Project Oxygen

Project Oxygen
Investigating why Managers Matter and what best Managers do

- Good Managers demonstrates 8 common behaviours
- 3 pitfalls to avoid
- Good management pays off.
Data on managers and Googlers how good managers have lower turnover, happier Googlers, and higher performing teams.

Methodolgy
People managers were grouped into quartiles based on Googlegeist and pref scores:
- High-scoring managers were thise in top quartile of both measures
- Low-scoring managers were those in the bottom quartile of both measures

To determine what our best managers do, 4 qualitative research data sources were used to identify patterns:
1. Googlegeist comments
2. Great Manager Award nominations
3. Performance reviews
4. Interviews with managers

8 Attributes of a High Scoring Manager :

1) Is a good Coach
2) Empowers the team and does not micromanage.
3) Expresses interest / concern for team members' success and person well-being
4) Is productive and results-oriented.
5) Is a good communicator - Listens and shares information
6) Helps with career development
7) Has a clear vision / strategy for the team
8) Has key technical skills that helps him or her to advice the team

Pitfalls : What cases a good manager to struggle ?
1) Has a tough transition (suddenly promoted, hired with little training)
2) Lacks a consistent philosophy / approach to performance management and career development
3) Spends too little time on managing and communicating

Payoffs to Good Managers behaviours
Googlers reporting to strong managers have lower turnover and score higher on Googlegeist.

Data Analyst, Unskippable Labs, Google

Data Analyst, Unskippable Labs

Minimum qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience in SQL, building dashboards, and automating analyses.
• Experience with creative measurement tools (e.g., MMM, Nielsen NetEffect, Nielsen Catalina, Ipsos Connect, etc.)
• Experience leading and working in cross-functional environments, across countries and cultures.

Preferred qualifications:

• 5 years of experience in analytics and media measurement, testing creative and/or media strategies.
• Experience in Media Measurement methodologies and testing solutions from external vendors. Experience in high productivity environments.
• Ability to make strategic recommendations for video strategies and effectively managing multiple projects and stakeholders. Ability to present data in compelling simple ways, build dashboards, and automate on-going analyses and reporting.
• Ability to effectively extract creative learnings. Excellent analytical, data visualization, and written and verbal presentation and communication skills.
• Experience presenting to senior-level client. Experience in spreadsheet and presentation software. Understanding of digital landscape for brand marketers.

About the job

Businesses that partner with Google come in all shapes, sizes and market caps, and no one Google advertising solution works for all. Your knowledge of online media combined with your communication skills and analytical abilities shapes how new and existing business grow. Using your influencing and relationship-building skills, you provide Google-caliber client service, research and market analysis. You anticipate how decisions are made, persistently explore and uncover the business needs of Google's key clients and understand how our range of product offerings can grow their business. Working with them, you set the vision and the strategy for how their advertising can reach thousands of users.

Google’s Unskippable Labs identifies and activates opportunities for brands to make their ads work better. We use machine-learning, global experimentation, and meta-analysis of top campaigns to identify what makes ads most effective in order to share those best practices. We address complex brand video challenges and deliver unique insights, creative analyses, and audience targeting solutions to help brands maximize ad effectiveness.

As a Data Analyst, you will work closely with the Advertising Intelligence team to build and deliver data-driven solutions, deliver Ad Effectiveness reports, custom analyses, and diagnostic tools. You will learn about new data sets and make data accessible for the team through dashboards to present internally and externally. Additionally, you will demonstrate excellent business judgment and the ability to build structured processes and methodologies from scratch. You will comfortably navigate other global/regional teams who are working on creative/media effectiveness to unlock new opportunities and share learnings.

Our Global Clients & Agency Solutions team helps serve some of the world's largest brands. Our dedicated teams of marketing and advertising specialists use their unique skill sets to help shape how companies grow their businesses in the digital age. We aspire to advise our clients on all aspects of their online business strategy. Using Google's broad range of products, we help our clients connect instantly and seamlessly with their audiences.

