Brain based approaches to improving employee resilience and productivity
10th February 2012, Robinson College, Cambridge
Thank you to everyone who attended the conference despite the cold icy weather!
Over 220 people were booked to attend, and it proved to be a highly energising and motivating day.
Post conference resources for attendees
Keynote 1: How does Mindfulness work: Finding peace in a frantic world
Professor Mark Williams will overview psychological understandings of mindfulness and review recent research. Key questions include:
Why do our attempts to control our stress and low mood states backfire?
How can understanding the difference between "doing" mode and "being" mode enable us to be more effective?
How can mindfulness help us live in a frantic world, and what are the possible implications of this for organisations and employees? Mark Williams is a world thought leader in the field of mindfulness. He is the Director of Oxford Mindfulness Centre, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Oxford and a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow. Mark was the founder of the University of Wales Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice.
Mark is one of the co-creator of mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT).
He is a well respected author and international speaker.
Links
You Tube: Prof Mark Williams talks about stress
You Tube: Mark Williams talks about MBCT
You Tube: Mark Williams talks about the benefits of the online mindfulness course
Book: Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World
Keynote 2: Dr Shanida Nataraja: Neuroscience of mindfulness & its impact on workplace performance
Shanida will explore mindfulness from a scientific perspective. What happens in the brain when we practice mindfulness? Can mindfulness physically change our brain structure? Can we detect a difference in the brain structure of those who practice mindfulness, and those who do not?
What is neuro-plasticity, and what are its implications for us both at home and at work? How can we optimise our brains performance and health?
A copy of Shanidas slides can be found at:
Dr Shanida Nataraja is a neuroscientist and the author of "The blissful brain", a book which provides the scientific explanation of how practices such as mindfulness work, and how their use can optimise the performance of our brain, our state of health and well being.
She is an international speaker, as well as being the Editorial and scientific director of AXOM Communications.
Links
You tube: Understanding Consciousness (Shanida's talk starts 1 min into video)
Workshop B2: Dr Sahaja Davis : Improving the way we work by using Mindfulness based conversations
Many aspects of individuals work within the public or private sector involves communication. Individuals are essentially employed to have conversations. These c
onversations may surround areas such as negotiation, problem solving, promoting, supervision, support or developing understanding. Primarily the aim is for some form of change to occur as a result of these conversations. Through the use of our professional conversations as the field of mindfulness practice MBC offers an approach to developing more effective communication uncluttered by extraneous, thoughts, feelings and agendas.
The development of Mindfulness Based Conversations (MBC) is the result of his long term passion to make the profound insights that can arise from mindfulness available to a wide audience. This passion has led to the development of a range of practical tools that can be readily adopted by professionals to improve the quality and experience of their work.
Workshop A1: Graham Lee: Leading in times of change - new theories & approaches to leadership
What kinds of leadership do we need to meet the emerging challenges facing organisations? Graham will address this question by drawing out the distinctive themes across a number of new and prevailing theories of leadership. What's different about these approaches? What do they see as pivotal to effective leadership? What are the implications of these approaches for leadership development, and what potential role might mindfulness play in that endeavour?
Graham specialises in leadership development, either working directly with senior leaders and their organisations, or with consultants and coaches who have their own clients. Best known for his influential book Leadership Coaching: From Personal Insight to Organisational Performance, and as a visiting lecturer to a number of coach trainings, he has been a key exponent of the role of psychological mindedness in authentic leadership, in particular emphasising the need to cultivate the mental states of awareness in order to lead effective adaptive change. .
He teaches mindfulness as a critical leadership skill as part of his coaching and leadership development work. He has also developed mindful coaching supervision groups, supporting coaches to develop their self awareness and mental agility, and so their capacity to engender more deep seated and enduring change for their clients.
Workshop A4: Richard Latham: Learning Mindfulness online in the workplace.
Richard will provide a brief overview and demo of "Be Mindful Online", a web based course for learning and practicing mindfulness for reduced stress in daily life. This online course has been followed by over a thousand people and results show that it achieves similar results to the eight week face to face course. A hundred participants have trialed the course in a corporate setting and this workshop will explore what can be learnt from this. What are the outcomes for participants of the course? What are the advantages and disadvantages of teaching mindfulness on line? How does this approach work within a corporate setting? What are the implications of this from both a corporate and mindfulness teaching perspective?
Richard is MD of Wellmind Media Ltd, a developer of online health intervention programmes. In 2009 he produced Pathway through Pain, an online course for people living with chronic pain and in 2010 he developed the software behind Be Mindful Online, an online course for learning and practicing mindfulness. These new interventions are proving to be highly effective and have been the subject of research studies.
