Career Development All-in-One For Dummies E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1092

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Take control of your career today Want to get ahead in the workplace? Learn new skills and increase your visibility as a leader in your company with the help of this practical, hands-on guide to professional development. You'll find new techniques for being a better leader, tips for writing better emails, rules for running more effective meetings, and much more. Plus, you'll discover how to give presentations that will keep your audience engaged and learn to be a more mindful person. Combined from seven of the best For Dummies books on career development topics, Career Development All-in-One For Dummies is your one-stop guide to taking control of your career and improving your professional life. Perfect on its own or as part of a formal development program, it gives you everything you need to advance your career. * Become a better leader * Manage your time wisely * Write effective business communications * Manage projects more effectively Success is an individual responsibility--so put your professional future in your own hands with this guide!

Leseprobe

Career Development All-in-One For Dummies®

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017934011

ISBN 978-1-119-36308-8 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-36309-5 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-36317-0 (ebk)

Career Development All-in-One For Dummies®

To view this book's Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Career Development All-in-One For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box.

Table of Contents

Cover

Introduction

About This Book

Foolish Assumptions

Icons Used in This Book

Beyond the Book

Book 1: Mindfulness

Chapter 1: Exploring Mindfulness in the Workplace

Becoming More Mindful at Work

Finding Out Why Your Brain Needs Mindfulness

Starting Your Mindful Journey

Chapter 2: Discovering the Benefits of Mindfulness

Discovering the Benefits for Employees

Looking at the Organizational Benefits of Mindfulness

Chapter 3: Applying Mindfulness in the Workplace

Gaining Perspective in the Modern-Day Workplace

Adjusting Your Mental Mind-Set

Rewiring Your Brain

Developing Mindfulness at Work

Chapter 4: Practicing Mindfulness in the Digital Age

Choosing When to Use Technology

Communicating Mindfully

Using Technology Mindfully

Book 2: Project Management

Chapter 1: Achieving Results

Determining What Makes a Project a Project

Defining Project Management

Knowing the Project Manager’s Role

Do You Have What It Takes to Be an Effective Project Manager?

Chapter 2: Knowing Your Project’s Audiences

Understanding Your Project’s Audiences

Developing an Audience List

Considering the Drivers, Supporters, and Observers

Displaying Your Audience List

Confirming Your Audience’s Authority

Assessing Your Audience’s Power and Interest

Chapter 3: Clarifying Your Project

Defining Your Project with a Scope Statement

Looking at the Big Picture: Explaining the Need for Your Project

Marking Boundaries: Project Constraints

Documenting Your Assumptions

Presenting Your Scope Statement

Chapter 4: Developing a Game Plan

Breaking Your Project into Manageable Chunks

Creating and Displaying a WBS

Identifying Risks While Detailing Your Work

Documenting Your Planned Project Work

Chapter 5: Keeping Everyone Informed

Successful Communication Basics

Choosing the Appropriate Medium for Project Communication

Preparing a Written Project-Progress Report

Holding Key Project Meetings

Preparing a Project Communications Management Plan

Book 3: Leadership

Chapter 1: Building Your Leadership Muscles

Putting Your Brain to Work

Communicating Effectively

Driving Yourself

Developing a Sense of Urgency

Being Honest and Searching for the Truth

Displaying Good Judgment

Being Dependable and Consistent

Creating an Atmosphere of Trust

Encouraging a Learning Environment

Looking for Common Ground: The Type O Personality

Chapter 2: Managing as a Leader

Setting Reasonable Goals

Delegating to Your Team

Settling Disputes in Your Team

Allowing Your Team to Find Its Own Path

Leading When You Aren’t Really the Leader

Chapter 3: Creating a Vision

Where Do Visions Come From?

