Mindfulness in the military: Improving mental fitness in the UK Armed Forces using next generation team mindfulness training

Individual mindfulness meditation is only one of several means to enhance mindfulness throughout the Armed Forces. Due to its self-help connotations, meditation by itself may be perceived as less universally appealing in the military, where dedication, service, and self-sacrifice are important values. Therefore, we recommend that the military should consider mindfulness as a ‘team activity’, training teams to systematically anticipate and respond unitedly to stressful situations by learning to be ‘mindful as a team’. This means fostering a team culture in which every team member is encouraged to consistently notice the needs and reactions of others especially in the face of stress, and creating collaborative solutions to all aspects of demanding challenges, intellectual as well as emotional. This helps teams to become collectively responsible for consistent performance under pressure, leave no individual alone in their battle with their own thoughts and feelings when stressed, and thus benefit from every team members’ full capacity to face complex threats collectively. In addition, we recommend that only formally trained psychotherapeutic counsellors should deliver individual-focused mindfulness meditation initiatives. Prolonged periods of quiet contemplation (eg. sitting in silence for 20 minutes or longer), common in ‘traditional’, individual-focused mindfulness meditation programmes such as Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) may unearth latent trauma in unexpected ways, and military populations could be particularly vulnerable in this regard

Audio-guided mindfulness training in schools and its effect on academic attainment: Contributing to theory and practice

We report the results of a randomized trial (N = 337) examining the effectiveness of a daily audio-guided MBI in raising academic achievement in 16 volunteer classrooms across two socio-demographically diverse United States primary schools. The study's findings were that, over the intervention period, improvements in Math scores, Social Studies scores and Grade Point Averages (GPA) were generally higher for students in intervention classrooms. However, confidence intervals were wide and there was pre-existing variability between schools and grades, resulting in few significant differences as a result of the intervention and generally low effect sizes. Through a careful discussion of the study's results, the paper contributes to theory by generating a comprehensive agenda for follow-up research. The study also contributes to practice by reporting on the effectiveness of technology-enabled mindfulness training because participating teachers seemed able to implement the intervention with almost no further training or need for hiring external mindfulness experts

Creating a Different Kind of Innovator: Using health communication theory in entrepreneurship education to foster behavior change among entrepreneurship students in sub-Saharan Africa

There is a broad scholarly consensus that entrepreneurship can be taught and that entrepreneurship education benefits societies (Charney & Libecap, 2003). However, technical entrepreneurship education interventions are still the norm in the West (Alberti & Poli, 2005), and especially in sub-Saharan Africa (North, 2002; Ladzani & van Vuuren, 2002). In this study, we argue that entrepreneurship education in sub-Saharan Africa follows a special pattern, and that health communication theory can inform improvements in enterprise training in the African context because of its particular effectiveness in inducing behavior change where environmental norms would normally constrain the development of such new behavior. The overall goal of the present paper is threefold; to contribute to the understudied domain of entrepreneurship education theory for economic development, to inform more effective enterprise training interventions in sub-Saharan Africa, and to foster the generation of more entrepreneurs capable of contributing to wealth generation in this region

Sharper decision-making

Your company's decision-making culture has a substantial impact on the quality of your strategic decisions and on the bottom line. This article examines how to sharpen decision-making in your organisation: it questions how your teams routinely reach managerial decisions, and provides guidelines on how to substantially improve those decisions

More Dynamic Than You Think: Hidden Aspects of Decision-Making

Decision-making is a multifaceted, socially constructed, human activity that is often non-rational and non-linear. Although the decision-making literature has begun to recognize the effect of affect on decisions, examining for example the contribution of bodily sensations to affect, it continues to treat the various processes involved in coming to a decision as compartmentalized and static. In this paper, we use five theories to contribute to our understanding of decision-making, and demonstrate that it is much more fluid, multi-layered and non-linear than previously acknowledged. Drawing on a group experience of deciding, we investigate the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and collective states that are at play. These states are shown to be iterative: each being reinforced or dampened in a complex interaction of thought, affect, social space and somatic sensations in a dynamic flux, whilst individuals try to coalesce on a decision. This empirical investigation contributes to theory, method and practice by suggesting that Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity (VUCA) is a human condition. VUCA permeates and impacts decision-making in a multitude of ways, beyond researchers’ previous understanding. The innovation generated through this paper resides in a set of propositions that will accelerate progress in the theory, method, and practice of decision-makin

Entrepreneurship and Conflict Reduction in the Post-Genocide Rwandan Coffee Industry

Entrepreneurship is widely acknowledged as a catalyst for poverty reduction and economic development. Yet its role in conflict reduction and social development is largely understudied. This paper presents evidence from a field survey conducted among a sample of Rwanda's emerging specialty coffee farmers and workers at coffee washing stations. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that quantitatively analyses economic liberalization and conflict reduction in one of Rwanda's most pivotal industries, i.e., coffee, and one of the few studies addressing the link between entrepreneurship in the developing world and intergroup peace-building. We approximated conflict reduction with an attitude of reconciliation between ethnic groups in Rwanda. Results from statistical analyses uncovered significant correlations between economic and livelihood advancement with comparatively more positive attitudes to reconciliation, especially where intergroup contact has increased alongside new incentives for collaboration across group boundaries. This suggests that enhanced entrepreneurship in Rwanda's liberalized coffee industry may provide the context for increased commercial intergroup contact, which in turn may constitute an opportunity for conflict reduction. We conclude with suggestions for follow-up research, to further analyze which types of economic policy changes may also hold the potential to contribute to positive social change

Maximizing Mindful Learning: Mindful Awareness Intervention Improves Elementary School Students’ Quarterly Grades

This paper discusses results from the first empirical study testing the feasibility and effectiveness of an audio-guided mindful awareness training program on quarterly grade performance in traditional US public elementary schools. Structured as a quasi-experiment, the study demonstrates that a 10-min-per-day, fully automated program significantly enhances students’ quarterly grades in reading and science, compared to a control group, without disrupting teaching operations (N = 191). The intervention utilized a series of guided mindful-based awareness and attention focusing practices as the method for students to engage with social and emotional learning (SEL) concepts, and can thus be called a “mindful-based social emotional learning” (MBSEL) program. The program is innovative because it requires neither expert trainers skilled in mindful awareness nor changes to existing curriculum; thus, it can be considered both teacher-independent and curriculum supportive. The goal of this exploratory study was to facilitate a consistent daily mindful awareness practice that generates improvements in student outcomes for resource- and time-constrained K–12 classrooms in the USA and elsewhere. The authors discuss limitations of this study and suggestions for further research on how to use mindful awareness programs to enhance academic performance both effectively and pragmatically