COACHING AT WORK ANNUAL CONFERENCE, LONDON, 1 JULY 2015
Mindfulness – a brain training that leads to greater clarity, less stress and more balanced energy – is being embraced by organisations to help people manage themselves and their workloads.
It’s also a natural ally of coaching – both enable people to fulfil potential; tap into inner wisdom; develop responsibility, and open perspectives. It’s surprising then that mindfulness and coaching have not been integrated widely in a corporate setting.
Social enterprise Rising Minds CIC has been pioneering such an integration since 2012 through its ‘This Way Up’ programme for people on a low income at east London anti-poverty charity Quaker Social Action (QSA).
The programme, which includes a six-session mindfulness course alongside individual coaching, has helped more than 90 people get direction in life and take action that moves them towards their aspirations.
At this session, programme initiator Tim Segaller revealed the ways participants’ progress is tracked – including through the WHO Well-being Index – with average scores before and after nearly doubling from 8.5 to 15.2 (out of 25).
“There is a vital lesson here for corporates: in order to make the results of coaching ‘stick’ better for longer, mindfulness can provide the key underpinnings of resilience, emotional intelligence and self-regulation,” Segaller told Coaching at Work.