As far as I know, the Financial Times has never been run by a transcendental meditation devotee. Nor does it seem to have any managers who think the best way to fix an office squabble is to get everyone to sit down in a circle to hash it out.
I cannot see this changing any time soon but elsewhere, meditation, mantras and the mindfulness movement in general seem to be penetrating the corporate world at an astonishing clip. Mindfulness programmes have now sprouted everywhere from Google and Intel to Target and General Mills. Ray Dalio, the billionaire founder of Bridgewater, the world’s largest hedge fund, has been meditating daily for more than 40 years. He encourages his staff to do the same and thinks meditation is “the biggest ingredient” of his success.
LinkedIn’s chief executive, Jeff Weiner (another meditation enthusiast), believes in “compassionate management” and likes to hire accordingly. Salesforce, the US cloud software group, brings in Zen Buddhist monks to speak to staff and has created special mindfulness spaces in its buildings. And circle-sitting? That is how problems are solved at Decurion Corporation, a Los Angeles real estate company, according to a book by Leah Weiss, a guru of corporate mindfulness. She teaches “compassionate leadership” at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and the title of her book pretty much sums up her thoughts: How We Work: Live Your Purpose, Reclaim Your Sanity, and Embrace the Daily Grind.