look closely, nearly every American spends a good portion of their work time working for the government. Now, I am not proposing that everyone stop drinking milk and stop paying taxes. My point is for us to simply be aware and to understand the complexity of our lives. My hope is that paying attention will foster humility, insight, and action.

It is through our actions, and through the way that we respond to events and situations, that we can change the world. Our livelihood, the work we choose and the way we do it, can be healing and transformative – for ourselves, for the people we work with, for our society, and for our planet. We can choose to work for positive change by responding to what is needed, or we can act in a way that continues to do harm. Business may be the most powerful and influential force on our planet.

It can be easy to judge ourselves and others with regard to right livelihood. We talk on phones that are made in faraway lands, in factories and by people who would be nearly impossible to trace. Our cars use oil that comes from many parts of the world. Our food is often the source of tremendous suffering, causing erosion and degrading of the environment, usually far removed from our daily experience.

On a more personal level, it is possible to work for an arms manufacturer and be of tremendous benefit to the people around you. And it is possible to work for a hospice or homeless shelter and cause harm or stress through your actions and habits. Right livelihood is the practice of questioning, uncovering, not settling for what is easy or on the surface. A great question to ask is: Is my work, or the way I think, speak, and act at work benefiting others, or is it causing harm?

At the base of Zen practice is what are referred to as the Three Pure Precepts and these essentially provide the roadmap on how to practice right livelihood:

Do good.
Avoid doing harm.
Help others

Right livelihood is making the effort to do good, while avoiding doing harm. It’s about helping others in the kind of work we do, in the results and effects of our work, in the conditions of our workplace, and in how we interact with our colleagues. It is important to recognize that this effort, this practice, can be complex, difficult, and at times even impossible. But when we recognize that we have no choice but to make our best effort, moment after moment, we embody this powerful practice.

To explore:

What about your work is right livelihood?

What about your work is not right livelihood?

What changes can you make to move your work further toward right livelihood?

The post How’s That Working for You? The Practice of Right Livelihood appeared first on Marc Lesser.

10 Benefits of Integrating Mindfulness Practices within Your Work

Company Time is a series of one-day and weekend retreats that I have been co-leading at Zen Center’s Green Gulch Farm* for the past 20 years. These retreats are for people interested in integrating mindfulness practice and work practice, for those looking for ways to make their work more meaningful and more connected to their deepest values, and/or for those considering some kind of career or life change.

In these retreats, our role as teachers is to ask questions and to provide a safe environment for slowing down, listening, and speaking openly. The real teachings, the real lessons, come from the attendees’ experiences.

We deliberately relax any tendency to aim too high for particular results or benefits. Instead, our focus is on integrating mindfulness practice with our work lives so that we can open our hearts and our minds to what’s possible. When we’re successful in this endeavor, many possible benefits can be realized, including:

increased creativity
improved listening and communication skills
enhanced problem-solving skills
leadership and team-building skills
greater work satisfaction
improved focus and concentration
a stronger appreciation for life and work
inspired entrepreneurial positioning and action
a sense of connectedness to all things and the motivation to change the world for the better

Let’s explore each of these benefits in more detail:

Increased creativity. The aim of mindfulness practice is to develop a flexible, open mind. Slowing down and paying attention to your thoughts and your body opens the mind to new possibilities. Understanding that the world is not always what it seems helps us to view problems and opportunities from a fresh perspective, which can be very beneficial for problem-solving, product development and improving business systems.
Increased listening and communication skills. Mindful communication and deep listening are integral to mindfulness practice. It is possible to learn the practice of deep listening, to oneself, and others. This skill can then be applied to sales protocols, team building, and general problem-solving. Successful Business ideas and models start by first paying attention to unfulfilled needs. When the mind is less busy and our ability to focus and concentrate is more developed we can communicate more clearly to coworkers, customers, and vendors. By shifting focus and attention build relationships as a way to improve outcomes and meet goals.
Enhanced problem-solving skills. Meditation and mindfulness practice transform our focus so that we come to understand that our problems, difficulties, and challenges can provide valuable learning opportunities. When we embrace a conventional and unconventional viewpoint of ourselves and the world, we see time and space differently. It is through this lens that problems have the potential to become opportunities.
Steadfast integrity and deeper, more beneficial relationships. Slowing down and paying attention connects you to your deepest feelings and intentions, and the feelings and intentions of people in your workplace. Practicing the right thinking, right speech, and right action helps to develop straightforward, open, and honest communication. By building integrity you deepen trust and your connections with people around you.
Keener leadership and team-building skills. Through practicing right speech and learning to bring the best out of others, our leadership skills are accentuated. The combination of self-knowledge, deep listening, and heightened appreciation of the mystery of life make for a more developed, well-rounded leader. You can build more creative and more cohesive teams through a clearer evaluation of your own and other’s strengths and weaknesses, by seeing other people as primarily focused on awakening their true natures, and by aligning actions with deep beliefs and goals.
Greater work satisfaction. When we engage the practice of awakening at work, it can transform the work environment, for ourselves and those around us. Each moment becomes an opportunity to practice, to listen, and to be grateful for what we have.
Improved focus and concentration. When we learn to “stay close to ourselves” by focusing on what is truly important and by not getting stuck in old patterns and habits, we cut through distractions and create space to bring larger issues and strategies into focus.
Increased appreciation for life and work. As we clarify and soften our thinking, the context of our work shifts so it becomes an integral part of our practice and life. Appreciation arises as we reduce habitual thinking and actions. There is nothing but appreciation when you are living “in the moment” instead of being distracted by looking at the past and/or toward a future that may not ever materialize.
Inspired entrepreneurial positioning and action. Noticing and altering habitual patterns of thinking opens the way for a different quality of thought where one can see and act with less hindrance. As you learn to trust yourself deeply, fear lessens, actions become more focused and effective and your ability to evaluate a situation from several viewpoints helps to minimize risks.
A sense of connectedness to all things and the motivation to change the world for the better. Businesses have the potential to influence and change our world. By integrating mindfulness practice with our work, we can transform ourselves and the workplace, effecting positive change in how we engage with customers, vendors, other businesses, and other countries. The impact of one person or one business acting for the true benefit of others can have a transformative, inconceivable impact.

The Tao Te Ching sums up these concepts well:

To obtain trust, put your trust in others.

Take care! Speak only when it is essential.

Then, when the work is done and the job is finished,

Everyone will say that it happened naturally.

Explore this further, ask yourself these questions

In what ways do you, or might you, integrate mindfulness practice with your work? Examples include listening with greater curiosity and openness, and noticing and letting go of extra effort. What methods do you think would work best for your organization?
What (or perhaps, who) supports this integration?
What are the potential barriers to integration and how might you work around them?
If you have integrated mindfulness practice into your work, what benefits have you experienced, both personally and organizationally? Consider journaling about these benefits, then come back to them when you need a reminder, or a boost when work is particularly challenging.

Green Gulch Farm is a Buddhist practice center in the Japanese Soto Zen tradition offering training in Zen meditation and ordinary work. Our effort at Green Gulch is to awaken in ourselves and the many people who come here the bodhisattva spirit, the spirit of kindness and realistic helpfulness.

The post 10 Benefits of Integrating Mindfulness Practices within Your Work appeared first on Marc Lesser.

Interview: Metta Hour With Sharon Salzberg

Marc Lesser speaks with Sharon Salzberg on the Metta Hour podcast about how he came to the path of meditation and how his personal practice has evolved to inform his career as a leadership coach. They discuss his book, Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader, and some of the common myths and challenges of leadership in any type of environment. You can listen to the conversation below.

The post Interview: Metta Hour With Sharon Salzberg appeared first on Marc Lesser.

Be Radical in your Work and your Life

When my son was a teenager he once said to me, “Dad, I just don’t get it. Why do people spend so much time doing what they don’t really enjoy, just to get ahead or to make money? Don’t they get it? Don’t they see that we are all going to die?” I thought this was a great observation and a great question.

A core aspect of mindfulness practice involves asking the most fundamental questions from the perspective of birth and death, so that we may take stock of what really matters and is most important.