Supplying the Human Element

Establishing a Standard of Excellence

Helping You Stay Ahead of the Game

A Vision Links the Present to the Future

A Vision Is a Doable Dream

A Vision Is Not Just an Idea

A Vision Is Based on Reality

A Vision Helps You Harness Opportunities

A Vision Is Dynamic

Chapter 4: Leading across Cultures

Leading in a Diverse World

Emerging as a Leader from a Cultural Group

Leading across International Divides

Leading in the Virtual Age

Book 4: Time Management

Chapter 1: Organizing Yourself

Planning

Grabbing the Three Keys to Personal Organization

Chapter 2: Setting Yourself Up for Success

Getting to Know Yourself

Following a System

Overcoming Time-Management Obstacles

Garnering Support While Establishing Your Boundaries

Keeping Motivation High

Chapter 3: Valuing Your Time

Getting a Good Grip on the Time-Equals-Money Concept

Calculating Your Hourly Income

Boosting Your Hourly Value through Your Work Efforts

Making Value-Based Time Decisions in Your Personal Life

Chapter 4: Focusing, Prioritizing, and Time-Blocking

Focusing Your Energy with the 80/20 Theory of Everything

Getting Down to Specifics: Daily Prioritization

Blocking Off Your Time and Plugging in Your To-Do Items

Assessing Your Progress and Adjusting Your Plan as Needed

Chapter 5: Controlling Email Overload

Managing Email Effectively

Separating Your Work and Private Life

Responding to Email More Quickly

Book 5: Business Writing

Chapter 1: Planning Your Message

Adopting the Plan-Draft-Edit Principle

Fine-Tuning Your Plan: Your Goals and Audience

Making People Care

Choosing Your Written Voice: Tone

Using Relationship-Building Techniques

Chapter 2: Making Your Writing Work

Stepping into a Twenty-First-Century Writing Style

Enlivening Your Language

Using Reader-Friendly Graphic Techniques

Chapter 3: Improving Your Work

Changing Hats: Going from Writer to Editor

Reviewing the Big and Small Pictures

Moving from Passive to Active

Sidestepping Jargon, Clichés, and Extra Modifiers

Chapter 4: Troubleshooting Your Writing

Organizing Your Document

Catching Common Mistakes

Reviewing and Proofreading: The Final Check

Chapter 5: Writing Emails That Get Results

Fast-Forwarding Your Agenda In-House and Out-of-House

Getting Off to a Great Start

Building Messages That Achieve Your Goals

Structuring Your Middle Ground

Closing Strong

Perfecting Your Writing for Email

Book 6: Presentations

Chapter 1: Creating Compelling Content

Getting Your Content Up to Par

Adding Variety and Impact

Chapter 2: Honing Your Platform Skills

Using Your Voice to Command Attention

Captivating Audiences with Your Eyes

Finding the Right Posture

Making the Right Facial Expressions

Gesturing Creatively

Chapter 3: Captivating Your Audience

Touching on the Laws of Communication Impact

Starting with the Law of Primacy

Starting Off on the Right Foot

Building Your Introduction

Chapter 4: Keeping Your Audience Captivated

Standing and Shouting Out: The Law of Emphasis and Intensity

Involving Your Audience: The Law of Exercise and Engagement

Hitting Their Hot Buttons: The Law of Interest

Facing the Consequences: The Law of Effect

Chapter 5: Ending on a High Note

Concluding Effectively: The Law of Recency

Affecting Your Audience Right to the End

Giving a Tactical Conclusion

Engineering Your Conclusion with Building Blocks

Book 7: Negotiation

Chapter 1: Negotiating for Life

When Am I Negotiating?

The Six Basic Skills of Negotiating

Handling All Sorts of Negotiations

Chapter 2: Knowing What You Want

Creating Your Vision

Deciding How You Are Going to Achieve Your Vision

Preparing Yourself for Negotiation

Defining Your Space

Chapter 3: Setting Goals

Setting a Good Goal

Separating Long-Range Goals from Short-Range Goals

Setting the Opening Offer

Breaking the Stone Tablet

Chapter 4: Asking the Right Questions

Tickle It Out: The Art of Coaxing Out Information

Asking Good Questions: A Real Power Tool

Dealing with Unacceptable Responses

Look for Evidence of Listening

Chapter 5: Closing the Deal

Good Deals, Bad Deals, and Win-Win Negotiating

Concessions versus Conditions

What It Means to Close a Deal

Understanding the Letter of the Law

Recognizing When to Close

Knowing How to Close

Barriers to Closing

Closing When It’s All in the Family

When the Deal Is Done

About the Authors

Connect with Dummies

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

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Introduction

When was the last time you received an email and cringed at the muddled organization and horrible grammar? Or you felt so overwhelmed that your productivity plummeted? Or how about the last time you or a colleague were so nervous during a presentation that you came across as unprepared or worse — unprofessional?

Unfortunately, business professionals in all stages of their careers encounter these situations at one point or another. Although these instances may seem benign on the surface, they harm your professional reputation, which is hard to reverse. Would you want to do business with someone who is so unorganized that he constantly misses deadlines or turns in shoddy work because he's rushed? Of course not! Time management and having a solid organizational system are just a couple of the secrets to success that we discuss in this book.

About This Book

This book provides you with detailed information on topics that will help you gain the confidence needed to grow and advance in your professional life. You’ll read about how practicing mindfulness can make you a more effective manager, how to craft the perfect written document that gets results, how to present like a pro, and more.

Foolish Assumptions

There’s a time and a place for just about everything and assumptions are no different. First, we assume that you are a business professional and you’re ready, willing, and able to devote some time and energy into your professional development.

We also assume that you have at least a general knowledge of the major software packages that businesses use and are interested in utilizing them to advance in your professional activities. If that’s the case, this is the book for you!

Icons Used in This Book

Throughout this book, you’ll find special icons to call attention to important information. Here’s what to expect.

“If you see people falling asleep during your presentations, bang a book against the table to wake them up.” Kidding!

This icon is used for helpful suggestions and things you may find useful at some point. No worries, though: No one will be falling asleep during your presentations if you take to heart the tip written here!

This icon is used when something is essential and bears repeating. Again, this icon is used when something is essential and bears repeating. (See what we did there?)

The little Dummies Man is information to share with the people who handle the technical aspect of things. You can skip technical-oriented information without derailing any of the hard work you’re putting toward achieving your best professional self.

Pay attention to these warnings to avoid potential pitfalls. Nothing suggested will get you fired or arrested (unless you do something like practice mindfulness so well that you start to nod off while driving or during meetings with the CEO — we can’t help you there). If you see this icon, slow down and proceed with caution.

