It is a yoga company after all…
A place where the Vinyasa flows like wine and Yogis flock like the salmon of Capistrano. Leaders preaching consciousness, radical candor and work-life balance.
Then, one day, I find myself in down-dog thinking… what the F is going on around here? Why is the vibe so... off? Why is this pose so hard? And why am I so stressed that my mind can’t stop racing for a 15-minute flow?
But my troubled thoughts are quickly assuaged as management reassures me that “things are changing”, “everything is an open book”, “live your fullest self.” So I nod my head with excitement and confusion and chug along eating banana bread and pocketing avocados.
Months, maybe years later, during a midday flow, the teacher ends with a profound thought: “attune yourself to your surroundings, observe things as they are.” Ok so, if facts are facts, then what the executives preach must be fiction, because how else would a yoga company be filled with so many unfulfilled, smart, ambitious people? How would negativity, frustration, confusion & politics be so pervasive in an ethos of mindfulness, consciousness and other yogic buzzwords? What do these buzzwords even mean? And is the CEO’s article on Buzzfeed stating that “how we do things is more important than what we do” reflective of reality?
The company then hosts an excellent communications workshop, and we learn that every individual and department, no matter how disparate their duties, share the same disappointments, yet only one common denominator. It’s the only thing a 9-page culture doc, 8 additional layers of management, and infinite preaching of yogic brainwash can’t cure - poor leadership.
And bad breeds worse as you witness the loudest, most egotistical individuals crap-talk their way to the top, while the good guys head out the door. Meanwhile, management continues to spin its head to diagnose this elusive “problem”, looking everywhere - except the mirror.
You expect that most companies will use you to stuff their own pockets, but there’s something extra twisted and demeaning about it when it’s a Yoga company with such a strong positive outward impact, yet little inward trust and appreciation.
