In this 2 part series, we planned to report on some recent research related to "civic honesty". Given its relevance to our (perpetual) theme - namely ethics and values in business - part 1 will recap some other perspectives that have been addressed in earlier articles.
There are a number of ‘tests’ that the results should meet including the gold standard of medical research: randomized controlled trial. One category of validation is known as ecological validity.
It is inherent in the essence of business that for true success, you must be able to leverage the relevant (explicit vs tacit) knowledge based on research and trial and error with the subtleties that are learned only as you hold on to a cat’s tail. In other words, you are best served with complimentary skills/experience – a combination of both – and not the exclusion of either.
This post is simply a cross section of information designed to illustrate some of the many documented benefits of mindfulness. As a quick sidebar, I believe it is philosophically inconsistent with mindfulness for it to be used to “enhance performance”.
The concept of ‘takers’ is so foreign to me that I find myself struggling to understand how they have come to be and in midst of this query, I find myself thinking about an Edgar Allan Poe story “The Imp of the Perverse”.
I trust after writing several articles, that I have done an adequate job of creating a case around the relevance of mindfulness (largely but not exclusively through meditation) to the world of business.
Starting with a bit of history – the vagus nerve has appeared in various contexts in earlier articles. Despite these previous articles, a quick summary seems in order, especially since this topic involves so much psychological and physiological context. The vagus nerve is one of 12 cranial nerves – it being the largest. It extends from the brainstem to the abdomen by way of multiple organs, including the heart and lungs.
Perhaps the best way to illustrate how this paradox works (as in “bites you”) is with a cross section (in summary form) of (just some) of the errors/biases that I have discussed in various articles. As always, I have tried to simplify (oversimplify?) the content so as to make it quickly digestible. For example: biases are not necessarily irrational (but can still be problematic).