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Photography: Webb Chappell

Over nearly four decades, Ellen Langer's inquiry on mindfulness has greatly influenced thinking across a range of fields, from behavioral economic science to positive psychology. It reveals that by paying attention to what's going on around us, instead of operating on auto-airplane pilot, nosotros tin can reduce stress, unlock creativity, and boost performance. Her "counterclockwise" experiments, for example, demonstrated that elderly men could meliorate their health by simply interim equally if it were twenty years earlier. In this interview with senior editor Alison Beard, Langer applies her thinking to leadership and management in an historic period of increasing chaos.

HBR: Allow'southward first with the nuts. What, exactly, is mindfulness? How do you ascertain it?

Langer: Mindfulness is the process of actively noticing new things. When yous exercise that, it puts you in the nowadays. It makes y'all more sensitive to context and perspective. It'due south the essence of engagement. And it'south free energy-begetting, not energy-consuming. The mistake well-nigh people make is to assume it'south stressful and exhausting—all this thinking. But what'due south stressful is all the mindless negative evaluations we make and the worry that nosotros'll notice problems and not exist able to solve them.

Nosotros all seek stability. We want to hold things however, thinking that if nosotros do, we can control them. But since everything is always changing, that doesn't work. Really, it causes yous to lose control.

Take piece of work processes. When people say, "This is the way to exercise it," that's not true. At that place are ever many ways, and the mode you choose should depend on the current context. You can't solve today'due south problems with yesterday'southward solutions. And so when someone says, "Learn this so it's second nature," let a bong become off in your head, because that means mindlessness. The rules you were given were the rules that worked for the person who created them, and the more unlike you are from that person, the worse they're going to work for you. When you're mindful, rules, routines, and goals guide you; they don't govern you.

What are some of the specific benefits of being more mindful, according to your enquiry?

Better performance, for one. We did a study with symphony musicians, who, it turns out, are bored to death. They're playing the same pieces over and over again, and withal information technology'southward a high-status job that they can't hands walk away from. So we had groups of them perform. Some were told to replicate a previous performance they'd liked—that is, to play pretty mindlessly. Others were told to make their individual performance new in subtle ways—to play mindfully. Retrieve: This wasn't jazz, so the changes were very subtle indeed. But when we played recordings of the symphonies for people who knew nada about the study, they overwhelmingly preferred the mindfully played pieces. So here we had a group operation where everybody was doing their ain thing, and it was better. There's this view that if you let everyone do their own matter, chaos volition reign. When people are doing their own thing in a rebellious fashion, aye, it might. But if anybody is working in the same context and is fully present, at that place's no reason why you shouldn't get a superior coordinated performance.

"I also tell people near work/life integration, not balance. 'Balance' suggests that the two are opposite and accept zilch in common. But that's non truthful."

There are many other advantages to mindfulness. It's easier to pay attention. You remember more than of what you've done. Yous're more artistic. You're able to have advantage of opportunities when they present themselves. You avert the danger not yet arisen. You like people amend, and people similar you better, because you're less evaluative. You're more charismatic.

The idea of procrastination and regret tin become away, because if yous know why you're doing something, you don't accept yourself to job for not doing something else. If you lot're fully nowadays when you decide to prioritize this job or piece of work at this house or create this production or pursue this strategy, why would you lot regret it?

I've been studying this for about 40 years, and for almost any measure out, we find that mindfulness generates a more positive result. That makes sense when you lot realize information technology'southward a superordinate variable. No matter what y'all're doing—eating a sandwich, doing an interview, working on some gizmo, writing a report—you're doing information technology mindfully or mindlessly. When it'southward the former, it leaves an imprint on what you do. At the very highest levels of any field—Fortune l CEOs, the most impressive artists and musicians, the peak athletes, the best teachers and mechanics—you'll find mindful people, because that's the only fashion to get there.

How have you shown a link between mindfulness and innovation?

