Mindfulness At Microsoft

Mindfulness at Microsoft explores mindfulness through a transformational period at one of the world’s largest and most legendary tech companies. Our interview is with Charles Morris, Director of Global Learning and Development at Microsoft — and founder of Mindful Growth, an experiential employee program that combines concepts from mindfulness and growth mindset theory.

Transcript

Benefit.

So first of all,

My name is Cole Harbor.

I'm the Associate Director at the Institute for Organizational Mindfulness,

The sponsoring organization of this series.

And if you guys are just joining,

This is session two of eight in our case study series where Andy Lee here is going to be interviewing leaders inside companies and all around the world that are really trying to build great mindfulness programs that are kind of aimed at the workplace.

So as an association where we're interested in that same mission,

We're trying to build the big tent for everybody that is really thinking in this direction,

Whether they be an HR or they're a coach or they're researchers to really figure out how mindfulness kind of puzzles into organizations.

And we're honestly,

I think these two would agree very early on in that process.

So it's going to take everybody to figure it out.

Many of you have already kind of opted into our membership program.

It's called a community membership.

It's free.

So if you didn't know about that,

You can go to our website and sign up,

Iomindfulness.

Org.

Love to have you after today's conversation.

Okay.

So to get the ball rolling here and to pass the baton,

I'd like to introduce our MC,

Andy Lee.

Andy is the former chief mindfulness officer for Aetna,

Where he implemented a full range of mindfulness programs for employees.

And he is now the founder of Mindful Ethos,

Which focuses on the intersection of mindfulness and talent management.

And he's also a senior consultant at the potential project,

Which some of you may be familiar with,

And which is another global leader for mindfulness solutions and organization.

So without further ado,

I'll pass it off to Andy,

And I hope you all enjoy this,

What promises to be a very wonderful conversation.

Thanks,

Guys.

Thanks so much,

Cole.

Welcome,

Everybody.

I'm so excited to be here.

This is work that I'm really passionate about,

And I know that my guests are really passionate about as well.

And I think we're going to have a.

.

.

I know that we're going to have a great conversation today with Charles about what he's been up to at Microsoft.

And before we get going,

I do also want to introduce Charles a bit.

Charles Sprenger,

Charles spent 18 years in engineering,

Is that right?

As an engineer and a leader of teams,

Is that right?

That's right.

Yes.

Okay.

And then from there,

One day you just decided,

Let me try something with mindfulness.

I'm sure there's more to that,

And we're obviously going to get into that story,

But a deep history working in the core of Microsoft's business units,

And then pivoting to bringing.

.

.

Creating a program that has really taken root at Microsoft and that continues to grow at Microsoft over the last two years.

And it's my pleasure to be with you today,

Charles.

Charles and I have met several times,

Have been in contact over the years,

But this is really the first time we're going to get to dig in to learning more about Charles' story.

So welcome,

Charles.

Thank you so much.

Great to be here,

Andy.

And hello,

Everyone.

So I thought that it might be a great way to start a mindfulness session,

A session about mindfulness in organizations to start with a brief practice.

And Charles has agreed to lead us in a brief mindfulness practice to get us started today.

Absolutely.

I'd be happy to.

So yeah,

Let's start,

And I'll just begin by inviting you all to find a comfortable meditation posture wherever you are,

Just making sure your body's comfortable,

Your back is nice and straight.

You can lower your gaze or gently close your eyes.

I'd like to begin with just a few deep breaths in and out.

Maybe to about 80% of your capacity.

Signaling to our nervous systems that we're going to slow things down a little bit and get recentered within our bodies.

Now as you're feeling that nice relaxed cadence of breath kicking in,

You can consciously lift your body up and down.

And as you're feeling that nice relaxed cadence of breath kicking in,

You can consciously let go of any control of the breath and allow it to just proceed naturally in and out.

And as we do this,

We gently guide our awareness now to simply the feeling of our breath.

As we do this,

We gently guide our awareness now to simply the feeling of our own breath as it enters and leaves the body.

We can notice the feeling of air through our nostrils.

We can notice the rise and fall of our shoulders.

And the movement in our chest and abdomen.

Just remembering that it's natural for our mind to wander.

