#Ellen langer mindfulness pdf movie#
#Ellen langer mindfulness pdf free#

But that anachronistic world lasted for only a week. S+B: The counterclockwise study is a remarkable story. Second, an organization that provides a context that enables people to be mindful on the job will reap the benefits of innovation and effectiveness. In both her classroom and her consultations, Langer is known for her cheerfully blunt insistence on two basic premises: First, inattention is the source of most (or all) problems faced by the worldвЂ™s leaders today. The occasion was the new 25th-anniversary edition of her first book on the subject: Mindfulness (Da Capo Press, 2014). Langer recently spoke with strategy+business in her office in Cambridge, Mass., about the theory and practice of mindfulness in business. Langer argues that distractions, when approached with the right frame of mind, are sources of opportunity. But in practice, that means tackling most problems as rapidly and mindlessly as possible, just to get them out of the way.

#Ellen langer mindfulness pdf free#

The executiveвЂ™s attention is supposed to be streamlined and free of distractions so that he or she can pay attention only to what is important. This approach runs counter, of course, to the highly focused, take-no-prisoners approach to leadership prevalent in many companies today. In his October 2014 profile of Langer for the New York Times Magazine, writer Bruce GriersonВ described her form of mindfulness as вЂњnoticing moment-to-moment changes around you, from the differences in the face of your spouse across the breakfast table to the variability of your asthma symptoms.вЂќ But other forms of mindfulness are also prominent in the business world today, including the simple concept of вЂњbeing here nowвЂќ-holding an open frame of mind, avoiding the complacent arrogance that comes from the вЂњillusion of certainty,вЂќ as Langer calls it. Often, this improvement is linked to meditation practice. Conferences such as Wisdom 2.0, and companies such as Google, are making a clear case that more deliberate awareness leads to stronger performance and better decision making. And they all share a theme: Cultivated mindfulness can change your life.ДЄs many business leaders know, mindfulness is gathering momentum as a management practice. Langer, who is 67 and the first woman to gain tenure in HarvardвЂ™s psychology department, has conducted dozens of studies of changed context-involving such diverse situations as aging, recovery from disease, individual creativity, organizational innovation, the management of disabilities, and addiction. They have to approach the world freshly, with a beginnerвЂ™s mind, in a way that has an enormous positive effect. But when a context forces people out of their ingrained, self-imposed limits (вЂњI am oldвЂќ), it makes them mindful. The way they think holds back their capabilities. To Langer, most people are much more capable than they think they are. Harvard University social psychology professor Ellen Langer says organizations can make better decisions by setting the right context. At the end of the retreat, members of the group showed demonstrable improvement, on average, in objective tests of memory, height, weight gain, posture, vision, and hearing. But in the вЂњcounterclockwiseвЂќ study, which Langer conducted in 1981 and named after the way it seemed to reverse the effects of time, the results were remarkable. You wouldnвЂ™t expect five days in a retreat like this to have much effect. But as it comes alive around you, you find yourself paying attention to yourВ environment in ways you havenвЂ™t done in years. You know, at some level, that this is all a fictional recreation. The staff treat you like youвЂ™re in the prime of physical health, making you carry your own suitcases upstairs even if you havenвЂ™t recently lifted anything nearly that heavy.

#Ellen langer mindfulness pdf movie#

Radios with vacuum tubes play rockabilly and Perry Como, a hardcover copy of Ian FlemingвЂ™s Goldfinger sits on a Danish modern coffee table (the movie wonвЂ™t be released for several years yet), the clothing is au courant for 1959, and the conversation covers recent events like Fidel CastroвЂ™s invasion of Havana. Along comes a Harvard University social psychology professor named Ellen Langer who takes you away on a retreat, where everything is transformed into the way it looked and felt when you were 25. YouвЂ™re elderly, youвЂ™ve lost much of your mobility, and your faculties are deteriorating. Suppose youвЂ™re confined to a nursing home.