Leadership, Improv and Mindfulness: an oxymoron?

This question emerges when I open the email from Spirit Rock, an insight meditation center near San Francisco. Improv and Mindfulness? Hmmm – as a coach working with lawyers and leaders, I’m intrigued by how both these practices benefit my clients in high stress positions. I’m also curious about what the two have in common. Click. I register, I reserve my flight, and my heart leaps in anticipation. I wonder: how will it feel to alternate between mindfulness and improv?

Those who knew me as a trial lawyer and leader in Big Law, and a former jazz musician, would not be surprised by my interest in Improv. What few know is that I also was interested in mindfulness long before I became an executive coach.

The truth is I’ve always liked the idea of mindfulness as an avenue to reducing stress and increasing resilience. When I first started practicing law, I just thought I was too busy to do it. Like that exercise bag lurking in the corner of my office back then, I often started the day with the intention of exercising. However, mindfulness, like exercise, doesn’t really work if we don’t actually do it!

Mindfulness isn’t merely an attitude or a good idea. It’s not as if we can intend to be more present (or less judgmental, anxious, or biased) and everything will magically be better! As Jon Kabat Zinn once said: “To be effective, mindfulness requires an embodied engagement…”

The trouble is that exercise is obviously active, while mindfulness seems like a “mindset” or “attitude.” It even looks like people who are “doing Mindfulness” are just sitting there with their eyes closed.. doing nothing! Yet I assure you, there’s a lot happening under the surface:

  • The Mind: we observe patterns of thoughts from the “committee in the head”;
  • The Mood: we notice emotions flitting across the screen of our heart like a video;
  • The Movement: we feel our breath inhale, then exhale, settling into a gentle rhythm that slows as we attend to it, and our muscles move into relaxation.

We practice mindfulness, not to get better at it, but because it helps us navigate our days with greater ease when things get difficult—when our eyes are open, and we’re in the midst of examining a witness in a court room, or presenting in a board room. We practice so we don’t flip out at minor annoyances, nor let our thoughts run the show when under pressure. Just like I exercise with my trainer to stay fit (not to get better at planks and pushups); when we “do” mindfulness, we can deal with all sorts of “heavy” things in life with ease. If what we practice is anger and anxiety, that’s what we’ll get good at. If we practice observing thoughts and judgments, and pausing before reacting, that’s what we’ll get good at.

Back to that retreat: I was enlightened, energized, and entertained. The more mindful I became, the more at ease I was with improvising, and responding in the moment to others. The bottom line: when leaders in stressful professions like law or healthcare practice mindfulness, they stop living on autopilot and start living in the moment- with awareness and intention. And living in the moment is central to improvising, increasing resilience, and to becoming an emotionally intelligent leader. Who can’t benefit from that?

For more resources, check out www.marronalliance.com

Kathleen Marron is a Master Coach/lawyer/author in Minneapolis, MN. Her new book, Fearless Feedback, is now available for purchase on Amazon on January 16, 2019 (see www.fearlessfeedbackguide.com ).