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Mindfulness and the Quality of Organizational Attention

Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, 701 Tappan Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1234
Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, 701 Tappan Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1234
karlw{at}umich.edu
ksutclif{at}umich.edu

Mindfulness as depicted by Levinthal and Rerup (2006) involves encoding ambiguous outcomes in ways that influence learning, and encoding stimuli in ways that match context with a repertoire of routines. We add to Levinthal and Rerup’s conjectures by examining Western and Eastern versions of mindfulness and how they function as a process of knowing an object. In our expanded view, encoding becomes less central. What becomes more central are activities such as altering the codes, differentiating the codes, introspecting the coding process itself, and, most of all, reducing the overall dependence on coding and codes. Consequently, we shift from Levinthal and Rerup’s contrast between mindful and less mindful to a contrast between conceptual and less conceptual. When people move away from conceptuality and encoding, outcomes are affected more by the quality than by the quantity of attention.

Key Words: mindfulness; attention; encoding; conceptualizing; mindful organizing

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