These are generally basic, simple, and radical questions (the definition of the word radical is: arising from or going to the root or source; fundamental; basic). They’re so basic and simple, in fact, that it’s easy to overlook them.

Practicing mindfulness means taking a radical view of life, choosing to return to the root, the most basic level of human existence, focusing on your inner life, on living simply, on fostering self-knowledge and compassion for others as a way to change the world. Integrating mindfulness practice with business practice could be seen as a radical choice in the sense of returning to the values and way of life that are most basic and fundamental to the human beings that make up the company or organization.

Living and working with birth and death in mind loosens our ordinary assumptions about success, failure, and what really matters. Mindfulness is expressed through our choices, making a statement to ourselves and to the world about the importance of focusing on what is most fundamental to our satisfactory existence as a species. Mindful work and life means at times operating outside society’s definitions of success and failure, while at the same time understanding and working within these definitions.

A social entrepreneur or any mindful businessperson can take a radical view of business by choosing to return to the root, the most basic form of commerce, and by focusing on meeting the needs of people and responding to them in a way that is direct and unadorned. An entrepreneur often defines success and failure for herself.

Being joyful, honest, open, and vulnerable in business is a radical idea. There are many similarities between the values of mindfulness practice and the values of business practice. Here are a few:

They are both challenging, and with each challenge comes the possibility of achievement and satisfaction.
They are both filled with possibilities, unknowns, and adventure. Anything could happen.
They both draw on inner and outer practices. How we experience and perceive the world is vitally important. Both provide the chance to work on our inner lives, to expose patterns, and to develop character.
They are both outward practices, aimed at making a difference in the world. Each type of practice makes a political, social, and economic statement.
With mindfulness practice and business practice, there are no clear paths or maps.
They both provide an opportunity to affect people on a local, community, and global level.

Mindfulness isn’t something you take down from the shelf and then put on, like clothing. Your life is the practice. Similarly, I believe that the definition of entrepreneur is much broader than “someone who starts a business.” It is a radical way of thinking and living in the world, of learning directly from each experience, each problem, each person that we meet.

Questions for Daily Practice:

What defines you as radical?
When you consider your mortality, what is most important for your work, and your life?
In what ways are your work and life aligned with what matters most?
Where are there gaps?

The post Be Radical in your Work and your Life appeared first on Marc Lesser.

It’s What You Do: The Practice of Skillful Action

One of my most difficult business decisions was letting go of twelve people in one day. This was at a time when my former publishing company, Brush Dance was pursuing an internet strategy. In just a few months we had grown from ten to twenty-two employees. Then, six months later, as the environment for internet businesses plunged, our investment group announced that they had decided to stop funding the internet business. We had completely run out of money and needed to take some dramatic steps to save the wholesale business. There appeared to be no choice but to let go of our employees who were working primarily on the Internet side of the business and to cut back on the number of people working for the wholesale division.

Letting go of people who had worked hard for the company, in some cases for many years, in a way that felt true, authentic, and compassionate was painful and challenging. I met individually with most of the employees who were being let go. I explained the history of our growth, the circumstances that had led to the current situation, and our thinking about the steps we needed to take to save the company. I shared my pain and my vulnerability. Many of these meetings were difficult and heartfelt, often filled with tears. In the midst of the pain and difficulty of these encounters, there was real human connection. I learned that sometimes just one word or a smile can help transform someone’s difficulty.

The practice of right action can be defined simply as doing good and avoiding harm. Right action is intimately connected to right view, right thinking, and right speech (the first three practices of the eightfold path). Our views, thinking, and speech cannot be separated from how we act. I once heard a teacher explain that the essence of mindfulness is just to “not make things worse,” highlighting just how difficult it is to be a human being. Mindfulness defines doing good as expressing compassion, cultivating kindness, working toward ending social injustice, and being generous with your time and energy.

Expressing compassion. Compassion is acting to relieve and transform difficulty. In business we often have the opportunity to practice compassion with people with whom we come into contact. This might include colleagues who are just beginning a new job or who for whatever reason are leaving the workplace. Sometimes just fully listening to other’s difficulties, whether work related or not, can be an act of compassion.