Responsibilities

• Design new measurement methodologies/solutions to test creative experiments by leveraging Google and/or third-party solutions.
• Analyze results from creative effectiveness research, combined with additional Google data, to provide insights and inform clients creative and media strategies and executions.
• Extract data to develop creative effectiveness meta-learnings across critical industry verticals.
• Ensure all client/team research deliverables are completed on time. Support the team in managing direct client relationships and help them use Google insights to drive their business.
• Lead efforts to hack/combine Google's measurement tools to develop sharper creative effectiveness methodologies that provide deeper insights.

Tough love and self discipline

Rule #4. PRACTICE TOUGH LOVE

The golden thread of a highly successful and meaningful life is self-discipline. Discipline allows you to do all those things you know in your heart you should do but never feel like doing. Without self-discipline, you will not set clear goals, manage your time effectively, treat people well, persist through the tough times, care for your health or think positive thoughts. 

I call the habit of self-discipline 'Tough Love' because getting tough with yourself is actually a very loving gesture. By being stricter with yourself, you will begin to live life more deliberately, on your own terms rather than simply reacting to life the way a leaf floating in a stream drifts according to the flow of the current on a particular day. 

As I teach in one of my seminars, the tougher you are on your-self, the easier life will be on you. The quality of your life ultimately is shaped by the quality of your choices and decisions, ones that range from the career you choose to pursue, to the books you read, the time that you wake up every morning and the thoughts you think during the hours of your days. When you consistently flex your will-power by making those choices that you know are the right ones (rather than the easy ones), you take back control of your life. Effective, fulfilled people do not spend their time doing what is most convenient and comfortable. They have the courage to listen to their hearts and to do the wise thing. This habit is what makes them great.

"The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don't like to do," remarked essayist and thinker E. M. Gray. 'They don't like doing them either, necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose." 

The nineteenth-century English writer Thomas Henry Huxley arrived at a similar conclusion, noting: "Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not.' And Aristotle made this point of wisdom in yet another way:

'Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it: men come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players, by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts we come to be just; by doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled; and by doing brave acts, we come to be brave.'

Excerpt from Life lessons from the monk who sold his Ferrari

Booking.com Media Campaign Analyst

Job Description

Note: This position is based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. We will cover your move and all the documents necessary for yourself or your family.

Booking.com is one of the leading digital advertisers in the world. We are currently looking for a Media Campaign Analyst to join Marketing Science Analytics. As a Campaign Analyst you are responsible for driving the measurement and optimization of the global digital media campaigns we run through DoubleClick, Youtube and Facebook. You will ensure campaigns are setup to measure marketing effectiveness and incremental ROI and are a driving, innovative force behind the performance optimization agenda.

To succeed and thrive in this position, you must love mining large data sets, to turn data into actionable insights that can drive the performance of our campaigns and communicate your findings to a broad range of stakeholders. You must have a solid understanding of statistics and experimental designs, A/B testing in particular, and enjoy thinking critically about complex problems. The majority of your time will be spent analyzing data to find new ways to improve the performance of our digital media campaigns.

We are looking for a team player with a self-starting approach. You must have gravitas and the ability to get things done. This is a unique opportunity to play a key role in an exciting, fast growing and multicultural business.

B.Responsible
• Measurement and performance reporting of digital display and video campaigns running through various channels
• Mining and analyzing event-level campaign data to provide actionable insights in the drivers of incremental ROI
• Use A/B testing and a variety of alternative methodologies to measure marketing effectiveness, attribution, and ROI
• Advocate and communicate ways to optimize the performance of our campaigns working closely with different internal teams and departments
• Providing ad hoc analytical support to key stakeholders