Beyond the Book

Although this book is a one-stop shop for your professional development, we can cover only so much in a set number of pages! If you find yourself at the end of this book thinking, “This was an amazing book! Where can I learn more about how to advance my career by working on my professional development?” head over to www.dummies.com for more resources.

For details about significant updates or changes that occur between editions of this book, go to www.dummies.com, search for Career Development All-in-One For Dummies, and open the Downloads tab on this book’s dedicated page.

In addition, check out the cheat sheet for this book for tips on making presentations, making the most of your time, and more. To get to the cheat sheet, go to www.dummies.com, and then type Career Development All-in-One For Dummies in the Search box.

Book 1

Mindfulness

Contents at a Glance

Chapter 1: Exploring Mindfulness in the Workplace

Becoming More Mindful at Work

Finding Out Why Your Brain Needs Mindfulness

Starting Your Mindful Journey

Chapter 2: Discovering the Benefits of Mindfulness

Discovering the Benefits for Employees

Looking at the Organizational Benefits of Mindfulness

Chapter 3: Applying Mindfulness in the Workplace

Gaining Perspective in the Modern-Day Workplace

Adjusting Your Mental Mind-Set

Rewiring Your Brain

Developing Mindfulness at Work

Chapter 4: Practicing Mindfulness in the Digital Age

Choosing When to Use Technology

Communicating Mindfully

Using Technology Mindfully

Chapter 1

Exploring Mindfulness in the Workplace

IN THIS CHAPTER

Identifying what mindfulness is and is not

Retraining your brain

Getting started

In tough economic times, many organizations look for new ways to deliver better products and services to customers while reducing costs. Carrying on as normal isn’t an option. Leaders must engage staff, and everyone needs to become more resilient in the face of ongoing change. For these reasons, more and more organizations offer staff training in mindfulness.

Major corporations, such as General Mills, have offered staff mindfulness training in recent years. Google and eBay are among the many companies that now provide rooms for staff to practice mindfulness during work time. Business schools such as Harvard Business School now include mindfulness principles in their leadership programs.

So what is mindfulness, and why are so many leading organizations investing in it?

Becoming More Mindful at Work

In this section, you discover what mindfulness is. More importantly, you also discover what mindfulness is not! You find out how mindfulness evolved and why it’s become so important in the modern-day workplace.

Clarifying what mindfulness is

Have you ever driven somewhere and arrived at your destination remembering nothing about your journey? Or grabbed a snack and noticed a few moments later that all you have left is an empty wrapper? Most people have! These examples are common ones of mindlessness, or going on autopilot.

Like many humans, you’re probably not present for much of your own life. You may fail to notice the good things in your life or hear what your body is telling you. You probably also make your life harder than it needs to be by poisoning yourself with toxic self-criticism.

Mindfulness can help you to become more aware of your thoughts, feelings, and sensations in a way that suspends judgment and self-criticism. Developing the ability to pay attention to and see clearly whatever is happening moment by moment doesn't eliminate life’s pressures, but it can help you respond to them in a more productive, calmer manner.

Learning and practicing mindfulness can help you to recognize and step away from habitual, often unconscious emotional and physiological reactions to everyday events. Practicing mindfulness allows you to be fully present in your life and work and improves your quality of life.

Mindfulness can help you to

Recognize, slow down, or stop automatic and habitual reactions

Respond more effectively to complex or difficult situations

See situations with greater focus and clarity

Become more creative

Achieve balance and resilience at both work and home

Mindfulness at work is all about developing awareness of thoughts, emotions, and physiology and how they interact with one another. Mindfulness is also about being aware of your surroundings, helping you better understand the needs of those around you.

Mindfulness training is like going to the gym. In the same way as training a muscle, you can train your brain to direct your attention to where you want it to be. In simple terms, mindfulness is all about managing your mind.

Taking a look at the background

Mindfulness has its origins in ancient Eastern meditation practices. In the late 1970s, Jon Kabat-Zinn developed Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), which became the foundation for modern-day mindfulness. Figure 1-1 shows how it developed.

FIGURE 1-1: Mindfulness timeline.

In the 1990s Mark Williams, John Teasdale, and Zindel Segal further developed MBSR to help people suffering from depression. Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) combined cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) with mindfulness.

Since the late 1970s, research into the benefits of mindfulness has steadily increased. Recent studies have examined, for example, the effect of practicing mindfulness on the immune system and on those working in high-pressure environments.

Advances in brain-scanning technology have demonstrated that as little as eight weeks of mindfulness training can positively alter brain structures, including the amygdala (the fear center) and the left prefrontal cortex (an area associated with happiness and well-being). Other studies show benefits in even shorter periods of time.

Busy leaders who practice mindfulness have long extolled its virtues, but little research has existed to back up their claims. Fortunately, researchers are now increasingly focusing their attention on the benefits of mindfulness from a workplace perspective.

MBSR and MBCT are taught using a standard eight-week curriculum, and all teachers follow a formalized development route. The core techniques are the same for both courses. Most workplace mindfulness courses are based around MBCT or MBSR but tailored to meet the needs of the workplace.

Although MBSR and MBCT were first developed to help treat a range of physical and mental health conditions, new applications for the techniques have been established. Mindfulness is now being taught in schools and universities, and has even been introduced to prisoners. Many professional education programs, such as MBAs, now include mindfulness training.

