1. New approaches for effective
teamwork:
mindful leadership
Leadership in Agile Organizations conference
Leiden University
Wibo Koole - 27 October 2016

2. What will I talk about?
›Effectiveness risks: the agile team trade-off
›Why mindfulness? The (neuro)science behind it
›Agile teams: a mindful intervention
›Mindfulness: how it works
›Experiencing mindfulness practices
›Leading your team and yourself

3. Effectiveness risks
The agile team trade-off

4. WORKING WITH ENTHOUSIASM THE JOB MUST BE FINISHED
OWN PACE AND RYTHM COMMAND AND CONTROL
GIVES ENERGY DEPLETES ENERGY
MOTIVATION FROM INSIDE DECREED BY OTHERS
FEELING WELL WORK ONESELF TO DEATH
ENGAGED PERFORMING STURDY WORKING ON

5. WORKING WITH ENTHOUSIASM THE JOB MUST BE FINISHED
OWN PACE AND RYTHM COMMAND AND CONTROL
GIVES ENERGY DEPLETES ENERGY
MOTIVATION FROM INSIDE DECREED BY OTHERS
FEELING WELL WORK ONESELF TO DEATH
ENGAGED PERFORMING STURDY WORKING ON
WHAT DO YOU
EXPERIENCE?

6. Agile teams: burnout indicators 1
›Excessive overtime; becoming the norm with long
term duration;
›Rising mistakes: bugs, poor design choices, and
hurried implementations;
›Rising temperatures, increasing levels of team
stress and conflict;
›Lack of humor / fun, team is too focused and lost
any playfulness;
›Lack of refactoring or quality investments;

7. Agile teams: burnout indicators 2
›Excessive negotiation (or avoidance) of your
Done-Ness, rushing at the ends of Sprints;
›Excessive time-off, high levels of team stress
seeping into home;
›Not taking time off / not taking or cancelling
vacations;
›Increased paranoia; “they” are after us, we have
no choice;
›Lack of transparency, honesty, openness, and
continuous improvement.

8. Today’s team demands
›HIGH PERFORMANCE LEVEL
›CONTINUOUS INNOVATION
›24/7 AVAILABILITY & SMOOTH COOPERATION

9. The agile team trade-off
Faster, better,
within budget
results
Increased process
insecurity, self
management,
many stakeholders

10. Why mindfulness?
The science, the business case

11. It’s everywhere…

12. Growing research…
• Cognitive psychology
• Organizational
psychology
• Management studies
• Neuroscience
• Medicine
• Contemplative
studies
Research areas include:

13. Results in-company mindfulness
training…
MINDFULNESS PERCEIVED STRESS

14. Effects in organisations
Performance
Job
Task
Citizenship behaviour
Safety
Deviance
Levels
Variability
Buffering
Goals and motivation
Relationships
Communication & Relationship
Quality
Conflict management
Empathy and compassion
Leadership
Teamwork
Self v. Other
Climate
Shared mental models
Mindful leadership training
Well-being
Physical
Psychological
Behavioral
Resilience
Recovery
Growth
CurrentevidenceOpenquestions

15. Current evidence
› Performance
– Middle managers: higher performance ratings by supervisors
– Strengthens social aspects of leadership (employee
satisfaction higher)
› Relationships
– Better quality of communication: listening and perspective-
taking
– Better understanding of emotions
– Growth of compassion: teamwork!
› Well-being
– Lower incidence of burn-out, stress and negative moods
– Higher psychological capital
– Higher work engagement

16. › Less absence by stress
› Less medical symptoms
› Greater focus
› Improved job roles
› Enhanced brain capacity
› Greater well-being
+
=> €€€€€ - higher
performance

17. Neural mechanisms
Tenney & Gard., The Mindfulness Edge, 2016

18. How does mindfulness affect pain
in the brain?

19. Procedure
›Mindfulness
›Normal state

20. Results: brain activation
Meditators > Controls, Mindfulness > Baseline
Gard et al., Cereb. Cortex, 2012
• Increased activation in posterior Insula
in meditators during mindful pain modulation
• Greater sensory processing
z=15
L R

21. Results: brain activation
Meditators > Controls, Mindfulness > Baseline
Gard et al., Cereb. Cortex, 2012
• Decreased activation in lateral prefrontal cortex
during mindful pain processing in meditators
• Decreased cognitive modulatory processing
z=6
L R

22. Conclusion
›↑ sensory processing: your senses work better!
›↓ cognitive processing: you can better handle
discomfort and stress
›Mindfulness helps to better regulate emotions

