HOW MINDFULNESS BOOSTS EFFECTIVENESS

Kamchai is a senior executive who reports directly to the CEO of a major company and is responsible for the financial performance of a key business unit. His track record is second to none, which means he excels in both technical knowledge and the people skills required to get the job done.

But nobody is perfect and Kamchai (not his real name) is aware that there is always room for him to improve. In order to prepare him for an even bigger role with greater responsibility, he should be provided and supported with some kind of development intervention. In this case, his boss believes executive coaching is the answer. This is where the story begins, when I first met Kamchai in the middle of last year.

Emotional self-awareness: According to a personality test for emotional stability, Kamchai shows moderate stress tolerance (in the 49th percentile based on a large sample of global executives), which should not be an issue. And while his self-confidence is a bit low (33%), he has never experienced trouble in this area. But his self-control (in the 6th percentile) is an issue, since he has high potential to express himself in unsatisfactory ways. To address this, we need to work on emotional self-awareness.

People who are aware of their emotions are likelier to know the causes and reasons for those feelings, able to describe subtle changes in feelings, and to interpret emotions for effective outcomes. Kamchai’s 29% score suggests he needs to improve in this area.

For example, he tends to be unaware of how his non-verbal communication, including facial expressions, make people uncomfortable. In some cases he talks for too long because he can’t keep his emotions in check. Such situations occur often enough that they could hinder his career advancement.

When I provide feedback based on the personality assessment, I tell Kamchai clearly that his problem is rooted in “mindfulness”. He is surprised at first and seems unwilling to accept that he is not aware of his feelings at all times.

Mindfulness action plan: After the first pre-coaching session, however, Kamchai becomes aware that he needs to focus on and practise mindfulness, or sati in Thai, to help put him on the right track. He then proposes a development action plan (DAP) and gets the green light from his boss. This DAP is the roadmap on which Kamchai, his boss and I, as coach, agree to work together to make him a better executive by tackling mindfulness, self-control and communication issues. It consists of six key activities:

1. Communicate clearly by consistently applying key skills to improve communication: becoming an engaged listener, paying attention to non-verbal signals, and keeping key content in focus.

2. Identify connections between verbal and non-verbal communications, emotional reactions and behaviour. What are the consequences of behaviour and what would lead to more positive outcomes?

3. For five or 10 minutes before bedtime, evaluate what I have done that day. Ask myself questions about how effective my communication was that day.

4. Develop a greater personal sense of control. Learn to manage emotional reactions and become courageous enough to make changes when possible.

5. Evaluate listening skills by reviewing past conversations. Consider how well I understood the situation, and how well I listened.

6. Practise daily chanting and meditation right after action item 3.

Effectiveness through mindfulness: We continued the coaching programme over the next 10 months, with eight faceto-face coaching sessions, complemented by feedback from seven people around Kamchai, as well as his own self-assessment. At the end, we observed improved scores in three key “people” factors. His score on Change Leadership improved to 4.5 from 4.0 (on a scale of 1-6), while People Management improved to 4.5 from 4.3 and Relationships with Stakeholders to 4.8 from 4.5.

His boss also gave him an encouraging overall rating of 8.0 (on a scale of 1-10), up from 5.0 at the start of the coaching programme, while Kamchai rated himself 7.0, compared with 3.0 before.

Mindfulness is vital for leading others. But many Thais take mindfulness for granted. Because they have grown up in a Buddhist culture and hear about it frequently, they assume it is a quality they possess. As a result, they do not seriously address the issue or put much effort into practising or improving mindfulness.

In contrast, a growing number of people from non-Buddhist cultures, mainly from the West, are becoming interested in mindfulness, and they dedicate time to practise or meditate in order to develop and improve themselves. In conclusion, regular practice of mindfulness is recommended for anyone seeking to become a more effective manager or leader, as Kamchai’s story shows.

Sorayuth Vathanavisuth is principal and executive coach at the Center for Southeast Asia Leadership and lectures at the Mahidol University College of Management. His areas of interest are executive coaching, leadership development, succession planning and talent management. He can be reached at sorayuth@sealeadership.com