Researchers have linked the practice of mindfulness to skills that are highly valuable in the workplace. Research suggests that practicing mindfulness can enhance

Emotional intelligence

Creativity and innovation

Employee engagement

Interpersonal relationships

Ability to see the bigger picture

Resilience

Self-management

Problem solving

Decision making

Focus and concentration

In addition, mindfulness is valuable in the workplace because it has a positive effect on immunity and general well-being. It has been demonstrated to relieve the symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress.

ACT

In the late 1980s, research began by Steven Hayes and colleagues for another form of training called Acceptance and Commitment Theraphy (ACT). ACT combines mindfulness and acceptance with action-based strategies. In the last few years, ACT has begun to be adapted to meet the modern workplace, sometimes called Acceptance and Commitment Training.

Recognizing what mindfulness isn’t

Misleading myths about mindfulness abound. Here are a few:

Myth 1: I will need to visit a Buddhist center, go on a retreat, or travel to the Far East to learn mindfulness.

Experienced mindfulness instructors are operating all over the world. Many teachers now teach mindfulness to groups of staff in the workplace. One-to-one mindfulness teaching can be delivered in the office, in hotel meeting rooms, or even on the web. Some people do attend retreats after learning mindfulness if they want to deepen their knowledge, experience peace and quiet, or gain further tuition, but doing so isn’t essential.

Myth 2: Practicing mindfulness will conflict with my religious beliefs.

Mindfulness isn’t a religion. For example, MBSR and MBCT are entirely secular — as are most workplace programs. No religious belief of any kind is necessary. Mindfulness can help you step back from your mental noise and tune into your own innate wisdom. Mindfulness is practiced by people of all faiths and by those with no spiritual beliefs. Practicing mindfulness won’t turn you into a hemp-clad tofu eater, a tree-hugging hippie, or a monk sitting on top of a mountain — unless you want to be one of these people, of course!

Myth 3: I’m too busy to sit and be quiet for any length of time.

When you’re busy, the thought of sitting and doing nothing may seem like the last thing you want to do. In 2010, researchers at Harvard University gathered evidence from a quarter of a million people suggesting that, on average, the mind wanders for 47 percent of the working day. Just 15 minutes a day spent practicing mindfulness can help you to become more productive and less distracted. Then you’ll be able to make the most of your busy day and get more done in less time. When you first start practicing mindfulness, you’ll almost certainly experience mental distractions, but if you persevere you’ll find it easier to tune out distractions and to manage your mind. As time goes on, your ability to concentrate increases as does your sense of well-being and a feeling of control over your life.

Myth 4: Practicing mindfulness will reduce my ambition and drive.

Practicing mindfulness can help you become more focused on your goals and better able to achieve them. It can help you become more creative and gain new perspectives on life. If your approach to work is chaotic, mindfulness can make you more focused and centered, which in turn enables you to channel your energy more productively. Coupled with an improved sense of well-being, this ability to focus helps you achieve your career ambitions and goals.

Myth 5: If I practice mindfulness, people will take me less seriously and my career prospects will be damaged.

Some of the most successful and influential people in the world practice mindfulness. Senator Tim Ryan and Goldie Hawn, for example, are keen advocates of mindfulness. Practicing mindfulness doesn’t involve sitting cross-legged on the floor — an office chair is fine. If you find it impossible to sit quietly and focus because you work in an open-plan office, or you’re concerned about what others think, plenty of other everyday activities can become opportunities to practice mindfulness that nobody will notice. Walking, eating, waiting for your computer to boot up, or even exercising at the gym are all good opportunities to practice mindfulness. Mindfulness can be practicing with your eyes open, while you’re moving around during the day.

Myth 6: Mindfulness and meditation are one and the same. Mindfulness is just a trendy new name.

Fact: Mindfulness often involves specific meditation practices. Fiction: All meditation is the same. Many popular forms of meditation are all about relaxation — leaving your troubles behind and imagining yourself in a calm and tranquil special place. Mindfulness helps you to find out how to live with your life in the present moment — warts and all — rather than run away from it. Mindfulness is about approaching life and things that you find difficult and exploring them with openness, rather than avoiding them. Most people find that practicing mindfulness does help them to relax, but that this relaxation is a welcome by-product, not the objective!

Training your attention: The power of focus

Are you one of the millions of workers who routinely put in long hours, often for little or no extra pay? In the current climate of cutbacks, job losses, and business efficiencies, many people feel the need to work longer hours just to keep on top of their workload. However, research shows that working longer hours does not mean that you get more done. Actually, if you continue to work when past your peak, your performance slackens and continues to do so as time goes on.

Imagine your job is to chop logs. After a while, your axe needs sharpening and your muscles need resting. If you keep going, you’ll become inefficient and are more likely to have an accident. By taking a break and sharpening your axe, you can return to the job and get more done in less time. You’ll probably enjoy the job more too. Mindfulness practice is like taking that break — you reenergize and sharpen your mind, ready for your next activity.

Discovering how to focus and concentrate better is the key to maintaining peak performance. Recognizing when you’ve slipped past peak performance and then taking steps to bring yourself back to peak are also vital. Mindfulness comes in at this point. Over time, it helps you focus your attention to where you want it to be.