With Gabriel Hammond, a graduate student, I ran a study where nosotros asked participants to come up up with new uses for products that had failed. Nosotros primed one group for mindlessness by telling them how the production had fallen short of its original intended apply—to cite a famous example from 3M, a failed glue. We primed the other for mindfulness by simply describing the production'southward properties—a substance that adheres for but a short amount of time. Of form, the most creative ideas for new uses came from the second group.

I'grand an artist as well as a researcher, writer, and consultant—each activity informs the others for me—and I got the thought to report mindfulness and mistakes when I was painting. I looked up and saw I was using ocher when I'd meant to use magenta, so I started trying to fix it. Only then I realized I'd made the decision to use magenta simply seconds earlier. People practise this all the time. You lot starting time with uncertainty, you make a decision, and if you brand a fault, it's a cataclysm. But the path you were following was just a determination. You can change it at whatsoever fourth dimension, and perchance an alternative will turn out better. When you lot're mindful, mistakes become friends.

How does being mindful make someone more charismatic?

We've shown this in a few studies. An early one was with magazine salespeople: The mindful ones sold more than and were rated as more than likable by buyers. More recently, we've looked at the bind that women executives confront: If they act in strong, stereotypically masculine ways, they're seen equally bitchy, but if they human activity feminine, they're seen as weak and not leadership material. So we asked two groups of women to give persuasive speeches. One group was told to act masculine, the other to human action feminine. So half of each group was instructed to give their spoken communication mindfully, and we institute that audiences preferred the mindful speakers, regardless of what gender role they were playing out.

And mindfulness too makes you less judgmental about others?

Yes. We all take a tendency to mindlessly pigeonhole people: He'due south rigid. She's impulsive. But when you freeze someone in that way, you don't get the run a risk to savour a human relationship with them or use their talents. Mindfulness helps you to appreciate why people behave the way they practise. It makes sense to them at the time, or else they wouldn't do it.

We did a study in which nosotros asked people to charge per unit their own grapheme traits—the things they would most similar to alter and the things they about valued about themselves—and we institute a big irony. The traits that people valued tended to be positive versions of the ones they wanted to alter. And so the reason I personally can't stop existence impulsive is that I value existence spontaneous. That means if you want to change my behavior, you'll take to persuade me not to like spontaneity. But chances are that when you lot see me from this proper perspective—spontaneous rather than impulsive—yous won't want to change me.

Mindful Management

What else tin managers practice to be more mindful?

One tactic is to imagine that your thoughts are totally transparent. If they were, you lot wouldn't think awful things about other people. You lot'd find a way to sympathize their perspective.

And when you're upset about something—maybe someone turned in an consignment tardily, or didn't practise it the way you wanted—ask yourself, "Is it a tragedy or an inconvenience?" It's probably the latter. Nigh of the things that go the states upset are.

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I as well tell people to remember nigh work/life integration, not balance. "Residual" suggests that the two are contrary and have aught in common. Merely that's not true. They're both more often than not about people. In that location are stresses in both. At that place are schedules to be met. If you go on them separate, you lot don't learn to transfer what you exercise successfully in i domain to the other. When nosotros're mindful, we realize that categories are person-constructed and don't limit us.

Call up, too, that stress is not a function of events; it's a part of the view you take of events. You lot think a particular matter is going to happen and that when it does, information technology'due south going to be atrocious. But prediction is an illusion. We can't know what'due south going to happen. And then give yourself 5 reasons you won't lose the chore. Then think of five reasons why, if y'all did, it would be an advantage—new opportunities, more time with family, et cetera. Now you've gone from thinking it's definitely going to happen to thinking maybe it will and even if it does, you'll exist OK.

If y'all feel overwhelmed by your responsibilities, use the aforementioned approach. Question the conventionalities that y'all're the only one who can do it, that there's only one way to do it, and that the visitor will plummet if you don't practice it. When y'all open your views to be mindful, the stress just dissipates.

Mindfulness helps you lot realize that at that place are no positive or negative outcomes. There's A, B, C, D, and more, each with its challenges and opportunities.

Requite me some scenarios, and I'll explicate how mindfulness helps.