So whenever we notice,

We simply try to gently acknowledge and let go of that thought,

Feeling,

Sense distraction,

And come home to our breath.

This is the training of letting go and coming back mindfully to where we want our attention to be.

Now we can transition into a brief body awareness practice by allowing our attention to spread from our breath and into our bodies from head to toe,

Feeling into your fully embodied self right now in this moment.

Noticing and breathing into any tension that you might find.

Paying special attention to your feet on the floor if you're seated or any part that's contacting you.

Feeling rooted,

Grounded right here,

Right now.

Then for the final few moments,

Bringing our awareness to our heart center.

Feeling our virtual awareness center.

And then for the final few moments,

Bringing our awareness to our heart center.

Feeling our virtual connection with each other,

Everyone on this call.

And setting an intention for the next 40 minutes or so together.

So now as you're ready,

You can start to gently rise from your meditation,

Wiggle your toes,

Open your eyes,

And rejoin the call.

Thank you,

Everyone.

Thank you,

Charles.

Okay.

Well,

Thank you for that opening practice.

It was very refreshing.

I certainly feel refreshed.

And to start our conversation off,

Let's pick up there with your practice.

So can you tell us a little bit about how you picked up mindfulness?

And I'll just leave it at that.

How you picked up mindfulness.

All right.

Nice simple question.

Yeah,

So I think for me,

It goes back to around 2003.

I mean,

It's hard to really pick one moment because then you start to look back and notice,

Well,

There was this little piece here.

But that's where things really start to come together.

I would say I'd had kind of this ongoing interest as I was growing up around just the nature of being human and consciousness and all these mysteries,

Like what it means to be alive.

But things really kind of came to head in that time frame when,

As with the story of many people who come to mindfulness,

I went through some really hard times.

I was kind of simultaneously going through a really painful relationship breakup that kind of threw me into this depression,

As well as actually having a major imposter syndrome experience at Microsoft.

I had actually just switched out of consulting kind of this customer-facing role and into an engineering role at Microsoft.

And I felt like I'd kind of infiltrated the mothership into this kind of physical experience.

And I was able to sort of get into this relationship,

Which was really exciting on one hand.

But then I didn't even have the word imposter syndrome.

But now it's great that I can use that term.

And it's kind of got broad understanding out there because,

Yeah,

That's what I was feeling,

Like I don't belong here.

And so through a combination of all of that,

I was almost forced to search,

Compelled to search for something like I need something else.

And through that,

I was led into kind of what I would call more New Age type writing and reading,

Like the Celestine Prophecy or the work of Eckhart Tolle and The Power of Now.

And eventually came across or was pointed at this book called The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Surya Rinpoche.

And that book kind of knocked my socks off and really kind of gave a framework to thinking about the way the world works,

Our personal experiences,

Kind of these a lot of these existential questions that I had never seen before and that really resonated deeply.

And this amazingly practical component of training of like,

And here's what you can do to change how you feel.

And so I was just kind of sucked right in and from there basically entered into this this long kind of obsession sounds a little over the top.

But yeah,

I dove in head first from reading,

Joining study programs,

Doing international retreats,

Eventually starting to teach a couple of years later.

And off and running I was and frankly was completely transformational in every aspect of my life to the point where I have a hard time talking about it because like,

You're like,

Well tell me about what changed,

How did it change your life?

And I'm kind of like,

Well,

I don't know what part of my life it didn't change.

Yeah,

And I find that maybe this is your experience too and maybe the people on the call as well.

A lot of times people come to mindfulness out of a time of suffering,

As time of need when we really are looking for something.

And I think when our defenses are a little bit down in terms of,

Well,

I would definitely consider that,

But I would definitely would not consider that.

And all that kind of goes away to say,

Let me give this a try.

And it sounds like you had a flavor of that.

But in that study,

I mean,

When did it occur to you that this might be useful?

In some ways it's a non-brainer because you're at Microsoft,

You're getting benefit from this,

And it's not a far leap to look around and say maybe other people could benefit from this as well.

But when did this kind of,

Do you remember how this crystallized for you?

Yeah,

I mean,

In some ways I feel like a late bloomer in that sense because it does have not occurred to me for quite a long time.

