Wellbeing expert and consultant to global corporations Chaim Oren uses the term “Permacrisis” to describe the current era in which we now all live. A world in which chief executives, senior managers, and employees at all levels face burnout from constant stress and omnipresent risks of all kinds, real and imagined.
BI Worldwide reports that 50% of employees in the U.S. age 35-44 are burned out, 45% of those 18-34, and 43% of those 45-54.
McKinsey reports that 53% of corporate leaders think they are burned out at work, and 80% of them think they are unprepared for their leadership roles. And that 56% of employees think their boss is toxic, and 75% think their boss is a source of stress.
Back in the 20th Century, I published predictions about an upside scenario and a downside scenario for the period we are now living through. My downside scenario unfortunately is the one that came true. Some of the more bizarre and troubling things we see in our daily lives today were beyond my ability to imagine ever really happening.
I always had wanted to be a writer, but I also wanted to have something to write about that would really help people.
I began in my 30s to recommend methods to executives and everyone to transform stressful inputs into creative solutions by maintaining first an Observer state and then a Flow state, i.e. by a change in mind style. Making these states a way of life can be a transformational experience, as it was for me as I thought up creative solutions for myself. Millions of people are now engaged at least sometimes in some of the mind styles I recommended in that book Mind Magic and by others in what was to be called the mindfulness field. (Back when my first book came out, mindfulness was a term used only in Buddhist circles. However, mindfulness does not cover all of what one needs to know to thrive during the permacrisis.)
I’ve always felt that there had to be an effective yet efficient way for top corporate executives to receive and internalize the information and exercises they need to cultivate creative and fearless lives through a change in mental style. And a change they would then want their workers to have too, so that maximum harmony and productivity firmwide would be natural. Until now, I hadn’t felt that I had the critical mass I would need to accomplish such an ambitious task.
Dr. Jerry Zaltman is a best-selling author and sociologist steeped in cognitive science and neuroscience who taught at The Harvard Business School. He is best known for his work on the primary importance of consumer decision-making that takes place below the level of one’s conscious awareness. He is also the inventor of the patented ZMET® method of obtaining subconscious responses during in-depth interviews with the assistance of images and metaphors. He has used ZMET to understand the other 20% of top executives who don’t think of themselves as burned out or as unprepared, the ones who have gotten through the permacrisis with flying colors.
His finding: these people have a different style of thinking. Jerry looks at these phenomena through a different lens than I do, which makes our work wonderfully synergistic. Broadly speaking, in my lens, these successful executives are operating in Observer State and often even in Flow state most of the time they are on the job, which is almost always. They are achieving that state by methods dissected by Jerry and I in complementary ways: he has six major methods and I have 12, and they both work and together they work most effectively.
Today, September 18, 2024, Jerry, Chaim, and I have just announced our Transformational Workshops for C Suites. The first step is an in-depth Zoom meeting with the C Suite. The second step is diffusion through the organization using a digital kit and 20 minutes a day of strategic thinking time about “Your Purpose”. The “thinking” includes feeling, meditation, contemplation, imagination, intuition, concentration, introspection, and inner attention. Read more about the C-Suite Workshops.
According to Chaim, the ability to transform one’s company depends on first transforming one‘s life by adopting wellbeing. Wellbeing includes: achieving balance between work and life, how much you sleep per night, quality of food, time per day for physical activity, time to reflect on your life.
Measurements of effects is central to the process so that it is accountable.
Getting everyone into Flow state means releasing the passion work they want to do for their company. The “go to work” feeling ought to be joy and excitement. Finding out what the employee’s gifts and dreams are, is a first step to giving them more chance to express those aspirational parts of themselves.
Those toxic bosses are toxic only because of their egos, everyone knows that. The best solution to belling the cat in this case is to remove the ego. That is what the switch in mind style is all about!
As you know, it is very hard to attain yogic control over your own ego.
However, it is achievable, and Jerry’s study of successful executives proves that it’s not impossible. Jerry, Chaim and I have come up with slightly different exercises to training the mind muscles, and they all work, or we ourselves would have stopped using them.
In economic terms, expunging ego behaviors as well as integrating wellbeing into the organization culture is priceless. And in terms of human value, the same is even more true, the pleasure level at work has a long way to go up and it’s overdue for a kickstart.
Posted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership self-publishing platform.
Click the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friends.
The opinions expressed here are the author's views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillage.org/MyersBizNet.