Cultivating Consciousness at Work With Former Head of Mindfulness At LinkedIn Scott Shute

How can we create more conscious workplaces?

Jan 25, 2024

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I think a lot about how to integrate working on consciousness in the business world.

Some people view these things as best kept separate, but this idea never resonated with me.

If we’re going to spend so much time in the working why not use that as an opportunity for Self discovery?

A lot of people think we are going through a shift in human consciousness right now and that’s its necessary if humans want to continue to live on Earth long term. I agree with both.

The question is how do we usher in a more harmonious collective way of being and society?

If expanding consciousness is part of the solution, I don’t expect large portions of the population to all of a sudden become renunciates.

It seems like we’re going to need more and more efforts to integrate consciousness work with existing parts of life like our careers. The right integration between these two things which have often will be kept separate will be where the sum is greater than the parts. Bringing consciousness and work together will uplift your awareness AND capacity to contribute in your career.

I love learning about this intersection and people who are pushing it forward. Today’s guest Scott Schute is doing exactly that. Scott is the co-founder of Changing Work and was the first Head of Mindfulness and Compassion at LinkedIn.

His powerful story demonstrates how our calling often starts as a seed in an unexpected place before it can blossom into something bigger.

Scott was a customer operations executive who volunteered to host a meditation session at LinkedIn for employees. A whopping one person showed up to the first session. But he kept at it while he was still VP of Customer Operations and he gradually became known inside the company for leading meditations. Eventually this turned into a full time position pioneering mindfulness and compassion efforts internally at LinkedIn.

In this conversation, we talked about what conscious business means and how we can make our workplaces more conscious places that benefit the collective whole.

Interesting conversation points that stuck out to me include:

Why conscious business is something every business leader should consider
The practicalities of best practices for bringing mindfulness into the workplace when there is a diversity of perspectives, interests, and depths of awareness
The supporting evidence that mindfulness and compassion are good for business outcomes
Why operationalizing systems for conscious business are important for making this more than a nice idea
His approach for specifically working executives who want to indoctrinate this into their organization
Considerations for people who feel like their current workplace is not supportive for their consciousness journey
How to tap into the body’s intelligence for more information when making a decision

Scott’s new business Changing Work is all about helping organizations change from the inside out. In addition to working directly with companies, they’ve created a Changing Work community for people who living it out and are trying to bring this to their workplace.

I think we’re in the very early innings of the intersection between consciousness and business. I think we’ll see a lot more great innovations here in the coming years.

I hope you enjoy this conversation!

-Scott

If you liked reading or listening to this, feel free to click the ❤️ or 🔄 button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack 🙏

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