Management Skills Assignment PDF

Management Skills 1
MINDFULNESS IN MANAGEMENT
Student’s Name
Professor Name
Institution Name
City
Date

Management Skills 2
Table of Contents
Part A-Literature Review.................................................................................................................3
Part B- Implementation, Summary, and Reflection.........................................................................8
Timeline of Activities..................................................................................................................8
Implementation..........................................................................................................................15
Summary and Reflection...........................................................................................................15
References......................................................................................................................................17

Management Skills 3
Mindfulness in Management
Part A-Literature Review
Today the type of challenges we have to face on our daily lives is increasingly becoming
a big issue both in professional and personal perspective. This has been largely contributed by a
number of factors which include increasing pressure and demand from also the two variables.
Example, in the past few decades of technology, has significantly changed the corporate
perspective in subjects such as enhanced connectivity with items such as social media and
devices. In general, people have been subjected to handling numerous changing urgencies,
balancing the competing demands in our professional and personal lives, working with increased
expectation, and handling the continuous changing environment surrounding their lives. This
issue has been described as one of the increasing challenges in the corporate world where
Australia employers are reported to offer about 40% of the employee population counseling
guidance (Spadaro and Hunker, 2016). The approach has been led to the continuous awareness in
the management in the issue of minimizing mental cases and stress at work.
Through the example set by one of the largest corporates today like Target, Aetna, and
Google, through the introduction of mindfulness in the workplace, the method has been
described as of the best minimizing in stress today. The introduction of mindfulness has been
found to have a couple of benefits which include improved performance, emotional intelligence,
better decision making, and enhanced clarity of thinking. Mindfulness practice has been
described as a very old practice which has been in existence in over 2500 years (Wylson and
Chesley, 2016). The practice has been commonly interrelated with Siddhartha Gautama who was
a spiritual teacher. In accordance with the Buddhist practice, mindfulness practice is majorly
focused to reflect on our well-being i.e. the ability to control our anxieties, thoughts, regrets, and
practice quiet minds. Mindfulness practice is described to help us improve on how we choose our
daily lives on the present events which reflect on the choices they make have to reflect on the
present moments (Zeidan and Vago, 2016).
Mindfulness is majorly characterized into three major groups which include attention,
intention, and attitude. As a manager practicing mindfulness the right intention should always be
set on the present situation. This is also the same case in the attention situation, they should
always offer the required attention in everything happening around their environment

Management Skills 4
irrespective of how small they seem to matter (Moses and Choudhury, 2016). For example,
checking emails, coffee breaks, or even talking about emotional concerns. Through this
applications, the attitude of the individual is also improved greatly where one is able to be more
patient, open-minded, trustworthy, and non-judgmental. In other words, the main goal of
mindfulness is to reflect on personal feelings and thoughts. Some of this task like reflecting on
personal thoughts seems to one of the many things most of us opt to ignore while focusing our
attention to most of the things we haven’t figured out yet in our lives (Zeidan et al., 2016).
According to the study taken by the University of Virginia to find out how people are
willing to have personal thinking, shows most us when we are awake we opt to spend most of
our time while using a technology. The study showed that 700 participants kept in a quiet room,
67% of the participant was willing to shock with a button inside the room than just keeping quiet
and using the time to think (Spadaro and Hunker, 2016). The smartphones and the internet are
one of the examples today which help us to witness the things people opt to do daily just to
escape any alone time. Through the practice of mindfulness, people can be able to improve on
ways of coping with daily stress by focusing on their inner feelings and thoughts. This therefore
also allows them to more understanding of how to approach their current situations more
effectively (Wahbeh, Goodrich, Goy, and Oken, 2016).
According to several studies taken, mindfulness practice has been tested and proven to
improve brain functionality. People who practice mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR),
have been described to have more increased gray matter concentrations in the brain during self-
referential processing, memory and learning processing (Geiger et al., 2016). The study of the
people believed in practicing mindfulness their brain functionality has been described to be more
enhanced in innovation and creativity, improved cognitive flexibility, empathy, and emotional
regulation. One of the main attributing factors to this development in the brain is the improved
attention. In respect to stress reduction, mindfulness helps in the minimization cortisol in the
brain which is one hormone known to initiate stress (Shearer, Hunt, Chowdhury, and Nicol,
2016). With the minimization of cortisol in the brain, one can be able to more focused than usual
times leading to a more productive performance in one’s day-to-day activities. The minimization
of cortisol in the brain is considered as a very beneficial factor in the health of an individual this

