Can Naikan meditation enrich our work relationships?
Whether it be at work or at home, relationships form an important part of our lives. Generations back we relied on communities to hunt, build fires, and provide shelter essential to survival. Whilst we may think of ourselves as much more independent than this now, humans still have an intrinsic biological need for interaction.
Most of us can identify strong relationships. But the word makes me think much more of family, friendship, and love than it does work! But relationships at work also need to be strong for us to function as team. Sometimes the strength may be grounded in a functional exchange, but nonetheless we can see the value in connecting with individuals. Given the growth in popularity of emotional intelligence and authentic leadership, it certainly feels that people management is seen as an increasingly important component of work success.
But at work as in life, there are sometimes individuals that we just don’t connect with. I’m sure we’ve all been there. There are people we don’t gel with, who grate on us or who say or do things that quite frankly wind us up! I know for me this isn’t exclusive to work, but perhaps the difference is there is less choice about our colleagues than there is about our friends! So, what should we do if we find ourselves struggling to connect with someone we need to work with?
Mentally a good approach is to stop thinking anyone is right or wrong. We all tend to think of ourselves as the person in the right when there are opposing views. Often though there is no clear-cut answer. We create our own realities on a daily basis influenced by our own experience, perspective, and values. In training you often see this classic example brought out:
“Two individuals are sat opposite each other. One draws a number 6 on a piece of paper. The other person sees it as a 9. Neither are right nor wrong; it just looks different from where they are sat.”
It’s an effective way to show perspective, but it doesn’t necessarily encourage us to reach a resolution. We might understand better that people see the world differently, but we still haven’t fully understood their point of view.
Emotional Intelligence may be a better approach to building stronger relationships. Daniel Goleman suggests key principles of self-awareness, self-management, empathy, and social skills. But how do we build these? In particularly how might we improve our understanding of the other person’s perspective?
Suggesting meditation may seem an odd junction here, but the Naikan approach is one that intrigues me. Developed by Yoshimoto Ishin, Naikan feels more like a reflective practice than it does meditation. It works on three key principles that an individual can ask themselves about their interactions with any other person:
· What have I received from a significant other?
· What have I given back to that person?
· What troubles and difficulties have I caused that person?
Whilst I’m sure office culture was the last thing on Ishin’s mind when it was developed for psychotherapy use in Prisons, it strikes me that it’s an approach that is easy to apply universally to any relationship in our lives, good or bad. So why shouldn’t we use it in the workplace?
These 3 simple questions can be answered as ourselves, but often we can try and answer them from the perspective of others. I have seen this used (to great effect) in many training sessions. A person begins by sharing the issues they experience with another person in their business, then when asked to answer the exact same questions, but now in the first person (as if they were the other individual), the answers often create epiphany moments. It’s not uncommon to see someone switch from a position of frustration at the other’s actions, to genuine remorse as they see how their own actions have been perceived. Even as an outsider looking in, it is a powerful experience.
We can be guilty of neglecting relationships at work. Some are underpinned by necessity. We may find ourselves having the strongest connection with those we have to work with most often. If you’re a little manipulative you may even invest in those with the best ‘ROI’! But just as working at home showed the fragility of relationships built on geographical convenience, so too can we see how relationships may be superficial if based purely on the functional.
Relationships are complicated, but powerful. Without social connection we may find ourselves un-motivated and lacking support. Investing the time into better understanding other people’s viewpoints will help us to build empathy and strengthen our relationship skills, and in turn these create richer environments to live and work in.