Kindness. We may not think of our jobs as a place to practice kindness, but why not? We are all vulnerable human beings, even at work, or especially at work. The more we recognize and acknowledge this truth, the more we can be ourselves, and the better we can perform. I find kindness to be one of the most valuable practices in the workplace.

Social justice. Nearly every business has the opportunity to work toward social justice, internally or externally, directly or indirectly. Does your company practice social justice in its hiring practices and in compensation, roles, and responsibilities? Does your company have policies and standards in working with your vendors and customers that foster fairness and equality? How can you bring about fairness and justice within your company and in relationship to your community?

Generosity. Work provides constant opportunities to practice generosity. Our time and our energy are precious gifts that we can choose to withhold or choose to give freely. A student asked his teacher, “I am discouraged, what should I do?” The teacher responded, “Encourage others.” Being generous, most fundamentally, is seeing that we are all intimately, deeply connected. Helping ourselves is helping others; helping others is helping ourselves. We don’t help others for our own benefit or to get something. We see that someone needs our us, and we make ourselves available.

Right action is paying attention, noticing how you act when you feel uncomfortable or threatened. Paying attention to what pushes your buttons and what situations lead you to feel uncomfortable? The more we pay attention, the more we learn about ourselves. The more we pay attention to our actions we see how difficult it is to consistently act in a way that is aligned with our values and intentions. It is said that the life of a Zen teacher can be defined as “one mistake following another.”

Right action is the practice of coming into contact with our caring, with what we love, and with our vulnerability. It is the practice of seeing and acting strategically by understanding that there is no conflict, no difference, between taking care of ourselves, taking care of the people we work with, and taking care of the mission and goals of our organization.

Try this:

Notice what you do when you first come to work and what you do as you are preparing to leave work.
Notice how your thinking and speech affect what you do and how what you do affects your thinking and your speech.
Pay attention to the actions that bring you toward joy and greater freedom.

The post It’s What You Do: The Practice of Skillful Action appeared first on Marc Lesser.

It’s What You Do: The Practice of Skillful

One of my most difficult business decisions was letting go of twelve people in one day. This was at a time when my former publishing company, Brush Dance was pursuing an internet strategy. In just a few months we had grown from ten to twenty-two employees. Then, six months later, as the environment for internet businesses plunged, our investment group announced that they had decided to stop funding the internet business. We had completely run out of money and needed to take some dramatic steps to save the wholesale business. There appeared to be no choice but to let go of our employees who were working primarily on the Internet side of the business and to cut back on the number of people working for the wholesale division.

Letting go of people who had worked hard for the company, in some cases for many years, in a way that felt true, authentic, and compassionate was painful and challenging. I met individually with most of the employees who were being let go. I explained the history of our growth, the circumstances that had led to the current situation, and our thinking about the steps we needed to take to save the company. I shared my pain and my vulnerability. Many of these meetings were difficult and heartfelt, often filled with tears. In the midst of the pain and difficulty of these encounters, there was real human connection. I learned that sometimes just one word or a smile can help transform someone’s difficulty.

The practice of right action can be defined simply as doing good and avoiding harm. Right action is intimately connected to right view, right thinking, and right speech (the first three practices of the eightfold path). Our views, thinking, and speech cannot be separated from how we act. I once heard a teacher explain that the essence of mindfulness is just to “not make things worse,” highlighting just how difficult it is to be a human being. Mindfulness defines doing good as expressing compassion, cultivating kindness, working toward ending social injustice, and being generous with your time and energy.

Expressing compassion. Compassion is acting to relieve and transform difficulty. In business we often have the opportunity to practice compassion with people with whom we come into contact. This might include colleagues who are just beginning a new job or who for whatever reason are leaving the workplace. Sometimes just fully listening to other’s difficulties, whether work related or not, can be an act of compassion.

Kindness. We may not think of our jobs as a place to practice kindness, but why not? We are all vulnerable human beings, even at work, or especially at work. The more we recognize and acknowledge this truth, the more we can be ourselves, and the better we can perform. I find kindness to be one of the most valuable practices in the workplace.