Management Skills 5
is through enhancing the body immune system, lowering the blood pressure, and improving the
emotional control (Black and Slavich, 2016).
According to Latham (2016), mindfulness practicing can be associated with improving
the mental health of an individual by also decreasing the levels of depression, anxiety, and pain
of the practicing individuals. The acceptance of mindfulness has continued to improve in the last
decade with many scholars reviewing its benefit and importance in today’s corporate world.
According to the psychological perspective, mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and
mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) has been described as one of the most effective
approaches especially when dealing with suicidal patients. The practice has continued to be
applied in a corporate world where countries such as the US and UK have reported significant
success on the outcome of the entire company performance. This has increased to be a public
interest with the approach of improving well-being perspective of people and thus also the
improvement of the entire social development (Petchsawang and McLean, 2017).
In respect to the global corporate culture, the integration of mindfulness in business is
considered as one of the challenging experiences. The approach of telling employees to slow
down and reflect on their present is actually against almost every organization goal and objective
strategy. However, this is also one of the key importance that makes the value of mindfulness in
an organization keeps on increasing daily. With the application of mindfulness in an
organization, there has been reported a series of benefits which include the improved cognitive
functionality of employees, reduced absenteeism, improved job satisfaction, and talent
maintenance, improved employee engagement, and generally improved productivity in the entire
organization (Lueke and Gibson, 2016). Mindfulness has also been described to improve on the
mental health and help to nurture imagination growth. People believed to practice mindfulness
are considered to have better communication skills, innovative capabilities, and have the ability
to cope with stress and challenging situations better. The practice of mindfulness as an
organization is set to improve the efficiency of the organizational decision making in all levels
thus incorporating a very enhanced system (Hilton et al., 2016).
Apart the help employees can benefit from mindfulness, senior management/leaders are
also considered as one of the most beneficial people with the application of mindfulness. The
part of being a leader involves a lot of ridicule, backstabbing, hate, and other negative factors

Management Skills 6
which causes a lot of stress and discouragement (Frizzell, Hoon, and Banner, 2016). On the
same, being a leader it requires a lot of you as an individual in different situations which mostly
comprise of critical decision making and dealing with different types of people. The use of
mindfulness is, therefore, a vital tool every leader should be able to apply on his or her daily
lives. Mindfulness can be used to improve the cognitive and psychological perspective of leaders
where they can be able to relate better with other people and improve their decision making
(Hanh, 2016). Through the increasing challenges in management due to issues such as
globalization, workplace diversity, and others, mindfulness is one effective approach to learning
better ways of improving adaptability and flexibility.
Google is one of the largest companies today which have managed to successfully
integrate mindfulness practice. The implementation by the company was reported to take
approximately two and half years with the help of participants in the company. The main parts of
the implementation include three parts which are creating mental habits, self-knowledge
development, and attention training. In training and/or creating mental habits, the company
focused on improving the kindness virtue to the participants (Quach, Mano, and Alexander,
2016). To achieve this, the participants were taught to reflect on the other person happiness and
with the effective application of training, kindness is perceived as a natural mental habit. Self-
knowledge is concentrated on approaches on knowing oneself through individual self-evaluation.
This is because we all face different challenges in life and we have different capabilities for
dealing with different situations. According to the participant’s development, self-awareness and
self-knowledge can be described as a gradual process which improves with time and thus
requiring a lot of patients. The attention training was majorly focused on helping the participants
to be able clear and calm their minds in a different situation which led to any kind of stress or
anxiety (Khusid and Vythilingam, 2016).
Google has reported mindfulness practice as one of the most successful approaches that
have ever been applied in the company which has led to improved emotional intelligence and
team building development. In measuring physical changes of the participants, their heart
measurement seemed to improve with time as they also seemed to improve on their stress
management program. On the same note, the performance of the individual participants also
improved drastically when they were correlated with their health improvements (Hafenbrack,