I mean,

My practice obviously was deeply integrated with my work kind of within myself.

But it was kind of a secret thing for a long time.

Part of that was the culture at Microsoft at the time.

But I think in general,

Just our conventional societal kind of norms around like,

Oh,

Yeah,

The things you don't talk about at work,

Right,

Are like religion and politics.

And so I just kind of had this like,

Okay,

Like that's not,

You know,

It's something I carry within me as many people do.

And it really wasn't until 2016 when the combination of Satya Nadella arriving and really resetting the culture in a big way at Microsoft.

Actually,

By that point,

He was about a year and a half into it,

But it takes some time to really,

I mean,

It's a very,

Very,

Very,

Very,

Very,

Very,

Very,

Very,

Very,

Very difficult time.

I mean,

I remember just listening to him talk about things like empathy and purpose.

He wouldn't say the word mindfulness,

But things that we all know are closely connected to mindfulness.

And just be like,

Wow,

He really means this.

It's not like,

It doesn't sound like HR gave him a sheet before the talk,

Say like,

Please say this.

It's like he's speaking authentically.

And then kind of simultaneously with that,

You know,

Actually someone who I spied on this call,

A friend of mine,

David Matus was among people who like pointed to me like,

Hey,

Have you heard of this like Google thing,

You know,

Search inside yourself.

At that point,

I kind of started,

You know,

Emerging out of the world of Tibetan Buddhism and I started to understand kind of how it was blossoming in the secular context,

The neuroscience behind it,

And how that was enabling things like MBSR and in particular application in hospitals,

Workplaces and schools.

So it was kind of a revelation to me,

Actually.

And so then,

Yeah,

The spark was lit like,

Wow,

Maybe this set of practices have been so incredibly transformational for me.

Maybe I don't need to keep it as secret as I have been.

Right.

And I think I mean,

What you mentioned about Satya Nadella,

Your CEO and the culture that he created.

Do you think that your approach to this was influenced by your CEO and by the culture?

And do you think that you might have done things differently?

I mean,

That's hard to say,

But you think things might have played out differently if you were working for another company with a different culture?

Oh,

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Hugely so.

So one of the very first bets that Satya made was on naming growth mindset as kind of the core of our culture.

If you can imagine Microsoft of six,

Seven years ago,

I think people know that it was kind of viewed as a stagnant,

Pretty stagnant company,

Like still trying to make Windows and Office successful when the world had moved on.

And so growth mindset was his way of like shaking that up to the core,

Saying like,

Hey,

We are always a work in progress.

We always need to be learning and evolving as people.

And so it was really when I read Professor Dweck's book Mindset where she talks about this idea that we can be different in many different ways.

And yes,

We have kind of these inbuilt characteristics of ourselves.

And we are all learning and growing down to the deepest levels through what she called application and experience.

And then the interesting thing is she then doesn't really go on to say what application and experience means,

Because I think intentionally so she wanted to leave it open ended.

But for me,

Something clicked when I read that.

Because like,

Wow,

I know one of many ways,

But one really powerful way to take this idea that we're always evolving as people.

And actually have a prescriptive set of experience.

Yeah,

Mindset is and the researchers,

Carol Dweck,

D-W-E-C-K.

And it's very closely aligned to something that in the mindfulness community we refer to as beginner's mind,

Right?

To let go of our expectations and our assumptions about ourselves,

What we can and can't do and what we should and shouldn't be doing and just allow ourselves to take things in and learn and react in a way that kind of moves us forward in a very organic way.

Yeah,

Exactly.

I think you saw it directly to like the combination is so natural.

Yeah.

But then it went to the point where I had like the name of the program I ended up creating called Mindful Growth is a direct play on words of growth mindset.

And honestly,

One of the big decisions I had to make along the way was whether to try to build your own type route versus taking one of many pretty amazing,

Let's call them like off the shelf type programs out there.

Right.

So our search inside yourself at that point had been kind of taken out of Google and made its own thing,

Your men's work and others.

And so it's gone.

And at that point,

I actually had a chance to go through search inside yourself.

So it's like,

Wow,

This is really solid.

