A Bangladesh-born management guru, Faisal Hoque, explains how “mindfulness” can transform your business.
February 26, 2014 | by Sam McNerney
Fortune.com selects the most compelling short essays, anecdotes, and author interviews from “250 Words,” a site developed by Simon & Schuster to explore the best new business books—wherever they may be published.
FORTUNE—For this installment, 250 Words’ Sam McNerney sat down with Faisal Hoque (@faisal_hoque), co-author of the new book
Everything Connects: How to Transform and Lead in the Age of Creativity, Innovation, and Sustainability, which combines the wisdom of 2500-year-old Eastern philosophies with the interconnected insights of Leonardo da Vinci to show how businesses can succeed in the long run. Faisal talks with Sam about mindfulness, “deep level” diversity, and what it means to be creative.
“Being mindful is to know what you’re doing. While that sounds easy, it’s actually a conversation we need to have with our deepest selves and the situations we find ourselves in: being mindful of your breath is knowing that you’re breathing; being mindful of your words is knowing what you’re saying.
Crucially, another component of mindfulness is to not unquestioningly accept whatever “wisdom” has been passed down to you–Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, said to test his teachings like gold in the marketplace. Innovation and disruption is about upsetting inherited norms. Mindfulness, as explained in the book, trains us to spot those unproductive inheritances.” – Faisal Hoque.
Read the full article @Fortune or @250 Words.