B.Skilled
• A postgraduate degree in a quantitative field (e.g. Business Administration, Economics, Finance, Econometrics, Statistics, Mathematics or Data Science)
• Understand all components of experimental design from sampling to measuring the effect(s), hands-on experience with A/B testing in a commercial environment a plus
• 2-4 years of experience work with big data (Hadoop, Hive, BigQuery, SQL)
• 2-4 years of experience with statistical analyses in an applied setting (experience with R, Python and/or Spark is required)
• Ability to prioritize work according to business objectives, understanding the balance between effort and impact
• A strong eye for detail and an inquisitive mind, naturally being driven to continuously finding ways to improve the department's and your own performance
• A real team player with solutions-focus and entrepreneurial spirit
• Exceptional communication skills in spoken and written English
• Excellent organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple, competing for priorities simultaneously and deliver results under tight deadlines
• Professional experience in the digital media landscape is a plus

Accenture ASEAN Digital Marketing & Content Strategist (Singapore)

Accenture ASEAN Digital Marketing & Content Strategist (Singapore)

Accenture Interactive helps CMOs and marketing organizations drive superior performance through relevance at scale. We offer a comprehensive suite of analytics, consulting and technology to drive up marketing performance, drive down the cost per interaction and create relevant consumer experiences on a massive scale.

Help companies better understand consumers and how to connect with them across markets and channels, using data and analytics.
Design and deliver highly relevant experiences for consumers in real time, using the latest technologies to increase awareness, engagement, sales and profits.
Optimize marketing processes and integrate across the enterprise in order to maximize the opportunities of data, analytics and marketing outcomes.
We build, deploy, maintain and scale marketing solutions that reduce complexity and cost.
Partner and team with technology solution providers and marketing agencies to deliver the best solution meeting the needs of our clients.
Offer our clients end to end solutions and services in Customer Data Management and Analytics, Customer Experience Management, Content Services, Digital Analytics, eCommerce, Marketing and Media Optimization, Marketing Operations, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Technology Services, Marketing Transformation and Merchandising Analytics and Optimization.

Job Summary

The Digital and Marketing Strategy Manager position is a key role in managing initial client business development interactions and engagements that lead to large-scale platform and managed services solutions. They will work closely with both our clients and our deep solution experts to define the appropriate digital strategy that leverage Accenture Interactive’ s digital marketing assets and other leading / bleeding-edge concepts and technologies. Through detailed analyses and a keen understanding of the client situation, the Digital Marketing Strategist will help shape the journey towards agile intelligent marketing.

Job Requirements


Digital Strategists: we hire them across all levels (Analyst, Consultants, Managers and Senior Managers)
Some key skills needed are:
Digital Visionary
C-suite presence
Up to date on current and emerging digital and marketing trends
Ability to direct Competitive assessment
Ability to generate Customer experience insights
Strategy formulation
Lead Transformation management
Roadmap and planning
Analytics/Insight generation
Digital Business Architects need the following:
Digital Operating /governance model
Organizational design
Digital Process design
Capability definition

Essence Advertising Operations Executive

About Essence

Essence, part of GroupM, is a global data and measurement-driven agency whose mission is to make advertising more valuable to the world. Clients include Google, Flipkart, Nando's and the Financial Times. The agency is more than 1,600 people strong, manages over $3.6B in annualized media spend and deploys campaigns in 71 markets via its global offices throughout North America, EMEA and APAC.

Visit essenceglobal.com for more information and follow us on Twitter at @essenceglobal.

About the role

Essence is seeking an Advertising Operations Executive to become an integral part of our Advertising Operations team within APAC. As an Advertising Operations Executive, you will be responsible for the setup, execution and delivery of digital campaigns. You will work with internal teams and external parties to ensure campaign delivery objectives are met. You enjoy working in a collaborative team environment and a “can do” attitude and a desire to learn about the digital ad tech space.

