Tea at Trianon: Mindfulness and Management

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Mindfulness and Management

From Forbes:

Self-awareness. I've said it before at different times and in different places, and I'll say it again: Without a reasonable degree of self-awareness, you can't be a highly effective manager. Without some awareness of how you're coming across to others and how they perceive you, it's hard to thoughtfully exercise authority over the long term. Without an accurate idea of how your employees are responding to you, you'll always be (avid fly fisherman speaking here) a trout swimming upstream. Meaning against the current.

Empathy. Studies have shown that empathy (the ability to understand and share the feelings of another) is a critical driver of successful management -- and that only 40% of "frontline leaders" are "proficient or strong in empathy." This stat doesn't surprise me -- if anything, maybe sounds a little high. People are usually selected for management more for reasons of authority than empathy. Though as noted earlier, the ability to understand employees (what their issues are, what motivates them and what doesn't) is no doubt part of managerial success.

Patience. Amid the chronic deadlines and stress of the working world, employees appreciate working for managers who are patient, as opposed to say, those who are short-tempered. Why wouldn't they? This I can say with confidence: A management coaching style that patiently supports an employee when he or she needs help will 9 times out of 10 (at least) be better received than a traditional command-and-control style focused more on authority than assistance.