Practicing – Page 2 – Kindness Communication

2016-07-22

Let’s Bring Kindness Back to the Conversation About Guns

I straddle a line between advocating kindness as a way of business and life, and working with healthcare professionals to improve patient care and engagement. Often, that line becomes blurry, as in when it comes to the topic of gun control. When gun injuries take place, either with individual shootings and accidents or with mass casualty events, caregivers stand at the front lines, too. First responders rush to the scene, and victims arrive in emergency rooms and trauma centers. A recent in-depth report in Modern Healthcare gives us a lot of insight into the effects of gun violence on these other victims of gun violence, many of whom wrestle with physical and emotional exhaustion or PTSD. Their sacrifice and kindness inspires.

While I have my own opinion about the necessity of gun control, I won’t address it here. The conversation about guns needs no more polarizing voices. Sadly, perhaps opinions have locked themselves in to a point where conversation, too, freezes up and fails. I will address this aspect instead: the enormous respect and gratitude inspired by the kindness of those who respond and treat the victims. These caregivers put aside the politics and give their all, their time, their energy, and their peace. For them, guns don’t represent an “issue.” Guns mean real people, real suffering, real lives, and they respond with a remarkable depth of care.

As part of the conversation about guns, let’s thank the caregivers for their kindness, wherever we stand on the political spectrum. Let’s truly honor it, by imagining in full the strength and courage it takes to comfort those who have been injured, as well as those around them at the scene, or those in the hospitals that receive them. We have big questions to answer, both as a polity and as people, to move forward past this point. Despite a broken dialogue at the level of opinion and politics, however, we can at least acknowledge this kindness, and perhaps bring some of it along with us when we turn to the topic as a broader issue.

2016-06-132016-06-13

Open Grief (For Orlando And For Humankind)

Words cannot contain the vast sadness of what happened in Orlando on June 12, 2016. So many lives ended, so many more now confronting the loss of loved ones, the inexhaustible specificity of each person’s world. What we see as a single event in fact contains thousands of events, the stories and realities of those who were murdered, and of their families, partners, friends, acquaintances, coworkers, neighbors, and even pets, the impact to those who survived and those who responded. Enough vastness to defeat the mind, overwhelm the heart, and stifle the voice, all those fragments, each in their own right a universe of feeling and potential, now piercing the surface of our own realities as painful shards. But we can also open ourselves to these shards and cultivate them as seeds, not as ashes but as sparks to bring about a better world.

Often, we close ourselves off to the multiplicity of tragedies by looking for easy answers. We neatly package them in our hearts as one single event, unable to embrace the diversity of effects and equally reluctant to accept their many, many causes. Since Sunday morning, I’ve seen so many people grasping for the comfort of a single explanation, be it gun control, radical Islam, fundamentalism more broadly, homophobia, mental illness, domestic security, racism, or any other master narrative that helps it all make sense. But I don’t think making sense of it with a pre-existing explanation helps beyond one’s personal solace. All of these factors and many more converged at a single point in time, a confluence of forces with a tragic outcome which, too, splits off into more outcomes than any one of us comprehend to its full depth. This closed grief, however, also closes off the opportunity to create change.

We can accomplish so much more if we nurture open grief. Instead of closing ourselves off with convenient explanations and consoling tropes, let’s maintain a radical openness, in order to do full honor to all effects and causes. Beyond a call for just respect, however, our openness breaks more fertile ground for cultivating seeds of action. As a society, and as parts of the many interdependent tribes that compose it, we need this. We need everyone’s engagement to combat the many forces that lead to death instead of to kindness. If we only address one or a small few, the others will still come together and conspire with new allies to inflict hatred and pain. We can’t let our rightful, righteous anger at what happened tempt us into denigrating other people’s efforts to pursue change and prevent something similar from happening again. If we can’t commit ourselves to the struggles that our friends choose as their means to promote change, we can at least support them as allies who empathize with their commitments to change.