Some of the things we’d like you to do:

• Learn to set up campaigns, placements and creative assets through our in-house campaign management system (DCM), 3rd party ad serving partners, and publisher interfaces
• Gradually increase trafficking knowledge advancing from simple creative setups, encompassing standard desktop display, mobile, and 1x1 tracking, to more intricate creative setups, encompassing but not limited to video and dynamic creative.
• Monitor campaign delivery to ensure campaigns are running as expected and targeting objectives are met. Check daily reports, providing updates in team meetings, and providing troubleshooting support for trafficking issues related to creative and publisher implementation.
• Liaison with the Account Management team ensuring a timely launch and correct campaign implementation; addressing any questions/issues that may arise.
• Support senior team members on complex campaign setups and escalations to third party vendors when necessary.
• Support senior team members on projects

A bit about yourself:

• A minimum 2:1 from a top-tier university or equivalent
• Computer literate with superior knowledge of Excel and a strong interest in internet technologies and media
• Able and eager to learn new concepts and challenge the existing framework
• Diligent with a strong attention to detail
• Strong quantitative, analytical & problem-solving skills
• An active interest in everything digital, ideally with an understanding of online advertising industry trends
• A self-starter with the ability to manage your own workload
• Excellent verbal & written communication skills
• Experience of working with DoubleClick Dart, Mediaplex MOJO and/or other 3rd party ad servers would be a distinct advantage

What you can expect from Essence

Essence’s mission is to make advertising more valuable to the world. We do this by employing the world’s very best talent to solve some of the toughest challenges of today’s digital marketing landscape. It’s important that we hire people whose values reflect those of our own: genuine, results-focused, daring and insightful. As an Essence employee, we promise you a workplace that invests in your career, cares for you and is fun and engaging. We believe these factors create a workplace where you can be yourself and do amazing work.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, or marital status.

Coca Cola IMC Manager - Media & Digital

The Coca-Cola Company Company IMC MANAGER - MEDIA & DIGITAL

Position Overview

The IMC Manager - Media & Digital Marketing will be instrumental in furthering Integrated Marketing Communications team capability. The position will have the combined accountability of Media Management and leading Digital Marketing, specifically on collaborations with customers (mainly eCommerce accounts).

S/he will manage total portfolio media management approach, as it relates specifically to media planning/buying; ensuring media strategies are aligned with brand objectives -- track against milestones and manage budgets for all media related activities within key programs.

Key Responsibilities

Function Specific Activities:

• Media Strategy Development: partner with local / group Brand teams & IMC teams, and agency partners to optimize media investment strategies and plans. Analyze media impact on core brand & business metrics; develop and implement media strategy, ultimately generating greater effectiveness and efficiencies of our IMC plans.

• Media Agency Relationship Management: Lead media agency relationship, managing resource allocation and quality control (timing, cost, creative delivery). Maintains contacts within the media industry. Participate in the negotiation and maintains relationship with media suppliers.

• Digital Marketing Support for Customer Collaborations: Supporting partnership with eCommerce accounts through marketing support to help drive traffic and offtake, development of marketing calendar in support of the operational customer account (promotional) calendar, providing technical integration support when needed.

• Lead SLX collaboration and maximization of local CIC resources: Lead planning, coordination and oversee executions from local CIC as well as driving the digital and social media strategy.

• Media Productivity: Drive Media Productivity across the portfolio, to ensure optimized media investments.

Work Experience

Minimum 5 years critical experience in Media, Digital/IMC, DME Management, demonstrated understanding of media landscape in the given market is a must - either from client, agency or media industry experience

Attributes

Ability to travel up to 40% of the time

Education

University/Bachelor's degree

Builds Brand Love

Seeks understanding of fundamental human needs and behaviors
Pursues innovation and change with a mindset of continuous improvement
Balances intuition and fact to distill complex thought into compelling ideas
Anticipates future trends to engage and delight consumers

Job Requirements

Years of Experience:

Growth Behaviors

GROWTH MINDSET: Demonstrates curiosity. Welcomes failure as a learning opportunity.
SMART RISK: Makes bold decisions/recommendations.
EXTERNALLY FOCUSED: Understands the upstream and downstream implications of his/her work. Tracks and shares external trends, best practices or ideas.
PERFORMANCE DRIVEN AND ACCOUNTABLE: Has high performance standards. Outperforms her/his peers.
FAST/AGILE: Removes barriers to move faster. Experiments and adapts. Thrives under pressure and fast pace.
EMPOWERED: Brings solutions instead of problems. Challenges the status quo. Has the courage to take an unpopular stance.