But I ended up going this way much of because what you said it felt like to really have the impact I wanted and needs to be within the culture of the company and mindset was a big part of that.

Right.

So there's a lot of ways that people can start an initiative similar to yours.

They could start maybe just a weekly call where people sit.

They could try to work with corporate communications and create a big digital splash around something.

Tell us about the approach you took and a little bit about why you took that approach.

Yeah.

Well,

I'd love to say that it had this deep when I reflect on the feeling of being in that place years ago,

It was kind of this this calling.

I mean,

That phrase is sometimes overused,

But it did feel like,

Oh,

I just got to do this.

But what I ended up doing was I wanted to write down the connection that I saw between between growth mindset and mindfulness,

Partially for my own benefit,

Just like,

OK,

Is there really meat behind what I'm seeing here?

And so I ended up writing writing this proposal.

It's now up on my LinkedIn,

But it tried to make that connection.

And the audience was initially for some higher up at Microsoft.

And then I got some encouragement to just put it out there.

And David,

I think you may have also been part of that.

And so anyway,

So that's just kind of how it came to to be.

And then back to your point around starting like a local practice session,

Like I think there's a ton of value there.

I think what I had in mind from the beginning was,

Wow,

How do we really how do we really start to scale this?

I don't want to necessarily put numbers in the right place.

I don't want to necessarily put numbers at the center of everything.

Obviously,

We can make incredibly deep impacts just one to one or in small groups.

But I really wanted to say like how like Microsoft is a huge company and.

And the culture change that we were going through,

It was so important and yet so difficult.

You know,

There are people there who've been there for 20,

25 years and had grown up in certain culture that was,

Let me just say,

Like not particularly mindful,

Like to the point where I mean,

Even Bill Gates talks about it now,

Where one of his techniques in meetings was to literally humiliate people as as a technique to see whether you really believed in what you were saying or not.

It's like,

OK,

Do you have what it takes to defend yourself under intense pressure?

And so,

Of course,

And what leaders model,

You know,

People then kind of grow up in that environment.

So anyways,

All to say there's a huge shift to steer.

And so I think appreciating that challenge,

You know,

Having had a lot of time in Windows and Windows Phone,

Which is where I spent the majority of my engineering career,

I've I realized I needed to kind of go as deep and as broad as possible.

So you you you wanted to focus.

You felt that there was there was a lot to kind of cut through and you felt that in order to reach the people,

Reach people in your environment with this,

It would take some of focus,

Kind of intensive experience.

Is that right?

Yeah,

I think that's true.

And I think the other thing I would say is that I wanted to share and I this is the way the program did go.

I wanted to share a fairly broad range of practices because,

You know,

I think it's very easy for people to pick up breath and body type practices and experience some immediate benefits.

However,

When I thought about mindfulness and growth,

Mindset coming together,

I thought,

Wow,

Like this has implications for things like creativity and innovation and empathy,

Compassion,

You know,

These much deeper,

I don't say deeper,

But,

You know,

Like they require a little bit of background to understand how meditation can help you become more creative.

And there's some amazing research in this area.

We actually need like a learning program,

Something like that needs to be some structure.

And then I'd say the last did it.

Sorry,

One quick thought was that I also wanted to knew from my own experience that you almost need a bit of a runway to get started.

And so there can be something powerful about someone making a commitment.

The initial program that I ran was eight weeks,

But kind of taking that commitment,

Saying,

Okay,

I'm going to do things differently for this period of time with some community and then hopefully give people enough momentum to get off that runway so that at the time they get to the other end,

They can actually sustain their own practice.

Got it.

So the program you put together,

You said was eight weeks.

Can you tell us a little bit more about it?

Kind of thumbnail.

Yeah,

That was the initial format.

And it's been interesting to tweak,

You know,

The delivery a little bit over time.

So yeah,

It was eight weeks,

Three hours per week.

So we'd get together basically one time a week for three hours,

Rinse and repeat.

The structure was kind of a theme,

Let's say for each week.

It might be stress relief,

It might be emotional awareness,

It might be creativity,

Empathy and compassion.