Similarly, at times like this, we can use our own open grief to reflect on what we can do for a better future. Let singers sing, let writers write, let doers do, let thinkers think, and let none of us look down on how our fellow humans choose to respond. In open grief, we look to our own most powerful tools, and we embrace the special powers of those around us. We can all acknowledge and encourage each other’s power, at our best, rather than scold each others efforts, at our most frustrated. And we cannot defeat the causes of our grief by tapping into the same sort of rigid absolutisms that led to it.

In short, none of us has the answer, but we all have the power. When we grieve openly, showing our sadness, and knowing the sadness of others, we channel that power in tangible ways towards creating a kinder world.

To learn more about the victims’ lives, see this interactive feature in The Guardian.

2016-06-02

Harambe The Gorilla: Compassion Is Not A Contest

The needless death of Harambe the gorilla deserves our sadness. By now, however, the news and commentary cycle has fallen into its consistent pattern. We saw the same with Cecil the lion. An unnecessary death hits the news and triggers an outpouring of sadness and outrage. Then, in come the commenters desperate to show they are somehow above it, above those of us who dare to grieve for an animal life. Why are some people so eager to use a murdered animal as a pretext for showing their moral superiority by stating concern for something supposedly more important? I don’t understand the underlying thinking.

As practitioners of kindness, as compassionate people, as basically ethical human beings, we can look at two situations and mourn for them both, each in their own sad terms, each acknowledged as such. Nothing in my grief for Harambe precludes my grief for refugees, my grief at unnecessary suffering and deaths inflicted on any living beings. In reality, our hearts enough capacity to hold compassion for all of this suffering and more. We don’t need to diminish one suffering to raise up another. We have enough kindness for all.

In addition to limiting our capacity for compassion, the pendulum swing points out the danger of a certain kind of moral reasoning. I firmly believe we must not appoint ourselves the arbiter of which suffering matters more than others. We don’t know, and when we pretend we do, we dismiss the grief and suffering of others. Scolding and policing other people’s compassion quickly leads to unkindness.

The kinder approach: let’s lift each other up, console each other, respect each other’s grief, and avoid the temptation of treating our compassion as a contest for who displays the most moral virtue. And let’s honor the victims of cruelty, be they human or animal, by acknowledging them in their own fullness, for their own sake, and in humble awareness for the value of all life.

Photo credit: Robert Streithorst

2016-04-25

10 Principles For Kind Marketing

As a kindness practitioner and professional marketer, I think often about whether the materials and messages that I put out into the world follow kind principles. Any time we take our audiences’ time and attention, we tap into a limited resource, perhaps even more so in a world where every brand wants its customers to engage as well as to buy. We can even look at the modern marketer’s engagement imperative as an ecological problem, where we compete for, and ultimately affect, limited resources of emotion and cognition. Prospects and customers have to divide these resources in smaller and smaller slices to accommodate all the demands placed on them by brands and, more important, by their lives.

From this perspective, marketing seems inherently unkind, if we look with compassion at the cluttered lives most people lead. But the following ten principles for kind marketers can help us shift to a better way of contributing to the lives of our marketing audiences.