Bytedance's Brand Strategist

Brand Strategist
Job Description:

• Support the sales team to come up with strategic sales proposals and secure inventory availability for clients
• Lead strategic planning initiatives including deck writing, budget and channel allocation and audience development
• Collaborate with content partnership and product colleagues to develop, test, execute, and measure ideas for specific brand and agency clients
• Knowledge of digital third-party servers, measurement, content and media verification partners
• Glean insights from data, and use that data to make client recommendations and inform future proposals
• Work with both sales and ad ops teams to timely launch, and assist in campaign optimizations to ensure revenue is maintained and balanced with client goals
• Prepare reports used by sales teams for forecasting, analysis, and budgeting
• Monitor campaign delivery and make adjustments/recommendations accordingly
• Participate in client communication and provide product recommendations with the sales team
• Campaign trouble-shooting when needed


Job Requirements:

• College degree
• 3-5 years’ experience in digital media and marketing at an agency, publisher or brand.
• Superb understanding of Bytedance’s owned-and-operated properties
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple projects under tight deadlines in a fast-paced environment
• Excellent skills in MS Office (Excel, Word, PowerPoint); Knowledge of media syndicated research, media billing and ad servers.
• Strong understanding of digital marketing, especially the mobile, social landscape in SEA
• Excellent communication skills in person, over email and on the phone
• Self-starter, fast learner who is detail-oriented and has critical thinking
• Ability to work independently and as a team across different departments

Abbott Area Marketing Manager, Digital & Marketing, Asia Pacific

Summary
Job Description
Primary Function
• Develop and implement world-class digital marketing and media plans, strategies and tactics in partnership with ADC market teams • Partner with markets to lead the development and deployment of all dotcom sites within the ADC brand across APAC
Core Job Responsibilities
• Partner with the markets under the guidance of the Area Marketing Director, to align an implement digital marketing and media strategies that align to the Area/ global direction, brand roadmaps and business plans
• Lead the development of the FreeStyle dotcom ecosystem across all markets ensuring user-centric Ul/UX and GUIs, site tagging strategy, URL and site architecture to ensure a consistent brand experience and to maximize the utility of high-performing site assets
• Constantly optimize and ensure high SERPs for all dotcom sites in the region through an effective 5E0/ SEM strategy
• Ensuring that all dotcom sites maintain high quality, search and accessibility standards to Abbott's global quality levels
• Collaborate with teams to develop off to on-site user flows from unknown customers to known customers
• Collaborate with agency partners to define appropriate digital media spend levels to inform market strategies and support the development of effective channel strategies
• Lead the integration of marketing KPIs for the divisions KPI dashboards and define a roadmap that includes dynamic updates and the creation of a FreeStyle data hub
• Partner with markets to deploy digital metrics and control measures that allow for a data-driven marketing approach including optimization patterns and test —to-learn program implementation
• Provide relevant input into an effective Area budget aligned to areas of brand and business growth potential
• Provide strategic input into the design of the marketing technology stack as it relates to dotcom sites and digital media including appropriate CMSs, offsite analytics (cookies, SDK, DMP integrations), onsite analytics input and social media integrations
• Provide strategic input to IT, marketing and CRM counterparts on systems integrations needs • Partner with the Area, markets and global team to identify appropriate digital vendor partnerships
• Providing real-time marketing support that will lead to better outcome controls, including risk mitigation and action, and opportunity identification
• Partner with the Area marketing team to build effective alignment processes with other departments such as finance, regulatory, scientific affairs to ensure marketing strategies are realised. Maintain strong interdepartmental communication and liaison within ADC (locally and internationally) Act as the Digital marketing and media subject matter expert and create content for a user-friendly marketing learning agenda that is aligned to the needs of the business and brand
• Ensure all business activities comply with the relevant Acts, legal demands, safety and ethical standards. Review complaints and suggestions relating to assigned products Establish a productive work environment by creating trust and respect within the affiliate. Develop an atmosphere of confidence and strength, and create opportunities to recognize and reward outstanding individual and team performance


