Executive Leadership & Meditation
Summer 2017
Editorial
T
here is no shortage of solutions on offer for resolving the multiple crises of our time. But without a new kind and depth of leadership we continue to recycle the same patterns of failure and destructive complexity. Meditatio is committed to help develop the kind of inspired, effective leadership of service and othercentredness that flows from personal depth and integrity and the daily practice of meditation. In various ways described below our outreach into business and corporate life attempts to plant the seed of contemplative balance and clarity in the minds and hearts of the leaders on whom we rely to change direction and meaning in our work in the world. ◊
Bertrand Bouhour, Meditatio Coordinator for Executive Leadership
Bertrand Bouhour is an active French entrepreneur, residing in Washington DC where his latest enterprise is ‘Fresh Baguette’ – authentic French bread for a hungry American market. He is married with four children, an athlete, a trustee of the WCCM and teaches the Meditation and Leadership Course at Georgetown Business School.
“Peter Ng and Laurence Freeman with MBA students at Singapore Management University”
MBA Course : Meditation and Leadership
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those who practice it. And of course there are students whose personal religious beliefs or spirituality resonate with what they are learning through meditation. The course then studies the latest scientific evidence for the psychological and physical benefits. The distinctionis discussed between technique and discipline and also between benefits and fruits. The course proceeds to relate leadership styles to the experience awakened through the practice of meditation and its ultimate effect on applied values of integrity, fairness and human kindness in the workplace and in the broader view of economic policy.
n 2014 Meditatio developed a for credit elective course at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University (MSB is ranked 15 th in the US). Launched by Laurence Freeman, it is now led by Bertrand Bouhour with input from guest speakers such as Sean Hagan (General Counsel of the IMF, Peter Ng Kok Song, former MD of the Singapore Government Investment Corporation), business leaders and former students of the class who speak of the benefits they have been able to sustain in their personal and professional lives The various forms of meditation are through the practice of daily briefly reviewed but the essential meditation. teaching of the Meditatio tradition and method is suggested over the six The course has also been hosted at week (twelve class) course: ‘it is Singapore Management University better to dig deep in one well than and led there by Peter Ng and dig many shallow holes’. Each class Laurence Freeman. opens with a short meditation. A The course opens with a history of twicedaily practice is encouraged meditation in humanity’s wisdom and an online journal and timer is traditions. Although no specific provided to help the students belief system is essential to learn to develop a daily practice. Most meditate, we feel it is most students achieve a daily practice and effectively presented in its cultural all have said they aspire to continue and historical context to highlight meditating. ◊ the full human potential it opens for
Leading From the Centre: Bringing Meditation to the Workplace
usually been born in the company. In Singapore the leading international architectural firm DPA now has a daily morning and evening meditation session. A range of companies, including a hightech n the Leading from the Center defense contractor, a marketing and program, so far delivered in branding company, a personnel and several companies in the placement agency, an investment Washington DC area and Singapore, advisory firm, a leading food Meditatio brings meditation directly products and services company, and into the workplace. It sometimes the research department of a major runs the series more than once in state university have all benefited the same company for different from the program and report a groups of employees. As a result, a change in the quality of work and regular meditation group has relationships. ◊
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Publications Books Contemplative Leadership by Peter Ng Kok Song, comprises four presen tations to business executives and others proposing meditation as a way of cultivating enlightened leadership. The Business of Spirit Ray Dalio, Peter Ng, Sean Hagan, Laurence Freeman, based on the Meditatio Forum held in Georgetown University, where organisational leaders operating at a level of global responsibility talk from personal experience about the practice of meditation and its influence in their lives
Videos Reflections by Leaders who Meditate: In separately recorded conver sations, three leaders reflect on the practice of meditation in relation to leadership. Lee Kuan Yew Founding Prime Minister of Singapore, Peter Ng, Chairman of Avanda Investment, Ray Dalio, Founder and CIO Bridgwater associates.
Online In Conversation: Laurence Freeman with Lee Kuan Yew vimeo.com/73461394 In Conversation: Laurence Freeman with Ray Dalio vimeo.com/88253319 In Conversation: ChadeMeng Tan and Laurence Freeman: On how medi tation, compassion and joy can be transformative powers to make the world, especially the corporative world, more balanced and more human. vimeo.com/169613370 Panel Discussion: IMF Annual Meeting Panel on Ethics, Lagarde, Hagan, Ng, Carney, Hildebrand www.bloomberg.com/news/videos /20141012/boescarneyspeakson imfpanelonethicsandfinance video
For more information, visit meditatio.co.uk/leadership. To order media, visit meditatiostore.com/business.
Executive Leadership & Meditation Meditatio, St Marks, Myddelton Square, London EC1R 1XX, UK email: meditatio@wccm.org, web: meditatio.co.uk
The Meditatio Foundation
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n collaboration with Meditatio the Meditatio Foundation was set up in 2015 as a nonfor profit in the US. According to its mission statement it works, from its Washington base, ‘to foster personal wellbeing and promote the common good by encouraging and facilitating globally the teaching of meditation, according to the tradition taught by John Main, at educational institutions, businesses, and non profit organizations’. TMF’s personnel are longtime members of WCCM with professional roots in business, law, management and finance. It is especially oriented towards educational institutions and developing new models of executive leadership. ◊
Meditatio Seminars on Leadership Seminars linking meditation and leadership issues have been held at Blackrock and KPMG in London, with business leaders in the US, Singapore, Barbados, at Esade in Spain, Brasil, Uruguay and Argentina. Meditatio also contributes to the Values dialogue conducted at Regents University, London. A Meditatio Seminar on this topic is being planned in London for early 2018. ◊
Meditatio is a cluster of programs, publications and events that brings the fruits and benefits of meditation to the wider world. It is the outreach of The World Community for Christian Meditation and seeks to bring universal spiritual wisdom and values to bear upon the pressing issues of a secular world. © 201 7 The World Community for Christian Meditation.