Tell your truth: Before anything else, to practice kind marketing, you must believe in the value of what you are promoting. You cannot compromise on authenticity. If you work in an internal marketing department for a company you don’t believe in, then leave. If you work in an agency, take only the projects that align to your truth. If the product, service, or messages you promote do not increase the well-being of the world and of people in it, allow yourself the courage of moving on. While it may seem scary, it ultimately plays out to your benefit. The income comes back as you make yourself a stronger, truer marketer. I have left lucrative employers and then later clients, at the risk of short term pain, but not once do I look back and regret it.
Seek first to enrich, and only then to engage: The marketing collateral you produce, from a simple tweet to a website, brochure, or video, should bring something more to your audiences than just a call-to-action. Kind marketers stand behind collateral that genuinely makes lives better. Stir up the audience’s kindness, appeal to their best emotions and selves, entertain them, or educate them. For example, in my recent work with a healthcare company, we directed all of our efforts to helping patients focus on wellness. While we do intend to increase business through use of the services we market, we put wellness first, then create experiences that allow patients to engage more directly in their own healthcare. Only then, do we guide them to the care and services they need.
Put empathy first in your marketing plans: All good design thinking begins with activities that focus on empathizing with the customer. As a kind marketer, put yourselves in those customers’ shoes to understand how they use your products and services, and what matters most to them. That empathy should drive the content of your marketing and set the priorities for your marketing plan. In addition, you can empathize with your audience beyond their role as customers. If one of your audience segments is working single mothers, for example, think mindfully of the pressures on their time and attention before you start making demands on it. Not only does this reflect kindness, but also it increases your chances to connect with them on the basis of something they will need and buy.
Give customers just what they need, and no more: The low cost and relative ease of email marketing offers many temptations to marketers. Speaking from my own experience, I can think of several companies from whom I’ve made an initial purchase, only to regret giving them my business. Why? I enjoyed the product, but I did not expect multiple emails a day about every promotion and offer they might have. Much better to allow shoppers to opt in, at the time of purchase, and to specify their desired frequency of communication. To give a more positive example, one of my favorite online apparel companies sends me a discount or free shipping promotion along with anything they ship to me. I only see the one promotion, at the moment when I am opening a package and I am most excited about being their customer. That’s kind AND smart.
Release only the best collateral: We all work within limited budgets, but we can create quality collateral even at low cost when we drive ourselves to produce the best. When cost matters, dozens of sites now exist where we can acquire good stock photography, video, or audio. We can hire professional voice or on-camera talent for individual jobs. We can always make sure that our copy does not contain grammatical errors, logical errors, or inelegant style. When cost matters less, we can really push ourselves to meet the standards of an artist rather than a hack. Neither style nor substance depend on budgeting, if you put the full force of your commitment to quality to the collateral that you release into the world.
Open a dialogue: You may not directly interact with your audience, unless your efforts include social media, but kind marketers always find ways to treat marketing as a conversation. Tactics can include well-known tools such as Voice of the Customer surveys, focus groups, or Net Promoter. But tools alone may not suffice. As a marketer, you can make a mental shift by treating everything you do as part of the possible conversation between yourself, your product, and your audiences. You can listen to the way your friends and family talk about similar products, or how they react to various ads and promotions. You can watch what people do on social media, even how they move through stores, interact with products, and make buying decisions. As a kind marketer, you find the entire world becoming part of your conversation.
Work with others: Going it alone can result in unfortunate missteps. I know this from my own experiences, at the beginning of my career, where my passion for writing and my background of a recently completed PhD could very easily sway me into arrogance. It only takes a few sessions with product teams or with end consumers to realize that you do no one any favors by talking over their heads or speaking in an essentially private language. I also vividly remember, when in the role of a team director, I had to break the bad news to a web designer. “Those are swastikas,” I pointed out. Having creative talent may feel that talent gives us permission to go rogue, but we ultimately must remember that we don’t see our own blind spots. A team of trusted colleagues and stakeholders helps us make the shift from arrogance, or even offensiveness, to kindness.
Own what you produce: Even as part of an extended team of peers, stakeholders, customers, the more you connect with the products and services you market, and the more you take ownership of the work you do, the more you can imbue them with your own deepest commitments to the world at large, including kindness. When I speak about ownership, I mean the feeling of finding and committing to what matters most, rather than keeping things to yourself. That feeling keeps you from slipping into alienation, where you begin to make compromises because “it’s ‘just’ my job,” or “it’s ‘just’ the client.” Alienation, in turn, leads through inauthenticity even as far as to lies and ethical lapses. When you remain mindful that “I am doing this” and “I am saying this,” even though it’s on behalf of something else, you escape that negative loop and enter a positive loop of marketing kindness instead.
Promote sane consumption: As marketers, we don’t do our work in isolation. We operate against a background of constant consumerism, where brands push people to seek “bigger, better, and more.” Marketers can go a long way by triggering acquisitiveness and status anxiety, but that long way is the wrong way. “The overall effect of advertising is to stimulate the craving for consumption,” as Erich Fromm describes it in his masterful To Have or To Be (essential reading for kind marketers with a philosophical bent). In a world of limited natural resources and in the face of a distressed environment, we can focus our messaging on giving people choices to actualize themselves and increase their well-being, rather than buying and wasting more. For example, in the case of an educational product, rather than focusing on the anxieties of potential students, we focused on unlocking potential and on long-term life outcomes, with much better results than a fear-and-doubt based consumerism.
Improve the world: Finally, without inflating the importance of marketing in the grand scheme of the world, we still must realize that what we do pervades almost everything in the modern world. Researchers place the number of brand exposures we experience each day in the thousands (including not just commercial but ambient messaging in the streets, on store shelves, online, etc.). By acting as kindness practitioners, by reflecting that kindness in the content of the collateral we put into this mix of constant brand exposures, and by actively promoting the connection between what we market and our customers’ richer, more deeply engaged and compassionate lives, we can change the underlying tone of this branded economic environment. We can do this with the images we choose, the attributes we highlight, and the stories we tell or ask others to tell about our brands. While marketing still focuses on the immediate choice of our product or service within the marketplace, it can also focus on the broader choice of how people consume and how they choose to be in the world, and that focus becomes the ultimate kindness we have to offer to those whose attention we call upon.