Focusing your attention may sound easy, but try thinking of just one thing for 90 seconds. It could be an object on your desk, a specific sound, or the sensation of your own breathing. Focus your full attention on your chosen object, sound, or sensation and nothing else. Then consider these questions:

Did you manage to focus your complete attention for the full 90 seconds, or did your mind wander and random thoughts arise?

Did you become distracted by a bodily pain or ache?

Did you find yourself getting annoyed with yourself, or annoyed with a sound such as a ticking clock or traffic?

You’re not alone! Most people find this activity difficult at first. In truth, you’re unlikely to ever be able to shut out all your mental chatter, but you can turn the volume down. Doing so enables you to see things more clearly, reduce time wasted on duplicated work, and stop your mind from wandering. Mindfulness offers you a way of getting more done in less time without burning yourself out.

Applying mindful attitudes

Practicing mindfulness involves more than just training your brain to focus. It also teaches you some alternative mindful attitudes to life’s challenges. You discover the links between your thoughts, emotions, and physiology. You find out that what’s important isn’t what happens to you but how you choose to respond. This statement may sound simple, but most people respond to situations based on their mental programming (past experiences and predictions of what will happen next). Practicing mindfulness makes you more aware of how your thoughts, emotions, and physiology affect your responses to people and situations. This awareness then enables you to choose how to respond rather than react on autopilot. You may well find that you respond in a different manner.

By gaining a better understanding of your brain’s response to life events, you can use mindfulness techniques to reduce your fight-or-flight response and regain your body's rest-and-relaxation state. You will see things more clearly and get more done.

Mindfulness also brings you face to face with your inner bully — the voice in your head that says you're not talented enough, not smart enough, or not good enough. By learning to treat thoughts like these as mental processes and not facts, the inner bully loses its grip on your life and you become free to reach your full potential.

These examples are just a few of the many ways that a mindful attitude can have a positive effect on your life and career prospects.

Finding Out Why Your Brain Needs Mindfulness

Recent advances in brain-scanning technology are helping us understand why our brain needs mindfulness. In this section, you discover powerful things about your brain: its evolution, its hidden rules, how thoughts shape your brain structure, and the basics of how your brain operates at work.

FACTS AND FIGURES

Size:

Around 1,300 grams — that’s over three times the size of a chimpanzee’s, our closest animal relative.The human brain accounts for 2 percent of the body’s weight but uses around 20 percent of its energy.

Energy consumption:

A typical adult human brain runs on around 12 watts — a fifth of the power required by a standard 60 watt light bulb.Compared with most other organs, the brain is energy-hungry; but compared to manmade electronics, the brain is extremely efficient. IBM’s Watson supercomputer depends on 90 IBM Power 750 servers, each of which requires around 1,000 watts.

Operating system:

Energy travels to the brain via blood vessels in the form of glucose.The brain contains billions of nerve cells that send and receive information around the body.The brain never sleeps! It provides instant access to information on demand.

Performance:

Neurons (brain cells that process and transmit information through electrical and chemical signals) fire around 5 to 50 times a second (or faster).Signals cross your brain in a tenth or hundredth of a second.

Evolving from lizard to spaceman

To understand how mindfulness works, you need to know some basics about the human brain. Over millions of years, the human brain has evolved to become the most sophisticated on the planet (see Figure 1-2).

FIGURE 1-2: Evolution of the human brain.

The oldest part of the brain is known as the reptilian brain. It controls your body’s vital functions such as heart rate, breathing, body temperature, and balance. Your reptilian brain includes the main structures found in a reptile’s brain: the brainstem and the cerebellum.

The middle part of your brain is known as the limbic brain. It emerged in the first mammals. It records memories of behaviors that produced agreeable and disagreeable experiences for you. The limbic system is responsible for your emotions and value judgments. The reptilian brain and limbic system are rigid and inflexible in how they operate. We call these two areas the primitive brain.

The newest part of our brain consists is the neocortex. It has deep grooves and wrinkles that allow the surface area to increase far beyond what could otherwise fit in the same size skull. It accounts for around 85 percent of the human brain’s total mass. Some say that the neocortex is what makes us human. The neocortex is responsible for your abstract thoughts, imagination, and consciousness. For simplicity, we call it the higher brain. The higher brain is highly flexible and has an almost infinite ability to learn.

The primitive brain deals with routine tasks and needs little energy to operate quickly. The higher brain is incredibly powerful but requires a lot of energy to run and operates more slowly than the primitive brain. These differences explain why you often experience strong emotions or take action long before logic starts to kick in. It also explains the human tendency to work on autopilot (based on responses stored in the primitive brain) for much of the time.

Because you spend much of your time working on autopilot, you’re often unaware of your thoughts, emotions, and physiology in the present moment. The following short activity is designed to help you recognize your routine responses and how changing them just slightly can make you more aware of them:

Sit in a different chair from usual in a meeting, park in a different spot in the car park, sleep on the other side of the bed, or use a different hand to write with.

Observe your thoughts, emotions, and bodily responses.

Identify how you felt. Did you find changing your behavior difficult? Did you feel awkward?