And then within those three hours,

It was really a pretty diverse mix of activity from,

You know,

What we call standard kind of teaching where I or the other facilitator would be sharing some information,

Going through scientific research,

But then also in some ways trying to minimize that and I would say as we've evolved it,

That's been the directions like how can we actually keep boiling down to like the essential principles for kind of a teach and then really get people into experiencing either.

And that wasn't just meditation,

It was a lot of one on one kind of dyad,

Sharing small groups,

But also trying to keep a core component of introspection and mostly through journaling practices and prompts,

Giving time for people to actually just look inwards and record like their own inner self for only them,

Which I find at least in the L&D world is tends to be underutilized.

We think that if the volume doesn't go up in a room and people are socializing,

Then we're not really having an experience.

It's just my introverted bias,

But I think there are other ways to have an experiential training.

But yeah,

Those are some of the key components that we go through every week.

And then as I mentioned,

We've tried a few different formats,

One where we combine them and started doing full day sessions,

So four full day sessions,

And then we actually spread them out over a longer period of time to give people more time to practice between sessions.

And then now with COVID,

We've actually gone back to eight sessions because we don't want people spending a whole day in front of Zoom or Teams in our case.

But we've kind of kept some more of that spacing,

So we're doing one session a month.

OK,

So if anybody has any questions about the program that Charles has put together,

Feel free to put them in chat now.

And Charles,

What was the response to this and what has happened since that first session in terms of feedback and how have things evolved?

Yeah,

The response is really incredible.

I think I originally got the data that the L&D team,

The HR team,

Gave me a standard report to give a generic survey,

And then I gave them the data and they were kind of like,

Wow,

We never see numbers as high.

I'm like,

Oh,

Wow,

Interesting.

There's something here.

But yeah,

I mean,

In some ways,

I wouldn't say it's surprising,

But I was still blown away,

Just especially the amount of the comments that went beyond work.

I've had people tell me that their relationship was on the rocks and because of the program,

They've been able to salvage that or they become a completely different parent.

All these things that really are just incredibly humbling,

And I always try to thank them and say,

You were the one who was ready for this.

It's maybe kind of like the moment I was having back in 2003,

And I just happened to be here at the right time,

But kind of acknowledging the work and the place they came to make that leap within themselves.

Yeah,

It's really amazing.

Yeah,

It's really amazing from when you teach mindfulness programs.

And I have a background in L&D,

Too.

I've taught a lot of kind of traditional HR type,

Giving feedback and performance reviews and presentation skills.

And the quality of feedback that you get from mindfulness programs is just so completely different.

And it just kind of seems to come from a much deeper place.

And it touches people,

Like you said,

Not in terms of I can run these types of meetings better,

But a place that really kind of hits home,

Hits the center of where they operate from.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Yeah,

That reminds me of another theme in the feedback,

Which was I'm sure you've heard the same.

It was something along the lines of like,

Wow,

For the first time,

I feel like Microsoft,

Like the fact that this is even available makes me feel like Microsoft cares about me as a person as opposed to like as a resource who we can make more productive for our benefit.

And I think that actually wants to make me better just for me.

Right.

I think it's great.

Yeah.

So we had some questions about your program and how it's been unfolding.

First of all,

It's great to know that you partnered with HR early on and were using their forms to evaluate your program,

Because sometimes there is that moment when HR becomes aware perhaps of an organic program.

And there's a question about how does this work?

How does this fit together?

And maybe you can talk a little bit about the metrics was actually the question and any metrics that you use and how you track that stuff.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Actually,

I want to insert one other quick note,

Just because I realized we skipped over some parts of the story as we have to.

But another thing I did along the way was to I did a master's program in mindfulness studies at Lesley University that some of you may be familiar with.

And the reason for that is that I was very clear with myself that my background is in a spiritual tradition,

Tibetan Buddhism.

And I really wanted to make sure that I didn't inappropriately translate that into the secular world.

And so it was really important for me to understand what parts of mindfulness have been translated into the secular world,

What parts are supported by the neuroscience and so forth,

What's the language that's being used.

So that was part of my journey as well through 2017 and 2018.

So in case anyone's wondering,

Like,

Hey,

Did you just take like Tibetan Buddhism,

Which as many of you know,

Can get quite esoteric in a quite wonderful way,

At least for me.