2016-04-142016-04-14

Kind Business, Kind Results: Margaret Meloni

Later this year, I will be teaching a course called “Becoming an Agent of Kindness in the Workplace” under the auspices of The Charter for Compassion Education Institute. One of my fellow instructors, Margaret Meloni, will be teaching a course called “Leading with Compassion: How YOU can be a Compassionate Leader.” I reached out to Margaret to learn more about the work she does. She focuses on conflict resolution strategies, emotional intelligence, dealing with difficult people, and effective communication, all of which help to build successful working relationships and keep the peace. According to Margaret, “a peaceful team is a high performing team.”

Here is a transcript of the discussion:

You describe your consulting and coaching process as a path to peace. How do you help people and organizations become more peaceful environments?

The idea of having a path to peace in the workplace originated from watching how one harsh word or thoughtless behavior could negatively impact a colleague for an extended period of time. With this came the realization that in any difficult situation, what you and I can control is our own emotions and reactions.

Initially, I provided coaching to individuals who were experiencing difficulties at work. Typically these difficulties stemmed from a challenging professional relationship or working in a corporate environment that was not a good fit. What this has evolved into is providing individuals or groups with tools that help them to strengthen their own skills in dealing with difficult people and difficult situations. The approach is really that peace comes from within, so why not become aware of how you behave while in conflict, how you communicate and how you lead? Work on yourself, because that is where you will make the biggest impact and the greatest contribution. You cannot force others to change. But your own behaviors and your response to their behaviors may in fact lead to positive changes. Then you can model peace at work, and you can set the tone for bringing kindness to the workplace.

How can kind project management approaches lead to better results (in teamwork, outcomes, etc.)?

Quite a bit of work has been done around the negative impact of stress in the workplace. High stress environments contribute to low morale, absenteeism and poor quality of work. A common cause of stress in the workplace comes from poor working relationships. Poor working relationships often stem from unresolved conflict and feelings of being disrespected and unappreciated.

Social support among employees helps to combat stress. In one laboratory study participants were exposed to equivalent levels of stressors. Researchers leading the study found that members of cohesive groups reported the least amounts of stress. Although employees can develop strong social support structures without their leaders, it is even better when a leader sets the tone by creating a culture of kindness.

It may sound trite, but it is true that a happy team is a productive team. A happy team is better able to work together to solve problems and overcome obstacles. The result is the highly sought after high performing team.

What can project managers do to maintain authentic and compassionate relationships with project stakeholders, especially when the project hits bumps in the road?