Doing things differently can be hard because your mental programming is probably screaming, “You’ve got it wrong; that’s not how you do it.” Carrying out an activity in a new way involves conscious thought and thus engages your higher brain, which needs more energy to function. This explains why even small changes can feel difficult or uncomfortable.

Discovering your brain’s hidden rules

Imagine yourself as one of your ancient ancestors — a cave dweller. In ancient times, you had to make life-or-death decisions every day. You had to decide whether it was best to approach a reward (such as killing a deer) or avoid a threat (such as a fierce predator charging at you). If you failed to gain your reward, in this example a deer to eat, you’d probably live to hunt another day. But if you failed to avoid the threat, you’d be dead, never to hunt again.

As a result of facing these daily dangers, your brain has evolved to minimize threat. Unfortunately, this has led to the brain spending much more time looking for potential risks and problems than seeking rewards and embracing new opportunities. This tendency is called the human negativity bias.

Try the following:

Think of six bad things that have happened recently.

Think of six good things that have happened recently.

Identify which task you found easiest.

Most people readily conjure up six bad things but struggle to think of six good things. The bad things dominate because the brain is primed to expend more energy looking for potential threats (bad things) than looking for opportunities (good things).

When your brain detects a potential threat, it floods your system with powerful hormones designed to help you evade mortal danger. The sudden flood of dozens of hormones into your body results in your heart rate speeding up, blood pressure increasing, pupils dilating, and veins in skin constricting to send more blood to major muscle groups to help you sprint away from danger. More oxygen is pumped into your lungs, and non-essential systems (such as digestion, the immune system, and routine body repair and maintenance) shut down to provide more energy for emergency functions. Your brain starts to have trouble focusing on small tasks because it’s trying to maintain focus on the big picture to anticipate and avoid further threat.

Threat or risk avoidance is controlled by the primitive areas of your brain, which operate fast. This speed explains why, when you unexpectedly encounter a snake in the woods, your primitive brain decides on the best way to keep you safe from harm with no conscious thought, and you jump out of the way long before your higher brain engages to find a rational solution.

This process is great from an evolutionary perspective but can be bad news in modern-day life. Many people routinely overestimate the potential threat involved in everyday work such as a critical boss, a failed presentation, or social humiliation. The brain treats these modern-day “threats” in exactly the same way as your ancestor’s response to mortal danger. This fight-or-flight response was designed to be used for short periods of time. Unfortunately, when under pressure at work, it can remain activated for long periods. This activation can lead to poor concentration, an inability to focus, low immunity, and even serious illness.

Mindfulness training helps you to recognize when you’re in this heightened state of arousal and then reduce or even switch off the fight-or-flight response. It also helps you develop the skill to trigger at will your rest-and-relaxation response, bringing your body back to normal, allowing it to repair itself and increasing both your sense of well-being and your ability to focus on work.

Recognizing that you are what you think

For many years, it was thought that your brain became fixed once you reached a certain age. We now know that the adult brain retains impressive powers of neuroplasticity, the ability to change its structure and function in response to experience. It was also believed that, if you damaged certain areas of the brain (as a result of a stroke or other brain injury), you’d no longer be capable of performing certain brain functions. We now know that in some cases the brain can rewire itself and train a different area to undertake the functions that the damaged part previously carried out. The brain’s hard wiring (neural pathways) change constantly in response to thoughts and experiences.

Neuroplasticity offers amazing opportunities to reinvent yourself and change the way you do and think about things. Your unique brain wiring is a result of your thoughts and experiences in life. Blaming your genes or upbringing; saying “It’s not my fault; that’s how I was born” is no longer a good excuse!

To take advantage of this knowledge, you need to develop awareness of your thoughts, and the effect that these thoughts have on your emotions and physiology. The problem is that, if you’re like most people, you’re probably rarely aware of the majority of your thoughts. Let’s face it — you’d be exhausted if you were! Mindfulness helps you to develop the ability to passively observe your thoughts as mental processes. In turn, this allows you to observe patterns of thought and decide whether these patterns are appropriate and serve you well. If you decide that they’re not, your awareness of them gives you the opportunity to replace them with better ways of thinking and behaving.

For example, if you arrive at work and think, “Oh no, I’ve got so many tasks on my to-do list. I’m never going to get them all done! I’m so inefficient.” and so on, your brain is on a negative thought stream. Mindfulness helps you to catch yourself doing that and, instead, simply and more calmly move your attention to the first priority on your list of things to do.

Another common problem you may encounter is that you may think that your decisions and actions are always based on present-moment facts, but in reality they rarely are. Making decisions based on your brain’s prediction of the future (which is usually based on your past experiences and unique brain wiring) is common. In addition, you see with your brain; in other words, your brain acts as a filter to incoming information from the eyes and chooses what it thinks is important. The problem is that you routinely make decisions and act without full possession of the facts. What happened in the past will not necessarily happen now; your predictions about the future could be inaccurate, leading to inappropriate responses and actions.

So, going back to the example of the long to-do list, if you’re mindful, you can choose to do what’s most important, rather than just automatically reacting to the last email you received.

Practicing mindfulness helps you to see the bigger picture and make decisions based on present-moment facts rather than self-generated assumptions and fiction.