Social justice. Nearly every business has the opportunity to work toward social justice, internally or externally, directly or indirectly. Does your company practice social justice in its hiring practices and in compensation, roles, and responsibilities? Does your company have policies and standards in working with your vendors and customers that foster fairness and equality? How can you bring about fairness and justice within your company and in relationship to your community?

Generosity. Work provides constant opportunities to practice generosity. Our time and our energy are precious gifts that we can choose to withhold or choose to give freely. A student asked his teacher, “I am discouraged, what should I do?” The teacher responded, “Encourage others.” Being generous, most fundamentally, is seeing that we are all intimately, deeply connected. Helping ourselves is helping others; helping others is helping ourselves. We don’t help others for our own benefit or to get something. We see that someone needs our us, and we make ourselves available.

Right action is paying attention, noticing how you act when you feel uncomfortable or threatened. Paying attention to what pushes your buttons and what situations lead you to feel uncomfortable? The more we pay attention, the more we learn about ourselves. The more we pay attention to our actions we see how difficult it is to consistently act in a way that is aligned with our values and intentions. It is said that the life of a Zen teacher can be defined as “one mistake following another.”

Right action is the practice of coming into contact with our caring, with what we love, and with our vulnerability. It is the practice of seeing and acting strategically by understanding that there is no conflict, no difference, between taking care of ourselves, taking care of the people we work with, and taking care of the mission and goals of our organization.

Try this:

Notice what you do when you first come to work and what you do as you are preparing to leave work.
Notice how your thinking and speech affect what you do and how what you do affects your thinking and your speech.
Pay attention to the actions that bring you toward joy and greater freedom.

The post It’s What You Do: The Practice of Skillful appeared first on Marc Lesser.

11 lessons from my time in a Zen Kitchen that helped me run my Business (and my Life)

My first week as head cook of Tassajara* was exciting and challenging. I had completely underestimated how much food it took to feed one hundred and forty people a day.

By my fourth day on the job, we had almost completely run out of food. (Tassajara is two hours from the nearest food store.) I looked through the walk-in refrigerator, trying not to panic, and noticed that the only vegetable we had in any quantity was cabbage.

Since there was not going to be another trip into town for two days, we found many creative ways to prepare cabbage — cabbage casserole, cabbage seaweed grill, and cabbage soup. I learned the importance of projecting inventory needs as well as making do with what was at hand, two skills that have served me well in leadership and in life.

I worked in the Tassajara kitchen for four summers and three winters. I was the dishwasher during my first summer, washing dishes by hand for three student meals and three guest meals each day. In the fall I worked on the kitchen crew, chopping vegetables and learning the basic skills of cooking and baking. The following summer I was the bread baker. Three years later, after I returned to Tassajara from Green Gulch Farm, I was the assistant cook for a summer and winter and then the head cook for a year.

The Tassajara kitchen is my model of the ideal environment for combining work practice and spiritual practice. Tassajara is a Zen monastery located deep in the mountains of central California, and it functions as a resort during the summer months. The kitchen often serves as the center of the monastery — the place where food is prepared and a place where work is most clearly an expression of spiritual practice.

During the summer months, the kitchen produces six meals a day, every day — three meals for seventy students acting as staff and seventy overnight guests. Many guests are drawn to Tassajara by the gourmet, healthy vegetarian fare. Here are some of the values that exemplify how this kitchen serves as a model for work as a spiritual practice:

Clarity of activity

Working in the Tassajara kitchen, it is almost always clear what needs to be done next. The daily menus and the next day’s menus are posted on a corkboard. Under each meal is a detailed list of ingredients and how each is to be prepared. Everyone can see the larger plan and the details of the plan. The assistant cook knows just when each ingredient is required by the cooks. The cooks are generally cooking the next meal as well as preparing several meals ahead of time.

High degree of organization

Every knife, utensil, pot, and pan has a very specific place in the kitchen. Areas are neatly organized and labeled. Processes are very clear — when leftover food is put away, it is always dated. Sponges are also left standing upright so that they can to air-dry. Knives are always cleaned, dried, and put away after use. Counters are cleaned, and floors are swept after each meal.