Here is a list of behaviors that a project manager can use to bring compassion to his or her stakeholders.

Encourage the productive resolution of conflict.
Discourage pent up negativity.
Practice forgiveness.
Reach out to team members who are going through a difficult time and express your concern and let them know you are sorry they are suffering.
Stop thinking about ME and start thinking about WE – when you stop focusing on your own status and ego, so will your team and this fosters a culture of kindness.
Allow your team to question you and even to occasionally debate with you – without fear of repercussion.
Allow your team to experience failure and then use the situation to teach and to help them grow, not to punish and admonish them.
Don’t think that being compassionate makes you weak.
Encourage employees to interact with one another, it is these interactions which create the bonds which help us to think about others besides ourselves.

Margaret’s ideas about intentional peace in the workplace create a healthy, stable foundation for kindness between colleagues as well as fertile ground for solid business results.

2016-04-082016-04-08

Ten Tips for Kind Parenting and Kind Children

A couple of weeks ago, a dear friend and respected colleague pointed out to me that the roots of my work on kindness go deeper than the corporation, into classrooms and homes where children are taught and raised. She asked me to write about the practice of kindness in parenting. I haven’t raised children of my own, and I felt out of my depth in approaching the topic even while agreeing with her insight. But I still wanted to do it. So I decided to ask her, and many other friends, how they maintain kindness in the ways that they interact, and how they foster kindness in their families.

Here are ten tips for kind parenting and kind children that I heard when listening to these many wise voices. No order or hierarchy implied, just deep respect for the good work these parents are doing. Note that I’m using initials out of respect for the privacy of the people who opened their hearts to me.

1. Kind parents raise kind children when they show kindness to others.

Model kindness in every interaction. Children see and understand so much when you think they aren’t looking. It’s easy to be kind to a good friend or a nice person, but it really means something when they see you can be kind to someone who isn’t kind. (KIH)
Modeling behavior is huge. Kids see and hear you from as early as 4 months, if not earlier. They will emulate you, your spouse, and your friends. Show them the world as you want it to be. (BZ)
Practice kindness and expose your kids to others who practice kindness. (KBC)
If other children or adults are not kind to our kids, we try to understand what is happening for that person. What is the explanation (not the excuse!) for their bad behavior. (MS)

2. Kind parents use mindfulness to reflect before reacting.

I’ve learned not to overreact, especially considering my autistic son. Any overreaction had a cascading negative effect that at times took days to reverse. (DM)
I’ve resolved not to yell. Our family smiles and talks it out. When we butt heads, we say “I’m not allowing you to take away my smile. (MSB)
We also give more control to the kids as they grow, and this may allow them to be less reactive and more thoughtful about what they want and what they’re doing. (LW)
Watch for things that trigger anger in yourself and learn tools to handle situations before you explode all over your kids. (LGP)

3. Kind parents keep their children’s worlds open.

Read all kinds of things, listen to music, travel, and share information on topics they ask about. Be there for your child and engage in life. (BZ)
Dinner table conversations are open to any topic. In our family, this applies both to our dinner table and the Sunday dinner table at my parents’, which we share with uncles, aunties and cousins. (KBC)
Look at the whole, beautiful individual in front of you rather than trying to shape him into the person you want him to be or think he should be. Give time and space and choices and room to make their own discoveries and mistakes. (LGP)
Parenting is all about opening up the world to a kid, and providing a level of emotional support and encouragement that allows kids to not just succeed, but also to fail gloriously. I try really hard to give my kids as much “leash” as I possibly can, and teach them good problem solving skills that they can practice. (LW)

4. Kind parents instill compassion for other species.

Respect all species and reflect on why you do. (BZ)
Having pets in their lives has transformed my children. Their senses of compassion and kindness has blossomed from loving animals and being unconditionally loved in return. (BW)
When my daughter cries in the seafood aisle lamenting the fate of the lobsters, I don’t ridicule her; I hug her. (AP)