I'1000 the leader of a team in dissent. People are arguing vehemently for different strategies, and I have to make up one's mind on one.

At that place's an former story about two people coming before a estimate. Ane guy tells his side of the story, and the judge says, "That's right." The other guy tells his side of the story, and the judge says, "That's right." They say, "We can't both be right." And the approximate says, "That's right." We have this mindless notion to settle disputes with a option between this way or that way, or a compromise. But win-win solutions can well-nigh always be sought. Instead of letting people lock into their positions, go dorsum and open it upwardly. Have opponents play the debate from the other side so that they realize there are adept arguments either way. Then observe a style for both of them to be right.

I'm an executive with lots of commitments who'southward facing a personal crisis.

If I couldn't do this interview because I was having a problem at home, I would say, "Alison, I hope you lot'll forgive me, but my mind is elsewhere right now considering I'm having this crisis." And you might say, "Oh, no, I had a crunch last week. It's OK. I sympathize." And so, when the crunch was over, we could come back to what we were doing, but with a whole new relationship, which would ready us upward for all sorts of good things in the futurity.

I'chiliad a boss giving a review to an underperforming employee.

Make articulate that the evaluation is your perspective, not a universal one, which opens upwards the dialogue. Let'due south say a educatee or a worker adds one and 1 and gets one. The teacher or employer tin can but say "Wrong," or he can try to figure out how the person got to one. And then the worker says, "If y'all add one wad of chewing gum to another wad, one plus one equals one." Now the boss has learned something.

As a leader, you can walk around as if you lot're God and become everybody to quiver. But then y'all're not going to acquire anything, considering they're not going to tell you, and y'all're going to be lone and unhappy. It doesn't have to exist lonely at the meridian. You tin can be there and be open up.

How practise y'all create a more mindful arrangement?

When I'm doing consulting work with companies, I normally start by showing everyone how mindless they are, and what they're missing as a result. You can be mindless only if two conditions are met: Y'all found the very all-time mode of doing things, and nothing changes. Of course, those weather can't be met. So if you're going to piece of work, you should be there and notice things. Then I explain that there are alternative means of getting anywhere, and in fact, y'all can't even be sure that the destination you've chosen is ultimately where you'll want to be. Everything looks different from dissimilar perspectives.

I tell leaders they should brand not knowing OK—I don't know, you don't know, nobody knows—rather than acting like they know, so everyone else pretends they know, which leads to all sorts of discomfort and anxiety. Eliminate goose egg-accident policies. If you have a null-accident policy, you're going to accept a maximum-lying policy. Go people to ask, "Why? What are the benefits of doing it this way versus another way?" When y'all do that, everyone relaxes a lilliputian, and you're all better able to meet and take advantage of opportunities.

I was working with a nursing home years ago, and a nurse walked in, lament that one of the residents didn't want to go to the dining room. She wanted to stay in her room and swallow peanut butter. And so I butted in and said, "What'southward wrong with that?" Her reply was "What if everybody wants to do it?" And I said, "Well, if everybody did it, you'd save a lot of coin on nutrient. But, more seriously, it would tell you something nearly how the food is being prepared or served. If it's merely ane person occasionally, what'southward the large deal? If it happens all the fourth dimension, there's an opportunity hither."

I imagine you don't like checklists?

The first time yous go through a checklist, it's fine. Simply subsequently that, most people tend to do it mindlessly. So in aviation you have flaps up, throttle open, anti-ice off. Merely if snow is coming and the anti-ice is off, the plane crashes.

Checklists aren't bad if they require qualitative information to be obtained in that moment. For instance, "Delight annotation the atmospheric condition conditions. Based on these conditions, should the anti-ice be on or off?" or "How is the patient's skin color different from yesterday?" If you ask questions that encourage mindfulness, yous bring people into the present and you lot're more than likely to avoid an accident.

Mindful, qualitative comments help in interpersonal relationships, too, by the mode. If you're giving a compliment, "You look great" is non well-nigh as constructive every bit something similar "Your eyes are sparkling today." To say that, you lot take to be at that place, and people will recognize and appreciate it.

