SPIRIT Summit CXO Dialogue in Pune, March 2015

I was in Pune last week to host the CXO Dialogue as a part of the Second SPIR-IT Summit at the Four Points Sheraton hotel on March 21st. It is part of the initiative to create structures of wellness in organizations, to develop inner resilience and outer agility by shifting the focus from the human 'doing' to the human 'being'. This dialogue was sponsored by Amdocs India.

The gathering included Sister Jayanti, BK representative at United Nations in Geneva, Anshoo Gaur, President of Amdocs India, Dr Ganesh Natarajan, CEO of Zensar, Arun Wakhlu, Founder of Pragati Leadership Institute, Bala Kishore, co-founder of SPIRIT Summit, and executives from other organizations including Barclays, HSBC, Volkswagen, Zensar, Cybage and Searce.

In the keynote, Sister Jayanti suggested “A leader is one who is able to lead and in today’s times when everything is so transparent and open, it has become all the more important to lead by example. And to lead by example, it is very important that our body and mind are aligned. It is only when this alignment exists we can think clearly and can inspire people around us to do well. To bring this alignment of body and mind, we need to spend some time to reflect, which means after every experience/event, having some time to ask myself - could I have done things differently? What did I learn from this experience? This is called reflective practice. This reflection and alignment leads to a quiet mind which is perceptive and sharp.”

The participants were divided into six groups of six people each to discuss and deliberate on four questions over the next two hours. The discussion was divided into two sessions.

Session One:  APPRECIATIVE LOOK and VISION

Q1:  Think of a time when you were feeling totally ALIVE and WELL at Work. What was   happening? What made it happen?

Q2:   What is your VISION for a Well/Wholesome/Totally ALIVE and Joyful Workplace? 

‘Graphical Facilitation’ was used and the participants at each table were asked to draw their thoughts/ideas in images instead of writing them. Each team had the opportunity to share their creations with all the others. Summary charts capturing the ideas shared across all teams were created by the graphic reporters from Pragati and posted on the wall with the team charts.

Outcomes shared by Leaders on what they want to see their organizations included openness, transparency, connection, greater collaboration across teams, the feeling of belongingness, being Alive, Rewarding, Harmonious relationships, Integrity and Trust.

As leaders, they would like to contribute by creating meditation rooms, making meditation a regular practice, including a meditation hour, providing fitness bands to employees, taking care of employees family’s needs, attention on employee happiness, imbibing positive energy, spirituality and wellness programs, incorporating more listening, adding fun activities and rewards for fitness/Wellness.

At the beginning of session two, Bala Kishore presented some excerpts on ‘Research on Wellness’.  He demonstrated, with the help of published literature, how wellness, when integrated in to the vision of the organization, can become a strategic investment. He quoted Johnson & Johnson, world Leader in healthcare products, reaped an ROI of $2.71 for every $1 invested in their wellness programs in the last decade. US grocer H-E-B got returns of 1:6 on similar investments. He also presented scientifically measured benefits of meditation and exercise.

Session Two: ACTION (as an ORGANIZATION and as a COMMUNITY)

Q3: What specifically are the ACTION STEPS you could take to move towards a Joyous and      PRODUCTIVE Workplace in your Organization?

Q4: What are some things we could do TOGETHER as the IT Community in Pune?

Explaining the relevance of second dialogue, Wakhlu said “We are not here to compete with each other but to complete each other. The one character that separates compete with complete is 'L' which stands for Love.”

Also, ”When we dream alone, it’s a dream, when we dream together, it becomes reality.”

The exercise encouraged participants to think of the ways of influencing other’s lives in a positive ways and come up with ideas which could help sustain the good work already being done by some of the organizations.

The highlight of this conversation was creating a SaaS model, Spirituality As A Service. Other outcomes included creating common meditation rooms across organizations in the same complex and Meditation cafes, Habit Seminars, adding a ‘reflection” exercise at the start and end of meetings, introduce more Happy Streets, encourage cycling to work, making Wellness as a value, creating Wellness Champions, introducing Peace Rooms (Instead of War Rooms), create Spiritual Forums, introducing and Measuring Happiness Index, encouraging Mistakes culture where mistakes are encouraged and Health Cabs.

In the concluding remarks, Sister Jayanti said that when there are good ideas, they come with lot of questions. Don’t let these questions bother you. Sit in silence and let your perfect self emerge in front of you, hold on to this perfect vision of yourself and all questions will be taken care of.

The dialogue concluded with a commitment to gather next month with a resolve to affect people’s lives on a larger scale. SPIRIT Summit, in partnership with these executives, will organize a one-day conference for about 700 professionals with several world renowned keynote speakers, panel discussions and creative exercises with the intention to shift the focus from the human ‘Doing’ to the human ‘Being’.