"Mindfulness": Corporate America's Strange Gospel

Andy Lee has an interesting job title: He is his company's chief mindfulness officer, and he is not employed at some voguish Silicon Valley start-up or by a chain of organic-food co-ops — he works for Aetna, as old-fashioned a corporate giant as you could ever hope to find. In an interview with Healthy Workplace author Leigh Stringer, Aetna's mindfulness program was described in familiar terms: Participants are regaining 62 minutes per week of productivity, Stringer wrote. They are seeing an approximate dollar return, in terms of productivity alone, of more than $3,000 per person per year. Never mind karma — this is a bottom-line issue ...