Category Archives: Compassion

From Forbes Magazine:

Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.

I never imagined I’d be writing an article about how yoga makes me a more effective CEO. I don’t even know if I’m more of an authority as a CEO or as a yoga student. I do help run a successful organization, and I drive to and from work with a yoga mat and towel in my car (though it’s not the “green” vehicle you might expect of a yoga student). And I now wear fewer ties and more bracelets when conducting meetings than I would have ever thought (not as midlife crisis or new age attire, but just for fun and self-expression). For kicks I have started off meetings asking employees to take a deep breath and to “live in the moment.” But I promise I am not some counterculture contortionist opposed to standard business practice. Quite the contrary. I love business. I am passionate about growing companies. Still, I can share that since I started practicing more than two years ago, yoga has profoundly influenced my life in every aspect. It has redefined my sense of self. I have changed as a husband, father, friend and leader.

I proudly serve as the CEO of Blue Chip Marketing Worldwide. Even before I started practicing yoga Blue Chip made a clearly articulated pledge to all of our stakeholders. We call it “The Promise of Uniting.” It embodies a philosophy that none of us alone is as good as all of us together. It recognizes that a culture that unites the best of heart and mind will achieve remarkable results. Little did I know that many consider the definition of yoga to come from the Sanskrit root “yuj,” meaning to unite, or the practice of uniting body, mind and spirit. At Blue Chip we have always communicated that we have a social contract. We expect all of our talented professionals to deliver at the highest intellectual level (mind), and in turn we offer a nurturing environment (body) that respects them as human beings and professionals (spirit). We were yoga, and we didn’t even know it. The result has been nothing short of remarkable. Like a yoga studio, we have built an organizational culture that encourages employees to contribute and astound without fear of judgment or failure. Ultimately yoga has encouraged me to build a corporate environment that is less constricting and more community.

On a personal level yoga has been instructive in helping me redefine my expectations for achievement. Perhaps the most salient lesson I’ve learned is that there are no scorecards to define success. In the yoga studio there are no winners or losers. No umpires. No victory measured against the loss of another. In yoga success emanates from within and is defined by self-mastery.

As a CEO I have learned the same goes for effective leadership. We all have quantifiable scorecards in business. We look at our numbers every day. Revenue, stock prices and market share all provide indicators of the success of our organizations. But as CEOs, we have other attributes that gauge our success as leaders, including establishing vision, creating an affirmative corporate culture, demonstrating emotional intelligence, displaying the courage of our convictions, assessing risk and offering buoyancy of spirit.

So how does yoga bring success for a CEO?

Most yoga classes start with a remark from the teacher and a reminder to set an intention for the day’s practice. That might seem a little thing, but it is actually quite constructive. Every day, no matter whether at the office, the studio or the exchange, we must be thoughtful about our mission and disciplined in our approach to fulfilling it. My intention at yoga on any particular day might be to be conscious that each action must originate from a strong abdominal core, or to be cognizant that my breathing needs to align with my practice. My teacher always says that my practice “should never be a blur.” That is also true for the daily activity of a CEO. We can only realize our vision if we pay attention to our intentions.

I always point out to my colleagues that an office is a strange social experiment. We can’t usually select our coworkers. They might not fit the profile of someone we might have chosen as a friend. Yet we spend more time with them than with our families and other cherished relations. How can we make this work so we feel fulfilled at the end of each day? I often observe the same dynamic with the collected students at a yoga studio. Some are policemen, others housewives, and there is sometimes even the occasional CEO. Usually studios are quiet, with not a lot of conversation, yet there is a shared sense of purpose, like an affirmative corporate culture. The environment is an extremely optimistic one. There is clarity in leadership and purpose. The leader-teacher inspires and demonstrates but never admonishes. And the students are all there to celebrate individual and collective accomplishment. Everyone goes through the same sequences together, uniting without ambiguity. At the end of a class the shared accomplishment is completely positive. It is analogous to creating a corporate thematic goal and elevating the culture by supporting the goal at all levels of the organization–from the executive suite to the newest employees–for total alignment. The promise of uniting is very empowering.

As the class continues, the teacher often repeats, “Stay on your mat.” This implies working without distraction. It requires self-discipline and focus. We are surrounded by other sweaty, heavy-breathing and sometimes falling students. Yet we cannot lose our drishti, our gazing point, because yoga, like business, will render us unstable if we are distracted. As CEOs our distractions can carry much larger implications. If we fall, there is a high probability that others around us will also feel insecure. This understanding, this emotional intelligence, is the same in business and in yoga: It is a demand that we always be present.

My favorite form of yoga is the kind called vinyasa. When we practice we speak of “going through your vinyasa,” which means doing a series of sequences incorporating breath and body alignment with varying degrees of strength and flexibility. The idea that we are going to be unconventional and challenge ourselves to try things never before imagined requires perseverance, the courage of our convictions. The notion that I will now do handstands and then drop back to plank push-ups is inconceivable. It was scary at first. But like any decent CEO, I realize that to succeed we must test limits. We must stand for evolution and constant improvement.

We cannot be renegades. Yet there are times when we need to pause and reconsider, to assess risk. We need to prepare backup plans to reduce risk in the event of any unforeseen obstacles. In yoga my teacher calls this “honoring yourself,” which simply means listening to our bodies. If our hamstrings are tight, we assess the condition, follow the backup plan by bending our knees to alleviate the chance of injury and allow ourselves to continue to practice with pragmatism and eyes wide open.

Finally, and maybe most important, yoga helps make me a more effective CEO by reorienting my outlook on life–my buoyancy of spirit. I spend 90 minutes in a studio feeling like a 10-year-old boy. How could I not have fun? I am doing the real work of building muscles and increasing my agility, but with poses with Sanskrit names like Surya Namaskar or equally fun English names like Warrior. I begin in tadasana, or mountain pose, as I set my intention, and I end up in savasana, or corpse pose, allowing my mind and body to clear out from a period of extreme labor.

And the amazing thing is that yoga ultimately delivers as advertised. Unlike any other activity in which I have participated, I never walk out of a class feeling anything less than great, and always a little more than curious about my practice, my business, my family and my life. Yoga allows me to carry both equanimity and enthusiasm through my days. Ultimately it has allowed me to be a more effective CEO by making me a happier, healthier and more mindful human being. And though I promise you will never find me in lotus pose chanting “Om” on my conference room table, I am an eminently more grateful CEO than I was before I started practicing yoga.

Stanton Kawer is the chief executive officer and chairman of Blue Chip Marketing Worldwide.