Here’s another example. When you’re under pressure, it's all too easy to fall into a thought spiral, with one thought driving the next. In the process, you develop your own story of what’s going on around you, which can be wildly different from reality. For example, if you fail to get an invitation to a meeting at work you think you should attend, your thoughts might follow this pattern:

Why haven’t they invited me?

They obviously think that my team and I have nothing to contribute.

Maybe they’re discussing redundancies.

Maybe they haven’t invited me because they’re discussing making me redundant!

At my age, I’ll never get another job!

How will I pay off the remainder of the mortgage?

This may mean my son has to drop out of college.

I’ll ruin my son’s life. I’m a dreadful father. I’m such a loser.

In reality, the failure to invite you was an administrative error, but your mind has created a detailed story, which your brain has treated as reality. As a result, your brain has triggered emotions (anger or fear), your body has become tense, and your heart rate has speeded up. Your emotions and physiology have a further effect on your thoughts and behavior, and so on.

Many people fall into this trap. Mindfulness helps you notice when your thoughts begin to spiral and take action to stop them spiraling down even further. You can observe what’s going on in the present moment, and separate present-moment facts from self-created fiction. This ability gives you choices and a world of new possibilities.

Think of a person or situation that triggers your primitive brain’s threat system. (Don’t choose anything too scary or threatening!) Then:

Observe what’s going on in your head.

Identify patterns of thoughts, as if you were a spectator observing from the outside. What is it specifically that has triggered your primitive brain?

Acknowledge your emotional response without judgment or self-blame.

Try to observe from a distance and see if you can reduce or prevent a strong emotional reaction by observing the interplay of your thoughts and emotions as if you were a bystander.

Be kind to yourself.

You’re human and just responding according to your mental wiring. Observe both your thoughts and emotions as simply mental processes, without the need to respond to them. Regarding them as thoughts not facts and being kind to yourself help to encourage your primitive brain to let go of the steering wheel and allow your higher brain to become the driver once more.

When developing new neural pathways, practice makes perfect. Changing your behavior or learning to do something new takes awareness, intention, action, and practice — no shortcuts exist! Understanding a few simple facts about how your brain works and making small adjustments to your responses can help you to create new and more productive neural pathways.

Exploring your brain at work

Before diving into more detail about mindfulness and how it could be of benefit to your work, you need to discover a little more about how your brain processes everyday work tasks.

Let’s look at a real-life example. Jen is a senior manager working in a police training organization, where she is responsible for leading a team who develop doctrine (guidance and standards) for police forces across the country. Her job description includes the following desirable characteristics:

Organizational skills

Communication skills

Ability to manage conflicting priorities

Problem-solving skills

Decision-making skills

Relationship-building skills

Ability to manage change

One of the most challenging aspects of Jen’s work is managing multiple and often conflicting demands. Because her role is national, she is responsible to multiple stakeholders working in different police forces and affiliate organizations. Problems sometimes arise when stakeholders think that their project is more important than other projects, and completion of that project by a certain date takes on an almost life-or-death importance in their minds. This elevated importance is often compounded by senior stakeholders taking sides and applying pressure. When this situation arises, Jen uses negotiation skills to try to resolve the issue. She gives the stakeholders a reality check, often along the lines of, “If I prioritize this, then I can’t do that” or “If I do this first, that will be late.”

At times like these, Jen notices her body tensing. She sometimes wakes at 2 a.m. trying to find a solution that resolves the conflict for all concerned. She sometimes experiences irritation and frustration at the inability of others to see the bigger picture. Her thoughts run along the following lines: “Either I’m not explaining it right or they’re being obtuse”; “We’re all supposed to be professionals, so why can’t they behave as such?”; “No one will die if we’re a few days late with this project”; and “Why are they acting so selfishly?”

What Jen is unaware of is the effect of one of the foundations of mindfulness training: non-judgmental observation of the interplay between her thoughts, emotions, and physiology. Her thoughts are triggering emotions, which are triggering a bodily response. Her bodily response (which she is largely unaware of) is having a tangible effect on her thoughts and decisions. Although she thinks that she’s fully rational and in control when making decisions, in reality her emotions are also affecting her thoughts. If Jen were practicing mindfulness, she’d be much more aware of what’s going on and able to choose alternative strategies that were better for her well-being and that might lead to wiser decisions.

Despite the fact that Jen is an experienced leader, calm, organized, and highly intelligent, her primitive brain has detected a possible threat to her social and professional status. Status — your place in the pecking order — is important to humans. Jen’s amygdala (part of the limbic system in her primitive brain) triggers a fight-or-flight response. Her primitive brain is now in charge. Hijacked by emotions, her higher brain becomes helpless. In an attempt to keep her safe from harm, her primitive brain hijacks the driver’s seat and she is reduced to being a passenger in the back seat, hanging on for dear life. Jen is in this position because her primitive brain switches off her higher brain, including the prefrontal cortex (PFC), shown in Figure 1-3. This vital part of your brain plays a huge role in decision making. The prefrontal cortex allows you to plan, create strategies, pay attention, learn, and focus on goals.

FIGURE 1-3: Image of the brain showing the prefrontal cortex.

When finding out about mindfulness, you discover the interplay between your primitive brain’s desire to keep you safe from harm and the effect of your sympathetic nervous system (which mobilizes your parasympathetic fight-or-flight response) on both your body and your ability to think clearly.