5. Kind parents seek to understand and validate rather than shut children down.

Before getting frustrated and denying their feelings, the validity of their perception of the world, I try to affirm it verbally, at the very least, relate to it with a word or two, sometimes a story from childhood or from the present day. (SPW)
Our middle child is genderfluid, and we have tried to be as open and supportive about how they are making their way in the world as possible. (LW)
When my daughter talks to me, I listen. I put away my phone, close my laptop, turn off the television and give her my undivided attention. (AMP)
Honor their feelings – good and bad. Even when they’re upset about something that we feel like isn’t a big deal to us, we should honor and recognize their POV. (MS)
Throw away punishments. Life will offer ample limits and roadblocks. Whoever thought it was a good idea to try to make kids act “good” by causing them to feel bad? (LGP)

6. Kind parents foster kind schooling options.

Kindness is being taught in my children’s school. It offers regularly scheduled activities centered on teaching kindness and empathy as part of a character development program. They pair older and younger children. My daughter is able to see an older child model patience and kindness while helping her. I think practicing kindness to littler children makes the older ones feel really good, too. (BW)
Compelling other human beings to do things, without regard to their input, interests, desires… Is that what we would want done to us as adults? How is it kind to do that to children? That includes education. I don’t think it’s particularly kind to tell another person what to learn, when to learn it, and how to learn it, and then to reward or punish that person for how well he is able to do as he’s been told. (LGP)
Let them quit things. Dabbling is good. The more things they get to try, the more they get to discover what they like and don’t like. Don’t make them stick with something just because they started, or because you paid for it. (LGP)

7. Kind parents create community.

If you don’t have good parenting role models from your own life, find some. Get support. (LGP)
As a parent you are constantly wondering, evaluating etc. Because I want to be the best patent I can be, I started a book club where we ask each other questions, read nerdy parenting books, etc. I even write up “Cliff’s Notes” for moms who don’t have time to read the books. (BZ)
As LGBT parents, my husband and I thought it was important to raise our children in a religious community to foster kindness. Judaism focuses much more on our acts than our beliefs. As Jews, we believe there is a moral obligation to be kind to the “stranger” because we were strangers and slaves in Egypt. As a result, we have always emphasized involvement in the Jewish community as a way of fostering kindness in our children. (MF)

8. Kind parents don’t take cues from conventional wisdom.

I think it is kind to question and pick apart age-old (as well as trendy new) “truisms” about parenting and ask yourself mindfully how they apply to your child and your family and your philosophy: Things like, “They need structure!” or “A rule is a rule and they must follow it!” or “You are their parent, not their friend!” (LGP)
I try really hard to give my kids as much “leash” as I possibly can, and teach them good problem solving skills that they can practice. For example, both my older kids dropped out of traditional school and attended a self-directed learning school where kids can pursue what they’re interested in. The transition to college for our oldest daughter was largely free of the stress and upheaval and poor decision-making that marks so many kids’ freshman years. (LW)

9. Kind parents apologize.

When I do yell, I apologize to myself and him. (MSB)
I apologize to my kids all the time. Acknowledging mistakes is important, saying you’re sorry is important, accepting people’s apologies, not holding a grudge and moving forward from there is important. I often tell them that living with other people isn’t easy, it necessarily involves making compromises and not always getting your way. (SPW)

10. Kind parents deserve a healthy dose of self-compassion.

No one parent said this to me directly, but instead, each parent expressed concern that they might make mistakes, that they don’t always practice the principles they wish to. I doubt that parenting perfection exists outside the myths and anxieties of our media and marketing culture. So I would close this list of tips by responding with a final tip of my own, coming back to my friend’s original appeal for a post on kindness and parenting. When parents show kindness to themselves, see their own potential flaws, and forgive themselves in advance for missteps, they open a channel of confidence in their higher-level commitment to kind parenting and kind children.

Kindness does not mean flawlessness. It means “Trust, Respect, Choice,” as one of the children of these parents described it when she asked him what he thought about the topic. By direct application of these principles to themselves as parents, parents further magnify the kindness they instill in their children.