Management Skills 7
2017). To make as an official practice in the company, there is a meditation room in almost
every building with also weekly programs which are help employees keep track of practice.
Since the introduction of mindfulness practice in 2007 in almost all google stations, the company
has also continued to report increase number of willing participants which currently stands at
about 84% of the total number of Google employees (Altizer, 2017).
Currently, with the continuous increase in challenges and issues in the society,
mindfulness practice has been described as one the majorly required developments in leadership,
management, and a personal level for social development. One of the main methods that should
be increasingly utilized to explain the dynamics of mindfulness is the use of ‘Neuro-Plastic’
(Gong et al., 2016). The main focus of the research should be based on the explanation the
different types of relationships involved in mindfulness meditation and the extent of benefits
involved in the practice. In other words, in order to fully understand and maximize the use of
mindfulness, intensive research should be conducted in various areas. Given the empirical
evidence in large corporations such as Google, Mindfulness has a significant impact on the
performance of an organization and the entire social development (Crescentini et al., 2016).
Therefore, the application mindfulness in curriculum learning should be more clearly approach
being one of the current emerging issues in today’s world.
Future research developments should be able to implement some of the issues such as
formal mindfulness meditation practice with clinical or professional supervision. Also, according
to the current research studies, there have some limited developments in various areas such as the
emotional measurement development where the relationship between counselors and clients is
defined as quite hard to be monitored in terms of improvement (Tang, 2017). Correlation of the
practice with some of emotional and character traits have not been exclusively researched and
measured in terms of expected outcome. For example, how do mindfulness practice changes the
compassion and empathy of participants and are some of the expected outcomes of this traits,
and what is the effect of mindfulness practice to a different kind of workforce environment. On
the other hand, mindfulness practice has been considered as one of the most effective tools in
managing self-care (Rose, Sheffield, and Harling, 2018). It has been described to be able to
mend one of the increasing emotional distress and the ability to improve our individual

Management Skills 8
weaknesses which therefore helps in the improvement of work-related stress and effective
management and/or leadership.
Part B- Implementation, Summary, and Reflection
Timeline of Activities
Week 1
Time Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
6:00 Set daily
goals
Set daily
goals and
I went
jogging in
the
nearby
park. I
intended
meditatio
n still in
the park.
Set daily
goals/
Went for
the
morning
walk with
my
roommate.
Did Yoga
in the park
with my
roommate.
Set daily
goals/ I
went for a
morning
walk.
Set daily
goals/ I
went for
an early
morning
jog
Set daily
goals/ I
went for
an early
jogging in
the park
7:00 went for
a
morning
walk
8:00 I had
mindful
breakfast
Engaged
with my
friends
while
taking my
breakfast
I went for
a
meditatio
n class
and
shared a
mindful
breakfast
with my
friends
I had a
very
healthy
breakfast
9:00
Went to
Gym
I had my
morning
breakfast
I had
mindful
Breakfast
I attended
meditation
class with
friends
I went to
work
10:00 I went to
attend my
part-time
job as a
chef in a
cafe in
Waterloo
I went to
my job.
11:00
12:00 I woke up
and I had 30
min self-
meditation.
Watched
some Teds
talk and
Movie
related to
mental
health
13:00
14:00 Watched
Ted
Talks
related
to
Mental
15:00

Management Skills 9
Health
16:00 Went to
gym
classes in
the
evening
I attended a
group
meeting in
the
university
library
I went to
my retail
job
I went to
the
university
library
and
watched a
movie
related to
mental
health.
I went to
the
University
and
watched
some few
mental
health
videos.
17:00 I went
home and
took a
rest.
18:00 Reflecte
d on
some
mental
health
approach
es
Prepared
the meal.
I had my
dinner and
immediate
ly I
engaged
myself in
a bit of
studying.
I went to
my retail
job
I went to
my retail
job which
on this
day was
very busy
19:00 Watched
some videos
related to
mental
health
20:00
21:00 Before
going to
bed I
watch a
mental
movie
which
helps me
to
compose
myself
after the
long I had
22:00 Did some
Personal
Reflectio
n
Did some
Personal
Reflection
Reflected
on some
of the
issues at
the
workplace
.
23:00
00:00 I
practiced
I had a
personal