23. Agile: stand-up meetings
Mindful
• Significant
effect
Music
• Small
Nothing
• No effect
• Involvement in decision-making
• Overall-effectiveness
• Listening skills
• Level of disagremeent
• Tension level
• Interaction and emotional responses

24. Agile: stand-up meetings
Mindful
• Significant
effect
Music
• Small
Nothing
• No effect
• Involvement in decision-making
• Overall-effectiveness
• Listening skills
• Level of disagremeent
• Tension level
• Interaction and emotional responses

25. Mindfulness: how it
works
First hand experience and definition

26. Sitting meditation
›3 minute exercise

27. Definition of mindfulness
›Mindfulness is paying attention in a special way:
on purpose, in the present moment and non-
judgementally, to the unfolding of experience
moment to moment
›Based on our natural human capacity of noticing,
paying attention and being aware of that

28. Mindfulness enables…
›Switching between action and reflection
›Stopping the autopilot of routine and making
space for a conscious response

29. SIGNALS
Something is wrong…. What now?
Stopping
Creating distance and seeing the difference between
the signal and its significance
CONSCIOUS
RESPONSE
Staying with it. Accepting discomfort. Not letting
your emotions drive you
AUTOPILOT
Putting extra effort into it
Running
It most be solved and go away!
Faster heartbeat
Anxiety
Quick changing thinking
Hurry and pressure
Tension in the body
Sweating, short of breath, trembling
Mindfulness and the stress-system

30. SIGNALS
Something is wrong…. What now?
Stopping
Creating distance and seeing the difference between
the signal and its significance
CONSCIOUS
RESPONSE
Staying with it. Accepting discomfort. Not letting
your emotions drive you
AUTOPILOT
Putting extra effort into it
Running
It most be solved and go away!
Faster heartbeat
Anxiety
Quick changing thinking
Hurry and pressure
Tension in the body
Sweating, short of breath, trembling
Mindfulness and the stress-system
Mindful
Awareness:
your early
warning
system

31. Mindful teamwork
“Managing attention” and the role of the
scrum master…

32. Intervention Model
STRESS
CULTURE
Targets and
cut-throat
culture
Passing the
buck
I-communi-
cation
GROENE ZONE VAN
MINDFULNESS
Aspirations and
performance
ethos
Shared
responsibility
We-commu-
nication
SHARED PERFORMANCE
COOPERATION THROUGH
DIALOGUE
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
RESILIENCE ABOVE MARK
(TEAM) FOCUS
MINDFULLEADERSHIP
Sturdy working on Engaged at work

33. Mindful Leadership
”Consciously experiencing both the internal
and external world and from this, directing
the attention of individuals and groups at a
situation and what it asks from them and
you”
Wibo Koole,
Mindful Leadership for effective teams and organizations, 2013

34. “The success of an intervention
depends on the interior
condition of the intervenor.”
William O’Brien,
former CEO of the Hanover Insurance Company

35. Focus
Success and results
Outer
Inner
Other

36. Building team-resilience
›Switching between action and reflection
›Stopping the autopilot of routine and making
space for a conscious response

37. Emotional intelligence/agility
›Self-awareness
›Self-management
›Social awareness
›Relational management

38. BALANCE
ARGUMENTS AND
INQUIRY
Culture of dialogue
JOURNEY TOGETHER!

39. Compassionate performance

40. Building your practice
Mindfully leading yourself

41. It all starts with…
›Taking unconditional responsibility for your own
life and actions…
›Accepting discomfort and staying with it: inquiring
the situation…
›Building yourself step by step…
›Practices:
– Daily exercises…
– Mindful breaks…
– Journaling and reflecting…

42. Organizational practices…
›Supportive mindful leadership (the role of the
scrum-master!)
›Team practices
– Attentive team check-in (braking the barrier of
the daily rote action!)
– Taking time for “resilience check”
– Continuous training: constructive feedback
– Culture of learning
›Better organizational mindfulness in hospitals
leads to less mistakes in medication!

43. Building the practice…
We are always practicing. In other
words, the body is incapable of not
practicing.
And what we practice we become..
…

44. Mindfulness
A tool for daily use…

45. Breathing space
› THINK OF IT, SIT DOWN AND OBSERVE THE PHSICAL
AND MENTAL EXPERIENCES IN THE CURRENT
MOMENT
› BRING ATTENTION TO BREATHING PROCES
› EXPAND ATTENTION TO BODY AS A WHOLE
› FINALLY: OPEN YOUR EYES, MOVE ON WITH WORK
› Each step takes about one minute!