Volume 1 Issue 3 September 2004



The Power of Conversation
By Susan Bird

Conduct your own small group meditation at work
7 steps to guide your team through a mini-meditation
1 – Sit comfortably, upright, feet on the floor, with your legs uncrossed and your hands placed lightly in front of you, on your knees.
2 – Close your eyes and breathe deeply, inhaling up through your nose, and exhaling slowly out through your mouth.
3 – Try to feel and capture any tension in your mind, back, muscles, extremities, and with each breath, imagine you are catching and releasing that negativity as you exhale.
4 – As you inhale, imagine you are breathing fresh, new positive life into your lungs, to be used throughout the day as fuel for thought and energy to endure whatever may come your way.
5 – As you continue to breathe, think about what you’d like to accomplish today. Concentrate on those tasks and imagine yourself getting them done.
6 – Think about your breathing…. Inhaling up through your nose, into your lungs, through your body, out through your mouth.
7 – Slowly count to 10 and open your eyes.

click here for a printer friendly version of these tips

"A single conversation across the table with a wise [person] is better than ten years mere study of books." -Henry Wordsworth Longfellow

No doubt about it, Wf360 is all about conversation. We’re especially interested in how, by becoming a conversationalist, one becomes part of something bigger than one’s self (since by its nature, conversation assumes both a speaker and a listener). And by how great conversations can spread, compounding themselves to engage people in disparate locations about subjects of importance to everyone. We transcend ourselves in such conversation and become part of something truly universal.

MainEvent 2004, held in April this year, was such a conversation. People around the globe are still discussing questions raised that day about the several aspects of "values," and applying the answers to their work and lives. If you weren’t able to take part in MainEvent 2004, check out the live webcast (instructions below). You’ll experience some of the world’s most powerful business and thought leaders (like Niall FitzGerald, CEO of Unilever and Queen Rania of Jordan) in candid conversation about what values mean to leadership and financial success in a global economy. And you can use their comments to jumpstart your own dialogue, wherever you are.

One of the most provocative aspects of MainEvent 2004 was the global "meditation for business professionals" exercise conducted by Rodney Yee, world famous yoga and meditation guru. Attendees tell us that as a result of experiencing our conversation with Yee, they’ve begun – and sustained – meditation exercises as an integral part of sales meetings and other gatherings in their own companies. In fact, here at Wf360 we’ve made it a part of our Monday morning meetings. I’m amazed at the impact ten minutes of collective focus on our breathing can have on energizing each other about the work we are about to do and its value in the world. I’m surprised to find that this workaholic has become an avid convert to the practice.

You may want to do something similar at your own place of work, perhaps starting with a few colleagues before attacking a knotty task or problem. (See sidebar for a guide on how to conduct your own meditation.) It’s a unique experience in which you and your colleagues engage together in silent conversation with yourselves… You may be surprised at how the quality of active workplace conversations improves as a result of such a shared experience.

Let us know your thoughts on this rich approach to conversation that is at once private and public. We think you’ll agree, business professionals around the world could benefit from the practice. And so would their companies.

To Access the MainEvent 2004 webcast:
 Go to the Wf360 Home Page and click on the Webcast Archive button. (Windows Media Player Software required)