Is meditation another motivation way, or why does Google provide rooms for them?

We all know that there are not enough IT specialists and that they are being hunted and various strategies of retaining and motivating retired employees are being implemented.

Although it is surprising, but Google has become an innovator in this process, the company has launched a project for training employees of meditation and awareness a couple of years ago. As part of this project, Google invites renowned Buddhism teachers for lectures and training, builds meditation rooms, etc.

Why it can work and how you can use these methods in your company under the cut.

How companies retain professionals and results.

In today's overheated market, IT programmers and other industry experts have become a valuable resource that makes up the core business value (core resource). Therefore, companies are forced to develop strategies for motivating and retaining employees. The following tricks are widespread:

• full satisfaction of the basic needs of a specialist in the theory of Maslow ( it’s well written here ) - salary, insurance, fitness, corporate parties, holidays.
• personal growth - language training, growth of professional skills, etc.
• creating an internal brand of the team - we are good (the best, real, etc.)

When these methods of exposure exhaust themselves (depending on the psychotype of the person, but for most people they are enough for 3-7 years), then there is another good method - the physical movement of a person to another country. If the company has offices in several countries of the world, then moving an employee with his family motivates him for another 5-7 years of joyful and proactive work.

However, sooner or later, but the time always comes when an employee gets tired morally (or mentally or ...) and productivity drops and communication problems and ... he changes jobs, but the company has mega problems - you need to look for a new person and introduce him into the product and the team. And in the conditions of modern speeds it is expensive and difficult.

Therefore, any tool that allows you to extend the effective state of employees with an acceptable level of financial and labor costs has high value and implementation potential.

Why the practice of meditation is suitable as one of the facets of motivation.

So, we have the facts, Google has launched a training program for meditation employees, is building a labyrinth and rooms for meditation (at the end of the article sources). The executives of major Silicon Valley IT companies meet with Buddhist teachers and also implement these methods.

That is, the time has come for a new tool to increase efficiency - money, career growth, insurance and cooperatives, and even relocation have already passed, and the schedule of enthusiasm (and overall productivity) is going down. And the flagships of the industry chose Buddhist meditation (I emphasize the view, since there are many of them) as a new tool to increase efficiency and motivation.

What is there in this practice that allows you to restart the internal motor of enthusiasm and self-motivate entire teams and / or individual employees?

To understand, you need to start with the basics. Of course, I will denote everything thesis and only that fits our topic. Thousands of books have been written on this subject, and even the direct teaching of the Buddha takes 108 volumes. That is, it is unrealistic to put everything in one article.

Even probably point by point. So, according to Buddhist theory:

1. We live endlessly in a cycle of rebirths, our mind (approximately a soul, consciousness, but NOT a logical mind or our self-determination, our Self) was not born and will never die
2. Our (and generally any sentient beings) basic need is happiness.
3. In search of happiness, we try to attract all that is pleasant and push away the unpleasant. Moreover, we perceive everything separately - there are phenomena, people, happiness, unhappiness, etc.
4. According to Buddhism, absolutely all things and phenomena are interconnected and have no independent being. Also, absolutely everything is impermanent - there is nothing unchanging, no planets, no love, no life, no death, no happiness, no misfortune, no ....
5. Therefore, all that we feel and perceive is illusory and temporary. At the level of emotions, if I feel angry, then I chose this unpleasant feeling myself and with the same success I can feel joy. The rationale for "I'm angry because ..." is just the habits of the mind.
6. Since everything happens in our mind and does not have an independent existence, we are completely free to choose our world and sensations.
7. However, we cannot simply choose “happiness and efficiency”, since this most likely will not work due to the habits of the mind that have developed over a very long time.
8. There are special methods for rebuilding the mind in Buddhism - logical explanations + meditation.
9. Logical explanations can take up very little space, the main thing is regular meditation.
10. The primary result of meditation is greater self-sufficiency and at the same time connectedness with people and the outside world, as well as calmness, joy, energy, enthusiasm and a bunch of other features that are so needed for effective work. How valuable is, for example, the quality of patience and compassion - our other comrade is angry and squinting - we help him and improve his work. And this happens naturally.
11. Corporate goal achieved.

I want to note that Buddhism, of course, goes far beyond the described conditions, but at the same time it does not deny (even approve) the value of ordinary human happiness. It is believed that a happy and active (in work, family and the world) person is the best basis for the subsequent full Awakening.

What to do, where to run?

How to start introducing a fashionable feature of meditation into a company and how to avoid at the same time the under-education and charlatans that revolve around this fashionable term?

It seems to me that before posing the question of choosing the right school of Buddhism (of which there are many), the correct meditations (of which there are even more) and the proper implementation of all this in the life of the company, it is important for the head of the company to try these methods on his own and make sure that regular meditation and training successfully overcome the crisis of the "habit of standard carrots."

In the event that a real reboot or upgrade of the leader occurs, it will become clearer how to work with this and implement it.

In my opinion, it’s definitely not worth it to sign third-party organizations or, even worse, incomprehensible personalities. First, go through yourself, then with the help of people tested on yourself to implement, then those who will implement further will appear in the organization. Self-motivation is a terrible virus.

Google did the same - one of the employees founded Search Inside Yourself, which is now engaged not only in training employees, but also third-party people and organizations.

Google Meditation Facts

• Google invites renowned Buddhist teachers for lectures on life and teaching meditation ( source - The Guardian's initial source)
• Google launched Search Inside Yourself program which compiles methods of Buddhist meditation and modern neuroscience ( source )
• more than a thousand employees passed the training, more than 400 are in line, a labyrinth for meditations has been built ( source )

To be continued >>

If this topic turns out to be interesting to the Habrasociety, I can try to reveal the following topics:

• Historically established meditation practices for groups of people (monasteries, communities, etc.) and their application in the modern world.
• Practical methods of corporate "self-motivation" (you need to register this term for yourself) - that is, when the process of initial motivation starts, and then a person motivates himself.