Minimum Skills Required
Experience and technical skills:

Relevant Digital Marketing And Media Experience
-Gained from a reputable consumer or a B2B brand, or
• Reputable media or integrated agency
Technical Digital Marketing Competency And Knowledge Including
• Dotcom site development (E-commerce models preferable)
• Digital media strategy and planning
• Data strategy experience across 1st, 2nd and 3rd party data
• Digital media, social and on and offsite analytics -Working knowledge of buyer behavior, path to purchase or decision science models
• Data-driven marketing exposure including use or knowledge of marketing technologies like DMPs, DAMs, SAMs, cookie, site tagging (eg GTM), CMSs
• Knowledge of the Adobe Suite (AEM 6.1-F), Adobe Analytics, Salesforce.com, Synthesio (analytics) is advantageous

Behaviors for Employees
Set Vision & Strategy
• Learns new or changing job processes, tasks and/or trends, and applies them to the work as appropriate
• Uses an understanding of the larger business context to more effectively complete work
• Creates role-appropriate plans, action steps, and timetables to support the strategy, goals and assignments
• Prioritizes own work to focus on customer and department needs, outcomes and objectives Anticipate
• Proactively identifies work issues/obstacles, communicates them to leaders/peers and creates appropriate contingency plans
• Effectively responds to internal or external change

• Treats change as an opportunity to learn and develop
• Uses experience, data, and/or internal/external customer input to create better work solutions
• Gains support for ideas, proposals and/or projects by influencing leaders and peers Innovate
• Identifies and implements process/product improvements that benefit the company and customers
• Tactfully challenges assumptions and traditional ways of doing things
• Thoroughly analyzes problems to identify causes and not just symptoms
• Implements new, innovative solutions or processes
• Seeks and combines diverse opinions and views to create better ideas and solutions Build
• Continuously develops talents, skills and abilities
• Encourages, supports and actively contributes to the team
• Asks for feedback on strengths and weaknesses and uses the input to improve performance
• Willingly shares expertise and experience with others; is considered a subject matter expert
• Offers culturally-appropriate, frequent and constructive feedback to peers and leaders
• Improves efficiencies and/or reduces costs Deliver Results
• Delivers on expectations and meets commitments; holds self accountable for results
• Acknowledges and learns from mistakes
• Takes thoughtful action, appropriately balancing speed and risk
• Persists and applies extra effort to overcome work barriers, issues and obstacles
• Meets quality and/or compliance standards
• Works with a sense of urgency to deliver results within deadlines

Experience in Medical Devices industry and/or working across markets would Asian languages are advantageous specifically Mandarin and Japanese

Knowledge / Education Required
Post-graduate or tertiary qualifications for Marketing Management, Digital Marketing or Digital Media from a reputable university Or, significant digital marketing and media experience with tertiary qualifications
AGILE training with SCRUM/Kanban exposure is highly desirable

Experience Required
Describe the on the job experience level required to perform this job (management experience)
4-6 years of digital marketing or digital media management experience gained at a country, regional or global level for a reputable consumer brand

Accountability
• Achieve Affiliate's sales, margin and market share
• Deployment of digital marketing and media strategies and tactics(as detailed) across the Asia Pacific region
• Oversight of the management and activation of new product launch plans to achieve affiliate's sales, margin and market share
• Brand custodianship of ADC brands

The business of Mindfulness - The Straits Times

Embraced by the corporate world, the movement also has its critics

Vikram Khanna
Associate Editor

That is the startling conclusion of the Gallup Organisation's 2017 State of the Global Workplace report, based on surveys done in 155 countries.



For Singapore, the figure was 23 per cent - slightly better than the global average, but still quite dismal. More bad news: A 2016 study by McKinsey & Co of 52,000 corporate leaders showed that while 86 per cent rated themselves as inspiring role models, their staff did not agree. A Gallup engagement survey the same year found that 82 per cent of employees considered their leaders "fundamentally uninspiring". In fact, another study by Mr Rasmus Hougaard, co-author of the recent book The Mind Of The Leader together with the Harvard Business Review, found that 35 per cent of employees would be willing to forgo a pay rise to see their bosses fired. The research also found that 73 per cent of leaders feel distracted from their current tasks "some" or "most" of the time. Two-thirds of leaders admitted that their minds were cluttered with lots of thoughts and a lack of clear priorities, and that they failed to complete their most important tasks.