At times like this, Jen would benefit from a mindfulness exercise. She should focus her full attention on taking slow, deep breaths for a few minutes. Focusing her attention fully on the sensation of breathing will slow down or stop her mental chatter, which in turn will reduce the feeling of threat and trigger a lessening of her fight-or-flight response. In addition, her brain’s PFC will get the oxygen it needs to regain control, and her primitive brain will hand back control to her PFC.

Of course, the rational PFC can’t always prevent the primitive brain from engaging. This inability is because the primitive brain is more evolved and responds much more quickly than the highly powerful but slower and less-evolved higher brain. Mindfulness does not stop your rational higher brain from getting hijacked by your primitive brain, but it does make you much more aware of what’s going on, much earlier. This awareness gives you choices in how to respond. You won’t be forced to unconsciously default to primitive brain autopilot responses and actions. You have a choice!

Now we need to look at other elements of the brain that effect Jen’s work and explore how mindfulness could be beneficial.

At times Jen feels as if she’s hitting a brick wall when she’s trying to find new solutions to old problems. When under pressure, defaulting to well-used, comfortable ways of doing things stored in the primitive brain is all too easy. Giving stock answers to questions may result. Mindfulness teaches you the benefits of taking time out to calm your mind and center yourself. Doing so can take as little as three minutes and can produce dramatic results. Allowing the brain to relax and let go of its frantic activity to solve the problem can deactivate the primitive brain’s grip, and allow the higher brain to apply creativity and innovation to the problem.

Jen often multitasks, flitting from one project to another and juggling project work with phone calls and emails as they arise. She often finds herself becoming tired and having difficulty concentrating. The ability to multitask is a myth. Many research studies show that regular multitaskers get less done than those who focus on one thing at a time — even the people who think they’re good at multitasking. Multitasking means that the brain is switching backward and forward from task to task, which wastes a huge amount of valuable energy. In addition, details are invariably lost with each switch. No wonder that Jen feels tired! She’s making her life much harder than it needs to be.

Mindfulness shows you how to mentally stand back and observe what’s going on around you and in your brain. It also helps you develop different approaches to life that are kinder to you and usually more productive. Mindfulness helps you observe and reduce the mental chatter that distracts you from your work, allowing you to focus on it more fully. By intentionally taking steps to recognize and avoid distractions and focusing your full attention on one task at a time, you can get things done more quickly, with fewer mistakes and less repetition. Using mindfulness techniques when you feel your attention waning can help you to restart work feeling refreshed and focused.

Mindfulness can also be useful in high-level meetings when emotions can sometimes be charged. Training in mindfulness would help Jen to observe the dynamics at play in such meetings more clearly. She’d probably recognize that in this situation, people are commonly motivated by the need to avoid potential threat (to status and social standing) and are unlikely to approach the task with an open mind and look for the best possible solution. Jen would also be aware of the two possible states of mind that people could be operating in.

In avoidance mode, people are motivated by the desire to avoid something happening. With their threat system activated, they may fail to see the bigger picture, be less able to think clearly, and be less creative in their ideas and solutions. Avoidance mode tends to be associated with increased activation of the right PFC. Excessive right-brain PFC activation is associated with depression and anxiety. Mindfulness cultivates an approach state of mind. Often the effort taken to avoid something happening is disproportionate to dealing with the thing you seek to avoid. An approach mode of mind is associated with increased left-brain PFC activation, which is connected with positivity and an upbeat approach to life. In approach mode, you’re able to explore new possibilities and opportunities with an open mind.

When working in avoidance mode, cognitive thinking resources are diminished, making it harder to think and work things through. You’re also likely to feel less positive and engaged. If Jen applied mindfulness to her work life, she’d be able to better manage her own emotions and subtly take steps to help reduce the sense of threat often permeating business meetings.

The brain can have a significant effect on how you work. Finding out about and practicing mindfulness gives you the tools you need to harness this knowledge to manage your mind better.

Starting Your Mindful Journey

Congratulations! The fact that you’ve picked up this book and started reading it means that you’ve already started your mindful journey. A good book is a great starting point, but nothing can replace experiencing mindfulness for yourself. As with learning anything new, you may find it difficult to know where to start. Learning mindfulness from an experienced teacher who can help you overcome obstacles and guide your development is advisable. The idea behind this book is to demonstrate how and why mindfulness can benefit you at work, and provide suggestions of how to apply simple mindfulness techniques to everyday work challenges.

Being mindful at work yourself

Getting caught up in the manic pace of everyday work life is common. You, like many workers, may feel under pressure to deliver more with fewer resources. You may also be keen to demonstrate what an asset you are to your company by working longer and longer hours, and being contactable round the clock.

Being mindful at work can involve as little or as much change as you’re able to accommodate at this moment in time. At one end of the scale, you may simply apply knowledge of how the brain works and some mindful principles to your work. To gain maximum benefit, you need to practice mindfulness regularly and apply quick mindfulness techniques in the workplace when you need to regain focus or encounter difficulties. The choice is yours! The benefits you gain increase in line with the effort you put in. You should see a real difference after practicing mindfulness for as little as ten minutes a day for about six weeks.