Customer Reviews

Mindfulness @ Work: A Leading with Emotional Intelligence Conversation with Jon Kabat-Zinn

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

There were two Amazon reviews written before this one. I really agree with the sentiments of the reviewer who gave the CD one star; this CD is not full of new material and does very little to tell you how to apply mindfulness to a work organisation. It just goes to show, you don't get too many helpful votes when you write a negative review.

The CD was pleasant to listen to and reminded me of some very important points about mindfulness. Unlike lots of mindfulness CDs/CD sets, there was only one CD in the package and there were no mindfulness exercises. I was also interested to hear about the relationship between the two people talking on the CD.

The front cover of the CD describes the contents of the CD as being a "conversation"; that is perfectly correct. The editorial review describes the CD as "groundbreaking"; that's just random advertising nonsence.

Mindfulness@Work is enjoyable to listen - it is clear, direct, and has thought provoking points. It is especially good for those have some basic knowledge on mindfulness and would like to look at boarder application to improve productivity and work relationships.

Dr Goleman is authentically a genius or something very close to it. I am authentically not, so please accept my comments in that light. I am unconvinced that 'emotional intelligence' exists as something distinct from traits or behaviors about which we actually know a lot from decades of industrial engineering, job design, and personality psychology. OK, so what: I've already conceded that his work has touched and doubtless helped far more people than mine has. I mention this because I wanted to set the stage for the claim that this CD is extraordinary precisely because it's a commentary, not a new-age "how-to" practice which will pass the way of so many other new age fads. Here's how I'd make that case:

What's *not* minor is the extraordinary way in which Dr. G. now reframes the EQ discussion. In this CD and elsewhere he throws an intense spotlight on something which is life-saving and not an HR or business school concept-of-the-year. I mean "life saving" literally. We now have a large amount of evidence that what these guys are discussing actually saves lives with a high degree of reliability and at a cost which is beneath trivial in our overall health care system. Dr. Kabat-Zinn's name is all over the hard-core medical and physiological literatures for what he's done in crafting traditional contemplative traditions (chiefly meditation, or if you're uncomfortable with new age terms then "stress-reduction". The program that he launched at the U of Mass Medical Center years ago is now the gold standard for how to help minimize the demonstrable physiological damage that stress causes in people with preexistent conditions as well as people who have not (yet) developed such conditions. (I have no ties to Dr. K-Z, to U-Mass, nor to MBSR in any other way than to have completed the eight week program which he and his colleagues developed and which is now the method of choice in scores of health care settings and publicly available in almost every corner of the world I've visited.)

Other reviewers have criticized the conversation on this CD Goleman and Kabat-Zinn as 'commentary.' Apart from the prior question of when we collectively became so dense that we can't hear commentary, that approach seems to me this CD's brilliance and contribution. They offer a wide ranging and deeply informed discussion of connections among tension (interpersonal and intrapersonal), stress, life-threatening illness, and the workplace binds into which our economy has gotten itself. Dr. Goleman links MBSR ('mindfulness based stress reduction,' the program that Dr K-Z developed at Massachusetts) to the environmental & interpersonal sensitivity which he understands as EQ. Dr. K-Z in turn links this sensitivity to the very accessible, very easy, and very calming practices which we now know to be highly effective (often as highly effective as medications) in a wide range of stress-influenced disorders.

The linchpin here is the job site. *That's* why the commentary orientation in this CD is so important. These men are not preaching anything and they're clearly not selling anything. They're not telling us that we should retreat to a mountain in Tibet to attain transcendence or that we should roll the clock back to some pre-industrial utopia where farmers wandered happily in fields and the animals pranced around like something out of a bad music video featuring Debussy. That just ain't gonna happen (and in fact is a state that never existed anyway.) Instead they rationally discuss the real challenges to our individual, family, social, and economic health of the economic competitiveness which measurably, according to the strictest scientific standards, pushes us to activate arteriosclerosis, atherosclerosis, chemical overuse, anxiety, depression (which, by the way, is emerging in epidemiology as the next major worldwide murderous epidemic), androgenic cancers, progressive age related cognitive disorders (quite possibly), and on and on and on.

The commentary moves thoughtfully around this central concern. If you don't want commentary and instead want to learn the system, that's real easy in other books & CDs. Dr Goleman and his colleagues offer tons of info on EQ. Dr Kabat-Zinn and others working in MBSR have books, how-to CDs, trained facilitators in cities all over the place (whose 8 week program--again not one with which I'm in any way affiliated except for having paid for and completed one--is largely reimbursable by a lot of health insurers), and a medical library full of documented effects at the strictest standards of experimentation and case study which anyone can access through the public library or amazon.

Heck, yeah, this CD is a 'commentary', but it's not an 'editorial'. These guys aren't selling us anything. The CD is an intelligent and humane discussion between two people whose work has a track record virtually unchallenged in the medical and psychological communities. I have absolutely nothing to do in business or practical terms with either of these scholars. They probably wouldn't know me if they fell over me. I write reviews under a pseudonym b/c I'm an applied scientist in a related field, especially in how our work lives are killing us, and I think the anonymity makes sure I'm not selling myself by associate with their work. Let me say this, though: I'd be thrilled if the best work that I've done even remotely approaches what they and their colleagues have already put together. That work (and their commentary) deserve the most respectful and enjoyable listening.

OK, I'll conclude. I can't say the following strongly enough:

Focusing this discussion the way they do makes for one of the most enlightened (no pun intended) and rewarding commentaries I've heard about ANYTHING in a long time. Thank heaven (assuming heaven exists) their commentary doesn't treat in mysticism. It's not a 'religion'. It's offering no instant cures, though if you look at Dr K-Z's other materials you can get the how-to info on implementing something with very immediate benefits. Drs G and K-Z are not 'new age'. You don't have to send checks in to get the 'secrets'. What they say is externally verifiable (you can spend an afternoon reading JAMA or the New England Journal of Medicine or The Lancet and get a sense of how medically, emotionally, and psychologically powerful (and healing) their approach is.) It's simple, elegant, enaging, easy to follow up, practical, and (lest I forget) wonderfully relaxing. Kudos to both these people and to their students & colleagues.

This is only a single CD, with a conversation between two researchers who certainly know and appreciate each other's work. I was familiar with "emotional intelligence" (Goleman) but not "mindfulness", and was looking for some basic information on what it is, how one might pursue it, and how it relates to concepts such as emotional intelligence and other approaches to help you be more effective, especially in the types of interactions seen in office work.

Those goals were not fully satisfied. Even with a single CD, I expected less chattiness and more concentrated nuggets. The key points seem to be to focus on "the present", to be less judgmental, try to keep your heart and mind in balance, and understand the value of meditation, in particular with stress reduction being a key objective. I wasn't sure what to conclude if your basic personality was flawed and resistant to harmonious change. Some other comments, such as pointing out how critical it is for people taking phone calls to present a good face to the outside world, are rather obvious and well-known, so I didn't really follow whether that was considered part of mindfulness or not.

As a single disc, it may be worth your time. I actually listened to it twice while driving. Perhaps I should have given it my full attention. After all, one of the points of discussion was about doing too many things at once on the job!

doset tell you anything new or intersting. dosent give you any real practical guidance. not worth bothering with.