Sunday Times 2
Enhancing productivity and joy at work through mindfulness
View(s):The ‘Universal Mindfulness Village’ Foundation (UMVF) launched its inaugural workshop for corporate managing directors and CEOs at the Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo recently.
The programme was aimed at creating awareness among the participants of the benefits of the application of the mindfulness-based life skill paradigm to develop and improve the overall performance of organisations.
Most Ven. Uda Eriyagama Dhammajiva Maha Thera, with more than 40 years of mastering dhamma practice as a forest monk and with subsequent proven successful experience introducing mindfulness through “Sati Pasala,” used 21st-century interactive teaching methods as a holistic solution provider towards contentment in many countries: Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, England, the United States, Canada, and Dubai. This subsequently led to the formation of UMVF.
The Speakers who spoke on the benefits of mindfulness: From left - The Ven. Dhammajiva Maha Thera, Nalin Jayasuriya, Kaushalya Perera, Sidath Wettimuny and Ranjan Walpola
The Thera spoke on the power of mindfulness, which can improve a person’s mental and physical health, generate calmness, and improve focus and concentration. The Thera carried out a simple mindfulness exercise for the business leaders present where they participated in closing their eyes and concentrating for five minutes.
This was followed by a presentation by Dr. Kaushalya Perera, MD Hons (Rus), MSc in Diabetes (USW, UK), Certified Coach (CMA, Singapore). She spoke of ‘Neuroplasticity—Rewiring your brain through mindfulness.’ She demonstrated how mindfulness can decrease the size of the amygdala, which, in turn, reduces the anxiety and the negative emotions of the human. The practice of mindfulness enhances the neuronal activity as well as the neurogenesis of the prefrontal lobe and anterior cingulate cortex. This, in turn, develops the human positive thinking capability.
The keynote presentation on ‘Productivity enhancement and joy at work through practice of mindful behaviour’ was delivered by Dr. Nalin Jayasuriya, Chairman of McQuire Rens Global Consulting (Pvt) Ltd. and Non-Executive Chairman of Eswaran Brothers Exports Ltd.
He spoke on the practice of mindful behaviour in the corporate world, what habits are and how they are formed, shareholder expectations and how mindful employees meet these expectations, productivity enhancement, and joy at work. He cited pitiful scenarios where some CEOs are mentally tormented by the careless, selfish approaches of certain employees in organisations and how these attitudes can be changed, resulting in leveraging more time for CEOs to focus on sustainable business growth.
A section of the participants
A video talk by Sidath Wettimuny, advisor to UMVF and a practitioner of mindfulness, was screened for the audience as he had to be out of Colombo on the day of the event. His talk was on the ‘positive impact on work-life balance through mindfulness.’ He shared how it helped him in sports, work, and his personal life.
Finally, Ranjan Walpola, co-founder and advisor to UMVF, presented the success of pilot studies on ‘mindfulness’ programmes carried out for the total staff of Dartary Valley Tea Factory and Harrangalla Tea Factory from the Senhora Group of companies. These mindfulness programmes earned the two factories the first place and runner-up for the awards of the Most Outstanding Tea Manufacturing Factories at an event organised by the Tea Exporters Association in 2024. This was the second time that these awards were won by these two factories.
Further, five tea factories in this group of companies recorded year-on-year highest growth in the shortest period, from zero to becoming the largest tea producer in 2019.