Management Skills 10
some
personal
meditatio
n
reflection
on my day
and some
of the
challenges
I faced.
Week 2
Time Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
6:00 I went
for a
morning
walk.
I went for
a morning
walk.
7:00 Had a
mindful
breakfas
t.
Had a
mindful
breakfast.
I went
jogging in
the nearby
park.
I did
meditation
for almost
one hour
for better
mental
health
functionin
g.
I went to
my job
I went to
my job
8:00 Went to
meet my
relatives
Had a
mindful
breakfast
with my
friend.
I had a
mindful
brunch
with my
friends at
home.
9:00 I went to
my job.
Watched
some Ted
Talks
related to
Mental
Health
10:00 I went to
my
workpla
ce and
perform
ed my
tasks
responsi
bly.
11:00 Had more
sleep.
Watched a
movie
related
to Mental
Health
(The
Fisher
King)
Woke
up late.
Had a
mindfu
l
brunch
12:00 I went to
university
for
13:00 Did me
ditation14:00 Watched a

Management Skills 11
movie
related to
mental
health (They
Look Like
People).
attending
classes.
for
better
mental
health
15:00 Went
to
univers
ity and
had a
group
meetin
g with
group
membe
rs.
16:00 I went to
university
for attending
the first
class after
the stu-
vac week.
17:00 I
watched
a mental
health-
related
movie
(Inside
Out) at
the
Universi
ty.
I watched
some Ted
talks
related to
mental
health.
I went
to a
univers
ity
class.
18:00 I
reported
for a
retail
job.
I reported
for a retail
job.
I reported
for a retail
job.
I reported
for a retail
job.
19:00 Watched
movie
related to
mental
health
(The
Machinist
)
I had a
group
meeting.
20:00 I did
some
cooking.
21:00
22:00 Did some
personal
reflection.
Did some
personal
reflection.
Went
to bar
to have
drinks
with

Management Skills 12
one of
my
Americ
an
Friend
from
my
workpl
ace.
23:00 Went to
bed.
Did
some
assign
ments.
00:00 Did
some
personal
reflectio
n.
Did some
personal
reflection.
Did
some
person
al
reflecti
on.
Did some
personal
reflection.
Did some
personal
reflection.
Week 3
Time
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
6:00 I went for
a morning
walk and
jogging in
a nearby
park with
my
friends.
I went for
a morning
walk in
the nearby
park.
I went for
jogging in
the nearby
park with
my friends.
I went
jogging
in the
playgro
und.
I went for
a walk in
the nearby
park with
my
friends.
7:00 I had a
mindful
breakfast.
I did
meditation
at home for
better
mental
health.
I did some
yoga and
meditation
at home.
I did
meditat
ion at
home
for
better
mental
health.
8:00 I did
some
mental
preparatio
n in doing
I did
meditatio
n for an
hour for
better
I had a
mindful
breakfast at
home.
I had a
mindful br
eakfast.
I had a
mindfu
l
breakfa
st at
I had a
mindful b
reakfast in
a
restaurant

Management Skills 13
some
yoga for
better
mental
health.
mental
health
home. with my
friends.
9:00 I did
meditatio
n for
better
mental
health for
relaxing
my mind.
I did
some
yoga
better
mental
health and
relaxing
my mind.
10:00 I went
to my
workplace
.
I read some
articles
related to
mental
health.
I went to
my job.
I went
to my
job.
I went to
my job
and a very
busy day
at the
restaurant.
I did
some
meditatio
n.
11:00 I had
mindful
brunch
12:00 I watched
a movie
related
mental
health
(Ordinary
People)
I watched
a movie
on Mental
health
issue
which
was on a
Vietnam
war
veteran
(Jacob's
Ladder 1)
13:00
14:00 I watched
some Ted
talks
related to
mental
health.
15:00
16:00
17:00 I went to
university
classes.
I read
some
scholarly
articles
related to
Then I
watche
d a
movie
related
I read an
article
related to
mental