But I'm clear,

Like,

What hat do I have on in a given situation?

So I just want to make sure I mention that.

To the metrics question,

Yeah,

The way we started was really on a,

We've got kind of a standard form,

And I don't have it off the top of my head,

But it's things like,

Would I recommend this learning experience to a friend?

That was one that was kind of off the charts.

As well as the ones like,

Hey,

This is going to help me do a better job,

Not my job,

But that was also like 100%.

The one question that I do remember was relatively low was,

I have the support that I need to practice,

You know,

What I learned here,

In other words,

Is the rest of my system around ready for this?

And that's where people are like,

Well,

I don't,

I still don't,

I'm not quite there.

And that's understandable and something that's very much a work in progress.

And that's a big challenge in any program,

Especially one that has a big impact.

When it ends,

You know,

Having taught MBSR,

It's kind of the same thing.

When it ends,

People say,

What next?

What now?

And I mean,

I'm sure you've gotten that.

How,

You know,

What have you been doing to kind of keep people going?

And also,

You know,

I'd like to hear also about your scaling up,

But first,

Just when people are done with the program,

How do you support them ongoing?

Yeah,

Great question.

I'll be honest,

Like initially,

Early on,

Like that just like,

I mean,

We just didn't do a good job,

Like we failed at that.

And,

You know,

As time and our capacity has grown with more people helping out,

Like it's been a big focus of ours.

For the most part,

It's honestly just getting people together.

So we're now at a point where there's a number of practice facilitators around the company that I've kind of done some light vetting of and that I know will do a good job.

We've got a shared calendar.

So instead of sending individual meeting invites out,

Like,

You know,

You say,

Hey,

Go to this calendar.

We're now at a point where there's multiple options in any given week,

Especially now that's all over virtual,

Over Teams.

You can literally just pick one that matches your calendar and log in.

So it's really just,

And then depending on who's facilitating,

Sometimes there's like a little,

You know,

Interactive element to those.

But that's been the biggest piece.

But as we've,

You know,

Again,

As more energy is coming on board,

People are sharing all sorts of great ideas.

Like,

Hey,

Like what if we did a mini retreat or like little mini sessions that go deeper on specific topics?

And so,

Yeah,

I think to me,

A lot of that has to do with community,

Which I know we're going to talk more about.

Yeah.

And let's talk about it.

Here we are.

So I have had many of the same experiences you have.

I mean,

To me,

Like a group or a team is really kind of the molecule of culture.

And if a mindfulness atom kind of leaves and comes back,

Then,

You know,

It's up for grabs how that survives.

And there's kind of a tipping point.

I mean,

These days we talk about herd immunity,

You know,

Or at least creating pockets,

Pockets of community where people can support each other,

Even if it's not within their own team.

Is that something that you wanted to say something about that,

Right?

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Like,

Yeah,

I can't emphasize that enough.

And I think in our virtual world where people are distributed like,

Yeah,

Those organizational boundaries,

You know,

Back in the pre-COVID days,

The olden times,

You know,

You have to worry about like,

Well,

If we hold a practice session in this building on campus,

Like to even ask someone to come across the Microsoft campus,

As opposed to,

You know,

Let alone be outside Redmond was like logistically difficult.

But more to the point,

I think I've had this mindset since pretty early on and trying to deepen it of like,

Really just wanting to get out of the way as much as possible.

Like,

How can I not be the face of this program as much as possible?

Because to the extent that it's dependent on me,

It's going to be affected by the rest of the commitments on time.

So really,

You know,

I've been blessed with some just wonderful people at Microsoft who've kind of stepped up and said like,

Hey,

Like almost before I was ready,

Like,

Hey,

I want to start delivering this,

You know,

Like,

And I was like,

Well,

I don't have any,

Like,

My facilitator notes were basically just notes for me,

You know,

In one note.

I was like,

I don't have facilitator guides.

We're like,

Okay,

That's okay,

Just share what you have.

But now that we've had a little bit more time,

We've had a little bit more time to like,

But now that we've had a little bit more time under our belt,

It's like,

Yeah,

We're starting to produce these facilitator guides.

