Mindful Management – Improving wellness, engagement and performance in challenging times with Jim Fairbairn, OBE

On Wednesday 1^st December, FWB Park Brown hosted Jim Fairbairn for a leadership session focussed on “Mindful Management”. Jim is the Group CEO of Megger Ltd, a global engineering business with nine manufacturing sites across forty global locations. A Chartered Engineer, Jim is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Prior to his position with Megger, Jim has held senior leadership positions in Howden and Clyde Blowers Capital. The audience for the session comprised of industry leaders from various sectors who came together to learn from Jim’s personal observations, as well as Megger’s approach to their strategic transformation which was presented openly and honestly.

Key points from Jim’s session:

• Securing a strong company Culture around respect and integrity creating a positive and collaborative environment
• Inspiring and insightful Leadership encouraging individuals to push boundaries and strive for growth
• Successful Mentors and having that positive advocate personally and professionally to promote individuals capability
• Meditation/Mental Wellness being highly beneficial helping with creative thinking and ambition

Jim’s presentation centred on improving wellness, engagement and performance within these challenging times. It is essential to build a company culture where employees are proud, and can operate on a foundation of respect and integrity. Jim noted that the beginnings of Megger’s strategic transformation coincided with the start of the pandemic and several specific initiatives were designed to maintain engagement around a Europe-wide programme designed to enhance mental wellness. The results of this exceeded all expectations, and many observations, lessons and insights from this period are being utilised for future plans. One such insight was the unexpected high success rate of “high intensity meditation programmes” across various teams at Megger.

Jim explored the different types of meditation from dynamic to passive, which operate across our dominant brain frequencies. Different types of meditation include walking, visualisation, mantra, breathing and being at one with nature. It is recommended that individuals try different types of meditation without focussing on a specific one to gain an understanding of what works best for each individual. Jim’s programme brings together meditation and leadership, showing this aided with creative problem solving, deliberate thinking, as well as positive ambition. This type of leadership can push boundaries, recognise individuals and team journeys and breakthrough stretch initiatives.

Great mentors can be extremely valuable to individuals through the path of their careers. Being a talent advocate who looks to challenge, support and provoke will help to promote improvements of individual capability in terms of organisational levels. This can allow us to establish what journeys our teams are on – personally and professionally. Jim’s session ended with an interactive discussion, highlighting that through the pandemic, leaders have become more tactical and resourceful, as well as creative. Jim strongly encourages leaders to push the boundaries and encourage the growth ambitions of our colleagues, by promoting positive company cultures. The session was extremely insightful and inspiring, leaving attendees with tangible ways to start influencing through leadership in creative ways to promote growth of peers.