Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Mindfulness: Business and Behavioral Sciences


Innovation and creativity are understood as necessary skills for thriving in a dynamic economy, but what is often left out is the role of transforming the mind itself -- as the Buddha recommended.

Today's overwhelming challenges require leaders to move beyond "being effective" to fundamentally change themselves and how they see and relate to the world. How can individuals and organizations let go of ego and transform mindsets to evoke creativity, productivity, and innovation?

In this edition of Southern California Public Radio's Drucker Business Forum series SCPR hears about a new model for creative and productive leaders, a model in which innovation is actually a complete mentality, not a business-led process.

Nick Udall, Ph.D., is CEO of nowhere (now-here.com) and chair of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on New Models of Leadership, puts it this way: leaders have to "stop taking up space and start making and holding space" to help their organizations deal with facing the unknown.  They must turn the notion of leadership on its head and move beyond their own egos. Udall sits down with Drucker School Assistant Professor of Practice Jeremy Hunter, Ph.D. (Claremont Graduate University, co-author chapter "Making the Mindful Leader: Cultivating Skills for Facing Adaptive Challenges" in the new The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of Leadership, Change, and Organizational Development.  They will explore how transforming the way leaders and groups relate, learn, and organize can lead to new patterns of thought and innovative action.

This insightful conversation will draw on their personal and organizational skills to show how awareness, perception, consciousness, and mindfulness can lead to more purposeful, sustainable, innovative -- and successful -- organizations.
 
Nick Udall works with CEOs and executive leaders of global businesses to develop breakthrough strategies and build cultures of innovation; Chair of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on New Models of Leadership. His new book, Riding the Creative Rollercoaster: How Leaders Evoke Creativity, Productivity and Innovation, is out this month.

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