There's more people coming on board and just every new,

We call them a community lead,

Which can mean either being a session facilitator,

Practice facilitator,

Or just helping with things like marketing.

You know,

We've got a landing page now,

We've got the shared calendar I mentioned,

We've got facilitator guides coming,

We've got people running 30-day challenges.

And to me,

It's just like,

You know,

I'm just like in heaven,

Because like every new,

Every new person not only brings energy,

But they bring ideas,

Their own unique spin,

You know,

I've got a number of people in the community who have a yoga teaching background.

So they're able to incorporate more kind of physical,

You know,

Gentle stretches and stuff like that,

Which I don't have the expertise in.

Yep.

So yeah,

Just that encouragement to like,

And I think the beautiful thing about this community is that they want to give back.

Like,

I think the deeper that you get into this practice,

And the more you benefit,

It's just natural,

We want to share with others.

And so I don't even have to,

You know,

Pull any organizational strings,

I don't have to say like,

You'll do better on your review or any of that.

It's just like,

No,

That's just,

We're just coming together as humans and helping each other out.

So you've had a lot of support,

Organic support from people that have taken the program,

Or otherwise found their way to mindfulness that want to be part of this community.

At this time,

This is,

I mean,

You,

You also shifted your career from engineering into HR.

But this isn't actually part of your,

Your L&D responsibilities.

This is kind of still a side hustle for you.

Is that right?

Yeah,

More or less.

I mean,

It's kind of the one of those yes and no questions.

Okay.

So yeah,

My official responsibilities are for employee L&D,

Which basically means the set of training that we make available to everyone,

As opposed to like manager or other audiences.

And so as part of that,

When I was hired,

They obviously knew,

I mean,

My passion area is what brought me to their door.

And the invitation was like,

Hey,

Yeah,

Like,

You're welcome to bring pieces of that wherever it makes sense.

And so I have certainly done some of that,

Whether that's,

You know,

Doing little mindfulness workshops at some of our larger events and things like that.

That said,

You know,

There are a lot of other things that Microsoft has bet on.

Like,

This is something I talked about at Mindful Leader about a year ago,

Where,

You know,

Microsoft is an example where mindfulness is not something that we've bet on officially,

Like,

You're not going to find it on our official materials.

And,

You know,

That was my initial dream.

And it's like,

Okay,

I see now that I'm in HR,

I see like the amount of vying for those few words like growth mindset that get bet on centrally.

And of course,

There are other companies,

As you well know,

In your experience,

You know,

In your experience that have made that bet,

And that's wonderful as well.

So then I'm,

You know,

I started to really redirect towards thinking for the things that we have that on the growth mindset,

Like empathy,

Purpose,

Or things that are at least in our system,

How can I make that connection.

And so that's been a big part of my focus now,

With with mindfulness.

So have you seen any?

I mean,

Microsoft is such a big company,

Obviously.

Can you tell if there's been any shift in culture?

And again,

It's hard to pull this aside from all the other things that are going on.

But I wanted to ask because there was a question about this,

And maybe just your reflections on it.

And also any other indicators such as,

I don't know,

Employee engagement numbers in departments that have gone from mindfulness or?

Yeah.

Any other thoughts about like the organizational impact?

Or is that just really hard to get to?

I think that's really hard,

Especially in the way that we've grown not being something that's been kind of put at the center.

You know,

I think there are other companies again,

In your experience,

Novartis is another interesting one that's kind of,

You know,

They've they bet on it,

And therefore they can measure it.

Again,

As you mentioned,

Like that's we've got pockets,

You know,

We're,

You know,

I don't want to oversell where we are,

We're very much still kind of growing and going towards the people.

And this is kind of something I hold dearly is like going towards the people who want it,

Then being very sensitive to some way,

That's the advantage of not being the official bet is,

You know,

You don't,

You know,

You avoid that kind of moral quandary of like,

Well,

I believe deeply in mindfulness,

But I also believe deeply that if someone doesn't want it,

Then it's not good,

Definitely not going to work.

And people can feel when it's kind of like,

Pushed upon them.

Yeah.

So all that said,

I do look for other,

You know,

Just other less scientific,

But I think still important signs.