Regular rhythms

The flow of each day is very predictable. Meals always appear at the same time. Other regular schedules include planning, preparation, cleanup, and rituals. There is a clear structure and schedule each day. Within this structure, anything can happen — people get sick, potatoes get burned, knives need sharpening. The schedule allows for a tremendous amount of freedom and creativity, within a clear and disciplined framework.

Clear roles

Every role is defined, from purchasing the food, planning meals, budgeting, daily assignments, cutting and preparing, to cleaning up. Each person knows his or her role and the role of everyone else in the kitchen.

Work as a spiritual practice

There is an understanding that working in the kitchen is a means to practice mindfulness, awareness, and compassion. People are assigned roles not primarily because of their cooking skills but because it is determined that the kitchen will provide a useful atmosphere for their personal and spiritual growth. There is a dual bottom line:

producing healthy, tasty food presented in a way that is simple and creative;
building character in the people working in the kitchen.

Cross-training

There are regular opportunities to work in other’s positions. The cooks often bake, and the bakers often cook. On the cooks’ days off, crew members fill in.

Clear expectations

Everyone has a clear vision of the quality of the food and the quality of the workmanship — at all levels, from how the food was prepared, to how the counters are cleaned, to how the food is prepared and served.

Regular, measurable outcomes

There is regular feedback from students and from guests at every meal. People express what they like and don’t like about each meal, the combinations of food, the seasonings, the presentation. The cooks often eat in the dining room alongside the guests to experience firsthand the results of their labor. The cooks then address what worked and didn’t work well and incorporate this information into planning future meals.

Working together and separately

Although nearly every aspect of work in the kitchen is done individually, it is part of a group effort. Each person works alone chopping vegetables. Then a cook uses these vegetables when creating the meal.

Being stretched to achieve

Kitchen assignments are not based primarily on levels of skills and experience. Though skills and experience are taken into account, the primary factor in determining kitchen roles is based on what roles were deemed to help a person to grow.

Ritual

The word ritual can be defined as an activity performed for a higher purpose. Kitchen work at Tassajara is viewed as meditation in action. Each morning the kitchen crew sits one period of meditation with everyone in the community and then leaves the meditation hall to begin work in the kitchen. The crew begins working at 5:00 am, aware that others are still meditating.

Many or all these practices can be applied to a variety of work environments, whether in the office, the classroom, or the operating room. Choose a practice that applies to your situation, either by yourself or with a group. Experiment. Play. See what happens. Learn from what works and from what doesn’t.

Questions for Daily Practice:

What is your model of the ideal environment for creating a great place to work?
What lessons from the Tassajara kitchen could you integrate into your work life?
What rituals do you have in your workplace?
What rituals can be added?
How can you apply these practices to your work environment and to your life?

*Tassajara is one of three practice communities that comprise the San Francisco Zen Center, whose mission is “to embody, express, and make accessible the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha.”

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It’s What You Say: The Practice of Right Speech

One of the amazing aspects of business and work is the way in which we all bring our communication styles, which often include our childhood habits, patterns, strengths, and weaknesses, into the workplace. Businesses may spend a good deal of time creating systems in an attempt to root out or change these individual behaviors, but at the end of the day we are all human beings with established ways of communicating and responding. It’s easy to underestimate the power that our words have. Thus the importance of the practice of right speech.

The classic definition of right speech is to speak truthfully – being loyal to the truth when speaking with others, not creating harm or speaking cruelly, not exaggerating or embellishing, and speaking in a way that relieves suffering and brings people back to themselves. Let’s unpack these approaches below.


Being Loyal to the Truth

Saying what you know to be true, and not saying what is not true, is a clear and powerful practice – and much more difficult than you might imagine. When we speak truthfully we become worthy of trust, and the people around us feel cared for and safe.

