Building mindfulness into the Asana culture

Building mindfulness into the Asana culture(medium.com)

53 points by marcog1 11 years ago | 19 comments

rphouser 11 years ago |

The term “co-creator” (at the end of the article) jumped out to me as an ideal way to treat all employees of a company. If everyone’s ideas about company processes are valued and integrated, that creates an atmosphere of respect and allows everyone to invest in the success of the processes. Sounds like a great work environment.

TheOtherHobbes 11 years ago | |

Does that mean everyone gets stock?

Ah. Thought not.

I have no issue with meditation or mindfulness.

I have huge issues with trying to combine them with for-profit strive-and-drive hit-the-goals success culture. To me, that's a contradictory and frankly crazy-making combination.

The last time I saw something similar was when Lululemon tried to make yoga-culture and positivity obligatory. That was not so successful at making employees treat each other well:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stewart-j-lawrence/when-yogis-...

I don't doubt Asana is a cool place to work. But I don't think it's necessary to use jargon from other cultures and spiritual traditions to make people happy and get stuff done.

I find the approach culty and creepy, and unless rewards are being distributed with the workload, I also question whether it's fully informed at best - or entirely sincere, at worst.

rphouser 11 years ago | | |

Not sure how mindfulness and “strive-and-drive” are incompatible/contradictory. Isn't one of the goals of mindfulness to take time to ensure everything is working as efficiently as possible? And I feel rewarded when I impact work processes, when I’m able to share my ideas and see them discussed and implemented. Monetary reward is not the only motivator or measure of fulfillment for people. (And I don't even work at Asana)

Also the lululemon piece seemed to be about the company creating a marketing campaign with whatever made-up version of yoga most improved sales, which seems far from the internal practices that are discussed in this article.

Dewie 11 years ago | | |

Right. I'm automatically sceptical of these practices when it comes from an employer/company. Maybe that's just due to the fundamental power dynamic (which I suspect the concept of co-creators won't mitigate, but I guess anything is possible).

On the other hand, maybe workplaces can't help but promote certain culturally motivated practices, whether they can help it or not? A company that endorses crunch time and regular over time, has already tacitly endorsed a certain philosophy and culture when it comes to how people should be managed and how productivity is leveraged.

tedchs 11 years ago |

For those interested in mindfulness, I recommend the book Search Inside Yourself. It's based on the course at Google by the same name, as mentioned in the article. It's an easy read and I found it actionable in everyday life.

illuminated 11 years ago |

Really great read. Agree with almost everything written. The only part I'd find hard to implement would be the pre-meeting meditation... I've tried once to have a colleague, a certified Yoga instructor, to have short Yoga sessions in the morning with everyone, but it quickly became a joke, not a real thing.

marcog1 11 years ago | |

That specific point was about Google. At Asana, we offer 1:1 and group Yoga sessions, and some people get together to meditate. A lot of people take it quite seriously, but it's in no way pushed on anyone.

7Figures2Commas 11 years ago | |

Try nude yoga. Worked like a charm at my company.

davesque 11 years ago |

All the techniques in this article could have been discussed just as effectively without introducing an ambiguous and frankly suspicious term such as "mindfulness". Being open and honest about conflicts, facing uncomfortable facts, and allowing people to have a say in things could all be described simply as "good business" or "common sense". Relying on a buzzword such as "mindfulness" betrays a religious agenda.

timr 11 years ago | |

How is "mindfulness" a religious term? When you're "mindful" of something, you're conscious or aware of it. It's in the dictionary. Seems like the perfect word for describing a process of greater awareness...and if that word also happens to be used in Buddhism and Yoga to mean the same thing, well, that's hardly a coincidence, is it?

It's not as if they're talking about practicing Ganesh worship.

afafsd 11 years ago | | |

The word as used in the dictionary isn't religious, but 99% of the people are using with connotations of a sort of religious-mystical-woo.

(I refer just to the noun-form "mindfullness" and not all forms of the word, e.g. "to be mindful of [some specific thing]".)

Reading the article made "Asana" sound less like a business and more like a slightly creepy cult. Which, hey, if that helps them make money then more power to them, but they should be very careful that this kind of thing (meditating before meetings?) doesn't start turning into discriminatory hiring practices.

davesque 11 years ago | | |

It is a religious term because of the context in which it appears. For instance, the term "Mindfulness" appears along with "Equanimity" and even the conspicuous company name "Asana". When you hear those three terms together, I'd say it's rather unlikely that there's not some kind of religious backdrop to the discussion.

mkal_tsr 11 years ago | |

It would probably be best for everyone if you understood the term before forming harsh opinions and complaining about it.

davesque 11 years ago | | |

What about my original post indicates that I don't understand the term?

Daishiman 11 years ago | |

I think it betrays your absence of knowledge about the word more than anything else, frankly.

jinushaun 11 years ago |

This probably explains why Asana has such a complex and convoluted (read: horrible) user experience. It sounds like it breeds a culture that is too afraid to upset other people, so bad ideas never get shot down.

I can't believe that a company that dog foods its own product to develop the product isn't easier to use. I know everyone has different styles of working and organizing data, but for me, Asana is so bad...