LEADERSHIP IN CRISIS 
If these ground-level findings are any guide, it would seem that corporate leadership is in a state of crisis, despite some US$46 billion (S$63 billion) being spent every year on "leadership development" courses. According to Mr Hougaard, co-founder of The Potential Project - which provides mindfulness training to companies around the world - the big problem is that corporate leaders often ignore the fact that the key to leadership lies in the mind, that their mind creates their reality and that they often unknowingly make choices based on their history or emotions which are then rationalised ex-post, and most importantly, that they first need to lead themselves more effectively before they can lead others.

He explains: "Everything we do in a company comes from the mind. Our performance comes from the mind. lf our mind is not present when we're doing things, we don't perform well. Innovation, creativity, resilience - all of these come from the mind." Most companies do not seem to see the significance of this connection, he points out. "So when they try to change their culture, they rely on tactical things - like changing their policies, their incentives or changing the layout of the office. It's never about changing the mental make-up of people." The Potential Project has worked with more than 350 companies around the world, including household names such as Accenture, American Express, Carlsberg, Cisco, Google, Ikea, Lego, Marriott, McKinsey, Microsoft and Nike. The results, Mr Hougaard claims (and which have been confirmed by many of the companies as well as academic research), include better focus and clarity, more effective prioritisation, less unproductive multitasking and lower stress levels, as well as improvements in creativity, memory and sleep quality.

Mindfulness is a thousand-year-old practice, a form of meditation that essentially involves a focus on the present - a moment-by-moment awareness of thoughts, feelings, sensations and the environment. It has become something of a cult, embraced by thousands of companies and millions of individuals. It has some scientific validation. MR1 scans have showed, for instance, that in people who practise the technique, the pre-frontal cortex of the brain -which is associated with functions such as awareness, concentration and decision-making, as well as problem solving and regulating emotion - becomes thicker. Many successful leaders have practised mindfulness. In an interview with me in 2014, the world's biggest hedge fund manager Ray Dalio credited many of his best investment ideas to his mindful meditation, which he had practised for 25 years. New ideas bubble up from his subconscious, he said, and then he validates them with his conscious mind. If they check out, he acts on them. Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs credited his mindful meditation with many of his successful products, including the iPhone. Another daily practitioner, Mr Marc Benioff, the founder of Salesforce, revealed that Mr Jobs advised him to "be mindful and project the future". Prominent meditators in Singapore include Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and former GIC chief investment officer Ng Kok Song. Mr Lee Kuan Yew also became a practitioner late in his life and found it beneficial.

Mindfulness is even taught at business schools, including Singapore Management University (SMU), which offers courses in mindfulness for the public, which are approved for claims under the Government's SkillsFuture Credit subsidy scheme. I met Mr Hougaard at SMU, where he delivered a talk on mindfulness. My first question to him was, having worked with hundreds of companies, why does he think corporate leadership is in a state of crisis? He pointed out that one important maxim that many corporate leaders ignore, or do not realise, is that, as the former managing partner of McKinsey Dominic Barton put it, "leadership is less about what you do than who you are". He explained that when we are promoted to our first managerial role, we need to show we are effective and we can execute. So for most managers, leadership is a lot about executing well.

"That's important, but as you get to more senior levels, leadership is less about what you do and more about how you engage your people - how you empower them, how you create teams, how you create structures for the company. That involves the values you bring, rather than just your ability to execute." The practice of mindfulness can help change leaders' perspective and mental make-up, increasing their clarity of thought, their compassion and the quality of their decision-making. This also applies to big strategic decisions. Many leaders lack what Mr Hougaard calls "the beginner's mind" - that is, the ability to see things afresh, which is "the first step towards an innovative mindset".

