Consciousness is made of attention and intention. Attention helps you see more clearly, like when you shine a flashlight in a dark room. That flashlight is also healing. Wherever you focus with acceptance, you heal, including in yourself and others. Intention transforms the energy of attention into information. Inquiring into your own attention and intention enables you to get to know who you are.

You are not your thoughts. You are not what you do for work. Our personalities are a fiction. We get attached to this story, but we can get behind our egos to understand our real needs and wants. Our life becomes more joyful and fulfilling when we remember who we really are. In addition, this clarity helps us become more flexible, effective and impactful as leaders.

Meditation is self-focused attention with empathy.

Experiment: Self-inquiry meditation

Experiment: Experiencing subtle forms of communication

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Coaching is a powerful skill for leaders and professionals. Mindful coaching is about helping others reflect in the context of a safe relationship. Silence and Caring are at the heart of mindful coaching. When coaches provide accepting attention it is healing in itself.

There are two phases of mindful coaching: Assessment and Goal-setting. Assessment is about seeking understanding and has two key components:

• Active listening
• Focused Inquiry

Goal-setting is about planning and action and has two key components:

• Brainstorming
• Committing to action

There are three levels and modes of operating as a mindful coach:

• Sounding Board
• Skills Development Trainer
• Transformational Agent

Generally we avoid giving advice because our goal is for clients to learn to think for themselves. Questions help us avoid taking over and invite reflection. However, if a client is about to make a costly mistake that could affect their career, we can temporarily step out of our neutral stance and go into expert mode to provide advice.

Experiment: Receiving coaching

Experiment: Providing coaching

Experiment: Increasing the power of questions

Experiment: Giving constructive feedback

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In this chapter I tell the story of an organization that successfully engaged employees in a bottoms up goal-setting process. This involved two MindShifts: moving from Personal Accountability to Organizational Accountability, and moving from Task Analysis to Market Analysis.

I outline a five-step process to set and implement an organization’s goals:

1.Participative goal-setting: soliciting employee involvement in establishing goals.

2.Communication: articulating goals and validating understanding.

3.Execution: planning and implementing effective strategies and processes.

4.Accounting: setting up appropriate measures to keep track of progress toward goals.

5.Reflection: periodically reviewing results and modifying processes.

Experiment: Setting goals within your organization

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