Management Skills 14
Mental
Health.
to
mental
health
(Match
stick
Men).
health.
18:00 I reported
to my
retail job.
I reported
to my
retail job.
I
reporte
d to my
retail
job.
I reported
to my
retail job.
I did
some self-
study
activities
for some
assignme
nts at
university
.
19:00 I did
some
cooking at
home.
I went to
attend
university
class until
9 P.M.
20:00 I went to
my
university
for some
self-study
activities.
21:00 I had a
group
meeting
with my
team
members
for my
group
assignme
nt.
22:00 I did some
self-study
activities for
the next
activities
23:00
00:00 Did some
personal
reflection.
Did some
personal
reflection.
Did some
personal
reflection.
Did some
personal
reflection.
Did
some
person
al
reflecti
on.
Did some
personal
reflection.
Did some
personal
reflection
and also
revised
the entire
21 days
reflection
of the
timeline.

Management Skills 15
Implementation
The implementation of mindfulness practice in the three weeks’ time period was majorly
done in parts. The first step of the daily route was to make sure I centered myself by
understanding my roles and what is expected of me. In all three weeks, one of the major activity
that I usually start my day with is a morning jog or walk. Most of the times I usually go alone but
sometimes my friends also join me where we also go to a meditation meeting which occasionally
took place at the park or at the theater. Throughout the implementation time, one of the main
aspects that have really helped me attain a successful implementation process is watching Ted
talks and movies on mental health. With this, I have been able to improve on myself reflection
and I also learned different ways of maintaining mental health example being daily exercise and
enhanced relationships with the environment around me. In the course of the implementation
process, the self-reflection part was one of the best processes that have enhanced my
understanding of mindfulness practice and how to improve on day-to-day activities (Hoge et al.,
2018). Most of the daily reflection were during the night before I went to sleep where I could
reflect on my day was, challenges encountered during the day, and the course of action in the
event I found myself in the same situation.
Summary and Reflection
According to the study on mindfulness practice, it’s one of the major tools that should be
highly utilized both in the corporate world and society at large. The application of the
mindfulness in some of the large corporates such as Google company has reported as one of the
most successful approaches that have led to significant improvement in the company
performance and its employee care (Gallant, 2016). Despite my expectation, I must confess that
mindfulness practice has been one of the fruitful methods that have enhanced my psychological
understanding and also personal development. This has been through the ability to understand
my surrounding environment i.e. the different kind of stressors which I faced on daily routines
and other substantial stressors.
Through the personal evaluation and understanding, I came to realize that by working in
different jobs and same time focusing on my education requirements was a challenge I had to
accept as part of me. with the help of meditation classes, I have been able to improve on my
stress management and ways of dealing with different kind of challenging situations. I must also
admit that it was not an easy task as I had earlier thought where the implementation process

Management Skills 16
required a lot of patience and continuous practice for a successful outcome. Through the
mindfulness practice, I have also noticed that I have improved on my social and academic skills.
Judging from the experience during the three weeks’ implementation and practice period, I
intend to make mindfulness practice as one daily routine in the approach of continuous
improvement in both personal and professional life.

Management Skills 17
References
Altizer, C., 2017. Mindfulness: performance, wellness or fad?. Strategic HR Review, 16(1),
pp.24-31.
Black, D.S. and Slavich, G.M., 2016. Mindfulness meditation and the immune system: a
systematic review of randomized controlled trials. Annals of the New York Academy of
Sciences, 1373(1), pp.13-24.
Crescentini, C., Chittaro, L., Capurso, V., Sioni, R. and Fabbro, F., 2016. Psychological and
physiological responses to stressful situations in immersive virtual reality: Differences between
users who practice mindfulness meditation and controls. Computers in Human Behavior, 59,
pp.304-316.
Frizzell, D.A., Hoon, S. and Banner, D.K., 2016. A phenomenological investigation of leader
development and mindfulness meditation. Journal of Social Change, 8(1), p.3.
Gallant, S.N., 2016. Mindfulness meditation practice and executive functioning: Breaking down
the benefit. Consciousness and cognition, 40, pp.116-130.
Geiger, P.J., Boggero, I.A., Brake, C.A., Caldera, C.A., Combs, H.L., Peters, J.R. and Baer,
R.A., 2016. Mindfulness-based interventions for older adults: a review of the effects on physical
and emotional well-being. Mindfulness, 7(2), pp.296-307.
Gong, H., Ni, C.X., Liu, Y.Z., Zhang, Y., Su, W.J., Lian, Y.J., Peng, W. and Jiang, C.L., 2016.
Mindfulness meditation for insomnia: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Journal
of psychosomatic research, 89, pp.1-6.
Hafenbrack, A.C., 2017. Mindfulness meditation as an on-the-spot workplace
intervention. Journal of Business Research, 75, pp.118-129.
Hanh, T.N., 2016. The miracle of mindfulness: An introduction to the practice of meditation.
Beacon Press.
Hilton, L., Hempel, S., Ewing, B.A., Apaydin, E., Xenakis, L., Newberry, S., Colaiaco, B.,
Maher, A.R., Shanman, R.M., Sorbero, M.E. and Maglione, M.A., 2016. Mindfulness meditation
for chronic pain: systematic review and meta-analysis. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 51(2),
pp.199-213.