"We often don't actually see what's in front of us," he said. "What we see is the reality created by our mind. based on our history, not actual reality." As an example, he cited the famous quote from then Nokia chief executive officer Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, in response to the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 when Nokia was the market leader: "From a competitor point of view, the iPhone is nothing but a niche product." He just did not see the real potential - or threat - of the 'Phone (which was a major cause of Nokia's market share in mobile phones crashing from 49 per cent in 2007 to 3 per cent in 2013). He lacked the beginner's mind, said Mr Hougaard. 

MANAGING TIME 

A common problem in the workplace is that people spend 80 per cent of their time on activities that generate 20 per cent of outcomes - known as the "Pareto Principle" in management theory. Mr Hougaard puts this down to what he calls "action addiction". "We're addicted to doing things, not achieving things," he said. "And we do things not because they're important, but because we want to feel important. "A neurochemical called dopamine gets released in the brain when we do something, which makes us comfortable, and it's very addictive. Every time we achieve something small - like replying to an insignificant e-mail, a little dopamine is released. That's what makes us keep doing small things at work and not getting to what is most important." One of the insights of Mr Hougaard and his team -elaborated in another book One Second Ahead - is that delaying certain actions by even one second can make a difference to the quality of those actions. He explained: "The busier we get, the more reactive we become, because we don't have the space to think. Mindfulness gives us that space, that one second, where instead of going into reactive mode when we are confronted with something as mundane as an e-mail, we have that second to think, 'Should I engage with this? How should I engage with this?' It enables us to observe ourselves, rather than being instinctively reactive." 

UNPRODUCTIVE MEETINGS

Another common problem in the workplace, which applies especially to CEOs but also to lower-level managers, is the ineffectiveness of meetings. This is because people are often not present, other than physically. They are distracted - for example, checking their mobile phones or absorbed in thoughts unconnected to the meeting. They are not mindful, improving the quality of meetings can make a big difference to company performance, he said.

"Carlsberg. one of the companies we worked with, ran some numbers on this and they found they saved 35 per cent of meeting time. Most meetings are scheduled for an hour, but they don't need an hour:- Management guru Michael Porter and Harvard Business School dean Nitin Nohria did a major study on meetings and CEOs, which was published in the Harvard18). The Business Review (July-August 20 found that, on average. CEOs spent 72 per cent of their time in meetings. Their main conclusion: Shortening meetings can significantly enhance a CEO's efficiency. "In our debriefs, CEOs confessed that one-hour meetings could often be cut to 30 or even 15 minutes," they pointed out. 

BEWARE OF MCMINDFULNESS 

As happens with anything that takes on cult proportions and becomes a multibillion-dollar industry, the mindfulness movement has attracted its share of critics, some of whom refer to it as "Mcmindfulness". They allege that it has been stripped down and secularised to make it more marketable in the process, diluting and distorting what it was meant to be. For instance, many mindfulness courses are not anchored in deeper ethical values. Buddhist scholars point out that the way it is now taught often fails to distinguish between "good mindfulness" and "bad mindfulness", which makes it possible to create not just more mindful workers and executives, but also more mindful terrorists and white-collar criminals. Some therapists caution that mindfulness might be contraindicated for some individuals, who may not be able to deal with the difficult thoughts and emotions that the practice can bring to the surface. They note that many of the people who teach it have no formal training in mental health. Others point out that the mindfulness movement skirts the issue of why so many corporate environments are stressful in the first place. "Corporations have jumped on the mindfulness bandwagon because it conveniently shifts the burden onto the individual employee," said Dr Ron Purser, a professor of management at San Francisco State University, and Mr David Loy, a Zen teacher. "Stress is framed as a personal problem, and mindfulness is offered as just the right medicine to help employees work more efficiently and calmly within toxic environments". Some of these issues deserve to be taken seriously and the mindfulness movement will no doubt evolve. But meanwhile, for better or worse, its popularity is continuing  to spread. 

vikram@sph.com sg