And these are things like just seeing teams,

And it doesn't have to look like mindfulness,

It can be mindful like things like we have a practice called checking in at the beginning of meetings where people just simply tell their teammates what they're feeling.

And so that to me is great like that we don't have to all meditate and watch our breath.

Or there's a lot of teams reaching out and saying like,

Hey,

We were in a self care crisis,

Like people are not,

You know,

Are just on the go.

And in some ways,

Virtual work has made it worse.

You know,

Can you come help equip our team with mindfulness and self compassion practices?

So just watching the demand,

Like the fact that that's even out there or like,

You know,

Sides of organizations that will invite me or someone else at the company.

And so those trends are there again,

I'd say we're early as Cole said right at the beginning.

But,

Well,

I think that that says a lot when you start hearing from teams and organizations and departments,

You know,

That shows a definite shift.

And it's hard for me to believe but we're just about in our last couple of minutes.

And I wanted to ask you one final question if there's something that you would want to share that you found particularly helpful,

Or advice that you would give to organizations or people who are going down this path?

It doesn't have to be the be all and end all,

But from your perspective,

What might that be?

Yeah,

I think I'm going to focus on people because that's who's on this call.

You know,

People who are maybe thinking of doing something similar or already doing something similar.

And that's really to get back to the basics.

I remember someone early on in my in my journey down this road,

Said,

You know,

We were talking about what success would look like.

And they said,

Just to me,

A good friend said,

You know,

Well,

If you just really helped one person,

Really,

Really deeply,

Like,

Wouldn't that be enough?

And it was just,

It was just such a,

You know,

That knife cutting through the fog kind of thing for me,

Where I was like,

Yes,

Of course,

And it just stopped my thinking mind from thinking that success needs to look like this,

Or needs to look like this.

And I've gone through so many iterations of what it means in terms of,

You know,

How it would roll out of the organization,

Or what that would mean for me.

And as with our practices,

Like just constantly letting go and coming back to the core of like,

How can I,

How can I benefit people right here?

And what are the circumstances providing me the opportunity to do right now?

Beautiful.

And that's enough.

It really is.

It is.

And thank you so much for your time today.

I can't believe it's already over.

But I see Cole's on.

He's gonna pull us off.

So I'm gonna throw it back to Cole if he has some closing comments for us.

Yes,

Yes.

Well,

I just want to reflect back how much I've appreciated both of your time.

And I hope,

You know,

You're the audience had so many questions.

And I want to say that we didn't get to all of them.

But I think your takeaway here is that this is,

First of all,

We're early days in this entire conversation,

Right?

And every organization is going to need its own sort of approach.

But I really felt like Charles,

What I learned here is that when the rubber meets the road on mindfulness,

Right,

It's with community,

Right?

Because everybody's excited about it right now with COVID.

And they're stressed.

They need it,

Right?

But what it's really gonna mean long term is that we build a community.

We build and share the kind of experience together.

So if I had one big insight takeaway,

I really felt like that's been a big part of what you're doing.

And thank you so much for sharing that today.

And Andy,

For helping extract everything you could.

So thank you.

So thank you.

So I know everybody's got to go.

We just got a couple minutes.

But just a roadmap forward for you guys.

Andy will be hosting another session next month,

I believe with the Ford Foundation.

We have not set the date on that yet.

But stay tuned.

I'm going to give you guys some links here in a second to make sure you get the announcement when it comes out.

So actually,

I'll just post that now.

And I have some different ways that you can connect with IOM,

Andy and Charles.

So post those links.

Kind of a lot.

But I realize that some of your questions weren't answered.

So I put one for live chat for questions.

So if you want to talk to me or an IOM team member,

Or if I need to connect you with Andy or Charles,

I can help with that.

So live chat me.

But otherwise,

Again,

Thanks,

Guys.

And hopefully we'll see you next time.

Or we will see you next time.

And thank you again,

Charles,

For the integrity of your work,

The heart you're putting into this,

And the inspiration that you're offering to people at Microsoft.

And also,

I think,

To our audience here.

Thanks again.

Thanks so much,

Andy.

It's great to see you.

And thank you,

Everyone,

For listening.

Thanks,

Guys.

See you next time.

All right.