This week in my Bikram Yoga class (Yoga in a room heated to 40 degrees for those who haven’t had the pleasure…) the teacher said two things that made me think about the parallels between organisational change and the changes coming from yoga.

Firstly she said:

In yoga, the changes are slow and deep. You may notice nothing today, but 3 months from now your mind and body will be in a different place.

How often do we expect people to change their minds or agree with us immediately. We provide a rational reason with a few bullet points for context and think they will come around. Experience tells us otherwise. For one thing, our brains aren’t physically wired that way. A rational approach is not effective in getting people to change long held beliefs – we need to engage people’s emotional brains. And for another thing (terrible English I know), the evidence suggests that deeply held beliefs change slowly, over time, often without us being aware. Slow and deep – like yoga.

The second thing she said was:

You can choose what you want your mind to focus on. Focus on the heat, and the class will be challenging. Focus on the way the warmth lets you stretch more deeply, and the class becomes an opportunity to heal.

You are what you think.  In my first three or four classes, all I could think about was the heat. How draining it was. How much I wanted to get out. When would it be over. You get the picture.These days I never focus on the heat. The heat is warm and welcome – it helps me undo the tensions of the years before.

What we think about hugely affects our mind, our focus, and our behaviour. What’s the parallel in organisations?

Framing conversations in terms of opportunities is more effective than framing them as problems to be solved. Asking people to build on their strengths rather than fix their weaknesses (who can be bothered really?) allows them to open up possibilities rather than close down options. We are what we think.

Okay, so my mind was obviously wandering at times during this yoga class – I need to work on my own focus. But I never focus on the heat in the class.