Management Skills 18
Hoge, E.A., Bui, E., Palitz, S.A., Schwarz, N.R., Owens, M.E., Johnston, J.M., Pollack, M.H.
and Simon, N.M., 2018. The effect of mindfulness meditation training on biological acute stress
responses in generalized anxiety disorder. Psychiatry research, 262, pp.328-332.
Khusid, M.A. and Vythilingam, M., 2016. The emerging role of mindfulness meditation as an
effective self-management strategy, part 1: clinical implications for depression, post-traumatic
stress disorder, and anxiety. Military medicine, 181(9), pp.961-968.
Latham, N., 2016. Meditation and self-control. Philosophical Studies, 173(7), pp.1779-1798.
Lueke, A. and Gibson, B., 2016. Brief mindfulness meditation reduces
discrimination. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice, 3(1), p.34.
Moses, J. and Choudhury, S., 2016. A “Mechanism of Hope”: Mindfulness, Education, and the
Developing Brain. In Handbook of Mindfulness (pp. 447-458). Springer, Cham.
Petchsawang, P. and McLean, G.N., 2017. Workplace spirituality, mindfulness meditation, and
work engagement. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 14(3), pp.216-244.
Quach, D., Mano, K.E.J. and Alexander, K., 2016. A randomized controlled trial examining the
effect of mindfulness meditation on working memory capacity in adolescents. Journal of
Adolescent Health, 58(5), pp.489-496.
Rose, S.A., Sheffield, D. and Harling, M., 2018. The integration of the workable range model
into a mindfulness-based stress reduction course: a practice-based case study. Mindfulness, 9(2),
pp.430-440.
Shearer, A., Hunt, M., Chowdhury, M. and Nicol, L., 2016. Effects of a brief mindfulness
meditation intervention on student stress and heart rate variability. International Journal of
Stress Management, 23(2), p.232.
Spadaro, K.C., and Hunker, D.F., 2016. Exploring The effects of an online asynchronous
mindfulness meditation intervention with nursing students on stress, mood, and cognition: a
descriptive study. Nurse education today, 39, pp.163-169.
Tang, Y.Y., 2017. Traits and states in mindfulness meditation. In The Neuroscience of
Mindfulness Meditation (pp. 29-34). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Management Skills 19
Wahbeh, H., Goodrich, E., Goy, E. and Oken, B.S., 2016. Mechanistic pathways of mindfulness
meditation in combat veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of clinical
psychology, 72(4), pp.365-383.
Wylson, A. and Chesley, J.A., 2016. The Benefits of Mindfulness in Leading Transformational
Change. Graziadio Business Review, 19(1).
Zeidan, F. and Vago, D.R., 2016. Mindfulness meditation-based pain relief: a mechanistic
account. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1373(1), pp.114-127.
Zeidan, F., Adler-Neal, A.L., Wells, R.E., Stagnaro, E., May, L.M., Eisenach, J.C., McHaffie,
J.G. and Coghill, R.C., 2016. Mindfulness-meditation-based pain relief is not mediated by
endogenous opioids. Journal of Neuroscience, 36(11), pp.3391-3397.