Mindfulness and Focus

The business organization environment has changed a lot since you began studying mindfulness. It's more complex and uncertain. We have new data and analysis coming at us all the time. And then mindfulness becomes more important for navigating the chaos—merely the chaos makes it a lot harder to be mindful.

I think chaos is a perception. People say that there's also much data, and I would say that there's no more information now than there was earlier. The difference is that people believe they have to know it—that the more than information they have, the better the product is going to be and the more than money the company is going to make. I don't think it depends as much on the corporeality of information someone has as on the manner it'southward taken in. And that needs to exist mindfully.

"What you want is a soft openness—to be circumspect to the things you're doing simply non unmarried-minded, considering and then you're missing other opportunities."

How has technology changed our power to exist mindful? Is information technology a aid or a hindrance?

Once more, 1 tin bring mindfulness to annihilation. Nosotros've studied multitasking and found that if y'all're open and keep the boundaries loose, it tin can be an advantage. The information from one thing tin can aid you lot with another. I remember what we should exercise is learn from the way applied science is fun and compelling and build that into our work.

HBR recently published an article on the importance of focus in which the author, Daniel Goleman, talks about the demand for both exploration and exploitation. How practice you balance mindfulness—constantly looking for the new—with the ability to buckle down and become things done?

Vigilance, or very focused attending, is probably mindless. If I'm racing through the wood on horseback, watching the branches and then that I don't go hit in the face, I might miss the boulder on the footing, so and then my horse stumbles and I'one thousand thrown off. Only I don't call back that's what Dan means by focus. What you desire is a soft openness—to exist circumspect to the things yous're doing but not single-minded, because and then you're missing other opportunities.

We hear the management customs talking more about mindfulness at present. When did you realize that the ideas yous've been studying for decades had become mainstream?

I was at a party, and 2 different people came up to me and said, "Your mindfulness is everywhere." Of course, I only saw a new picture that starts with someone going around Harvard Foursquare asking people what mindfulness is, and nobody knows. So at that place's all the same a lot of work to do.

What are yous working on side by side?

The Langer Mindfulness Institute works in three arenas: health, crumbling, and the workplace. In health we want to see just how far nosotros can push the mind-torso notion. Years ago we did studies on chambermaids (who lost weight after existence told their work was exercise) and vision (where people did better on eye tests that had them work upwardly from large messages at the bottom to small ones at the top, creating the expectation that they would exist able to read them). Now nosotros're trying a mindfulness cure on many diseases that people think are uncontrollable to see if we tin can at to the lowest degree ameliorate the symptoms. Nosotros're also doing counterclockwise retreats around the world, starting in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, using research-proven techniques to help people live boldly. And we're doing conferences and consulting on piece of work/life integration, mindful leadership and strategy processes, stress reduction, and innovation, with companies such as Thorlo and Santander and NGOs such as CARE and Vermont's Free energy Activity Network.

I'thou told that I drive my students crazy because I'grand always coming upwards with new ideas. I'g thinking near perchance a mindfulness camp for children. One exercise might be to take a group of xx kids and continue dividing them into subsets—male person/female, younger/older, dark pilus/low-cal hair, wearing black/not wearing black—until they realize that everyone is unique. As I've said for xxx years, the best manner to decrease prejudice is to increase bigotry. We would also play games and midway through mix up the teams. Or mayhap we'd give each kid a risk to rewrite the rules of the game, so it becomes articulate that operation is only a reflection of one'southward power under certain circumstances. Yous know, if they allowed three serves in lawn tennis, I would be a much better player.

What'due south the i thing almost mindfulness you'd like every executive to recall?

Information technology'southward going to sound corny, but I believe it fully: Life consists only of moments, nothing more than than that. Then if you make the moment matter, it all matters. You can be mindful, you can be mindless. You can win, you tin can lose. The worst example is to be mindless and lose. So when yous're doing anything, be mindful, notice new things, make it meaningful to you, and you'll prosper.

A version of this article appeared in the March 2014 issue of Harvard Business Review.