Day 13. 3 Principles of Starting Mindfulness/Emotional Intelligence Communities at Work

I had the honor & pleasure of participating in the inaugural SIY Global Summit last week in Lisbon, Portugal. The theme of the summit was “Connect & Cultivate; Humanizing Work Together”. As a certified SIY teacher, I’ve experienced the impact of SIY training at Meta after offering 30+ times. What this Summit reassured and reminded me of was the critical roles of internal communities in building a healthy workplace culture with mindfulness and emotional intelligence (“EI”). Peter Bostelmann from SAP and Ralf Haacke from P&G shared the following 3 principles in common.

1. Start Where You Are

If you are determined to bring mindfulness and EI to your workplace, just start where you are. Search internally if anyone wants to meet & chat about mindfulness or emotional intelligence. Only one person might show up first time but it’ll grow if you keep creating the opportunities regularly. Don’t get overwhelmed by setting up unrealistic expectations of how to start.

2. Ask for Forgiveness, Not Permission

You may wonder if your HR or L&D team might reprimand you if you start a community on mindfulness & emotional intelligence. Put that concern aside and just focus on finding and connecting with more likeminded people at work about the topic. Once the community becomes big enough, you can figure out the boundary.

3. Practice & Persist

When members of your community practice EI skills together and become emotionally intelligent, its impact will start showing. They will outperform their peers for tasks and they will look calmer. Persist with group practices and share the positive impact skillfully; then executives or HR/L&D team will start recognizing your community for its positive impacts on company culture and performance.

When you’re first starting out, this is all that matters as the basic principles.