Links
Be mindful online mindfulness course
Workshop B3: Gladeana McManon & Dr Patrizia Collard: Mindfulness Based Cognitive Coaching (MBCC) at Work
Coaching is a now a recognized intervention used by individuals and organizations to improve performance and create a more resilient, creative and able workforce. Mindfulness Based Cognitive Coaching (MBCC) is a powerful new development that synthesizes Cognitive Behavioural Coaching
(CBC) with Mindfulness practices to enhance personal performance while bringing corporate benefits. MBCC creates a sense of well-being and increases personal fulfillment. Dr Patrizia Collard and Gladeana McMahon will consider the role of coaching at work and, in particular, how Mindfulness and CBC when fused together deal with unhelpful thinking patterns and behaviours.
Gladeana McMahon is a leading author and speaker, combining academic vigour with down to earth communication skills.
She works with politicians, celebrities and senior business people. She is the UK chair of the Association for Coaching, and co-creator of cognitive behavioural coaching and mindfulness based cognitive coaching.
Patrizia is a Senior Lecturer for Psychotherapy and Counselling at the University of East London, and a highly experienced mindfulness teacher/trainer. In 2009, she organised a ground breaking Neuroscience & Mindfulness conference in London. She teaches clinicians, managers and leaders mindfulness techniques.
Links
Mindful feelings at work article by Gladeana McMahon & Patrizia Collard
You tube: Pyschotherapist Gladeana McMahon TV extract
Stress Minus: Patrizia's website
Mindful feelings at work article by Gladeana McMahon & Patrizia Collard
You tube: Patrizia Collard: What is mindfulness in a coaching context
Workshop B4: Tamara Russell : The neuroscience of emotional resilience at work
Tamara will explore mindfulness from a brain science perspective, focussing in on emotional resilience. Many undesirable workplace behaviours are generated by the brains emotional response to perceived threats. Mindfulness can help individuals become much more aware of their thoughts and emotions, and thus able to decide how best to respond to events, rather than acting on auto pilot. This has powerful implications for both individuals and organisations. What happens in the brain when we perceive a threat? How does the brain regulate emotions? To what extent can we learn to overcome our automatic responses to stimulus? How can mindfulness help us regulate our emotions?
To View Tamara's presentation:
Dr Tamara Russell is a mindfulness consultant advising organisations on how they can incorporate mindfulness training into the workplace in order to improve staff well being and resilience. She is involved in researching the neuroanatomy of mindfulness
Workshop 6: Shamash Alidina & Jane Brendgen: The Business Case for Mindfulness
Shamash & Jane will explore ways of formulating a business case for mindfulness in organisations. They'll touch upon some of the key research findings relevant for the workplace, explore important factors that need to be considered and invite delegates into a collaborative process to promote sharing of knowledge and experience. The intention will be to produce a synopsis outlining key insights, ideas and considerations to creatively and effectively establish a compelling argument to take mindfulness into the workplace.
Shamash Alidina M.Eng M.A. has been teaching mindfulness for over a decade. He has trained both at Bangor University's Centre for Mindfulness and through UMASS Medical School's Center for Mindfulness with Jon Kabat-Zinn. He's author of international bestseller Mindfulness For Dummies and the recently released Relaxation For Dummies. He has worked with organisations like the NHS & the BBC.
Jane works in the field of organisational and personal development and in her role as coach and trainer / facilitator delivers workshops, team and 1-1 coaching primarily to media organisations such as The Discovery Channel, News International, Channel 4, Channel 5, The Walt Disney Company, GroupM, and MediaCom. She has also worked with clients such as MSN Microsoft, AOL and the NHS.
Mindfulness is integral to Jane's work. She teaches the 8-week MBSR programme and has developed a number of workshops for the workplace which emphasise mindfulness as an agent for change. Her approach to coaching is informed by and based on mindfulness.
Jane is moving towards completing her MA in Mindfulness-based approached at Bangor University. She is undertaking a thesis project this year, the focus of which is to establish a methodology modelled on the MBSR programme to fulfil the business need for mindfulness training in the workplace.
She has a committed daily practice and is deeply appreciative of the benefits of this in her everyday life.
Links:
Jane Brendgen: jane.brendgen@yahoo.com Twitter.com/mindfuljane 07786 387 072
Shamash Alidina: Learnmindfulness.co.uk Facebook.com/Alidina Twitter.com/shamashalidina 07903 343 893
Corporate Mindfulness:learnmindfulness.co.uk/corporate
Corporate Mental Fitness Training:sonzai.co.uk
Mindfulness Teacher Training: learnmindfulness.co.uk/teacher-training