When I was CEO of Brush Dance, a publishing company I started many years ago, most of our customers bought directly from us and had thirty days to pay for their purchase. If they were late paying us, we called them. I thought of this as an opportunity for truth telling. Our policy regarding collections calls was merely to state the truth – reminding customers of what they purchased, when they purchased it, the amount they owed, and when the payment was due. We then asked them when they expected to make a payment. In return for stating the truth we asked for the truth in return.

Of course, we also made our business purchases on credit. It can be more difficult being on the other end of these calls, but the practice is the same. If we were late in making payments, we tried to call our vendors before we were called by them. We let them know we were aware of the payment due and relayed our plan for making the payment, especially if we were going to be late. Sometimes just telling the truth can be very refreshing, even though it can also be painful.

Not Creating Harm

Our words have the power to cause tremendous harm or tremendous healing. I’ve seen much pain caused in the work environment by people not being careful with speech and underestimating the power of words. Even when we have no intention to cause harm, our words may affect others in ways that are completely outside our own experience or expectations. I have noticed, as a manager and especially as “the boss,” that my words, particularly how I express my displeasure, can have a tremendous impact. I have learned the importance of giving great care to where, when, and how I express my insights regarding performance or behaviors that need to be changed or improved.

Not Exaggerating

So often in business, people describe situations and outcomes in ways that make themselves or their projects appear more successful or more certain then they really are. I have also noticed that people sometimes make tasks appear more difficult and complicated then they actually are as a way to protect themselves from criticism or from being given additional work. The word spin, meaning to put a positive or negative light on a situation, has recently been in vogue. Spin is simply a euphemism for exaggeration.

Some years ago I noticed that in my communication with the Brush Dance Board of Directors I was presenting information in a very positive way and underestimating what was not working well. When I realized this, my first reaction was to overcompensate. So, for a while I shifted to underemphasizing our successes and bringing more attention to the difficulties. Eventually, I learned to present the most accurate picture that I could of our successes, our failures, what I was feeling good about, and my concerns.

Relieving Suffering

Our speech has the potential to provide comfort, positive challenge, and transformation in our work environment. By speaking clearly and directly from our hearts, we can touch the people around us and turn suffering into acceptance and joy. Just listening fully to others is often enough to relieve suffering. This requires stopping and just being with another person, in whatever state they are in.

I’ve discovered that aspects of my management style and speech were habits I had learned as a child. When I was very young I sensed the tension and stress in my household. My father was manic-depressive and in and out of mental institutions. There was very little talk in my household about feelings, difficulties, or needs. I developed a strategy of dealing with difficult situations by ignoring them or distancing myself from them. Things seemed difficult enough, in fact, teetering on disaster. I concluded that if I were to express what I saw or needed, it might push the situation over the edge or make it worse. I learned not to say anything and just take care of myself and of my parents the best I could.

Though this strategy may have worked for me as a child, it could have proved disastrous for me as the CEO of a small, quickly growing company. Not saying anything was seen by some as approval of their behavior and work performance and by others as an expression of disapproval. Of course, usually it was the employees who were not performing well who thought my silence meant that I approved of their work, and the employees who were excelling who felt unacknowledged by my silence.

The foundation of right speech is deep listening. Our speech does not occur in a vacuum and it includes our awareness of others. When people don’t feel heard they become isolated and unhappy. Their work suffers, and the work of everyone around them suffers as well. Right speech means being present and meeting each person and each situation directly. Since each person has different communication and listening styles, right speech is the practice of speaking to each person in a way that best reaches and affects that person in each situation, while at the same time being true to yourself.

Sometimes we can use speech to hide our feelings and intentions. We often do this by asking questions instead of just saying what we want, see, or feel. Other times we block out others’ viewpoints by not asking questions and by forcefully entering others’ space. Practicing right speech entails including many views and expressing information and feeling in a way that is clear, direct, and effective.

To explore :

Explore noticing how you speak to others and how others speak to you. Just notice.

Notice how your speech varies with whomever you are speaking – someone whom you report to, who reports to you, a family member.
Experiment by speaking directly and openly.
Take risks with your words by speaking openly from your heart.
Notice how your words touch and affect people.

The post It’s What You Say: The Practice of Right Speech appeared first on Marc Lesser.