All of the parents who joined their voices to this list made their commitment to kind parenting and kind children abundantly clear. I am both grateful for and humbled by their firm commitments to helping other parents do their best, and to fostering a type of kindness that their children can practice and spread to others throughout their lives. In building a better, kinder world, we all do our parts.

2016-03-292016-03-29

Kind Business, Kind Results: (Re) Engage Consulting

In Kindness Communication’s latest Kind Business, Kind Results discussion, I spoke with Jennifer Hooten, Founder & Principal at (Re) Engage Consulting. I have the great privilege of working with Jennifer on a team of instructors offering online courses with the support of The Charter for Compassion Education Institute. I was struck by her vision for helping organizations and wanted to discuss it with her more.

Here is a transcript of the discussion:

What is your overall vision for (Re) Engage Consulting?

(Re) Engage Consulting exists to unlock the power of people.

Our work begins with a single premise: People are the single most powerful lever for organizational change. Human potential is a critical but often neglected component of an organizational strategy. The desire to make meaningful contribution exists in everyone, but if employees aren’t plugged into their work – if they don’t think and feel that they are contributing to something bigger than themselves – then organizations aren’t getting the best from them and employees themselves feel unsatisfied.

(Re) engage means “to establish or re-establish a meaningful connection with; to take part in or participate again.” Helping organizations participate again in a meaningful connection with their people is the most effective way to achieve lasting transformation. This is the (Re) Engage vision and is our specialty.

When companies face big change or difficult decisions, how does kindness play a role in enabling change and moving forward?

Bringing kindness and compassion into the workplace is a critical factor in an organization’s ability to navigate change constructively – for both the individual and the company.

But before we can give any attention or energy to pursuits beyond basic survival mode (physical needs like food, water, air, etc.), we must first feel safe.

Jim Haudan says it well in his book, The Art of Engagement:

“Ranking just above [physical] needs is the most basic psychological need: the need to feel safe…When we’re afraid, we’re guarded, cautious, and restrained, and we do everything we can do regain a feeling of security.”

Most jobs today require some degree of creativity, problem-solving, awareness of self and others, openness to collaboration, etc. Yet many workplaces are driven by manipulation, greed, and unethical decisions, which keeps people operating in survival mode and unable to make the contributions they most desire and that companies most need. Capacity for collaboration, creativity, innovation, and curiosity diminishes when one’s professional, psychological and/or emotional safety is in question.

Leaders who allow their people to spend an extended period in this survival mode can cause significant damage to themselves and those around them. This is where compassion comes in. Genuine compassion relaxes fear, increasing access to the workers’ ability to make unique and meaningful contributions.

Can you describe the before and after of a business situation where more kindness led to better outcomes?

I was hired by a real estate entity to assist them with a major restructuring. They had recently reduced their holdings by 40 percent as well as their staff, creating an immediate need for strategic change management as well as an opportunity to re-assess the functional effectiveness of the existing organizational structure. Our goal was to address both the short and longer term needs with special emphasis on building capacity through staff development.

Those who survived the lay-offs were understandably paralyzed by fear. They were balancing a mountain of new work and the constant weight of anxiety about their job security. People began to protect departmental “turf,” trying to remain relevant and necessary. Skepticism became the norm; the large rift between those at the top and those at the bottom had grown wider. With such low morale, how could they move forward to determine just how the work was going to get done?

We began with human needs first. I conducted confidential, one-on-one sessions with everyone who was laid off and everyone remaining in the organization. I listened. I empathized. I extended kindness and goodwill to people in the throes of threatening change. There were tears, hugs, and many awkward silences, and no easy answers.

Once we created a sense of safety, the fears subsided just enough for deeper concerns and desires to emerge. Interview questions adapted from Dr. Frank Rogers’s Compassion Practice helped people identify and better understand reactivity around a particular situation.

These questions form a handy acronym (FLAG) that created a different conversation than would have been possible with fear in the driver’s seat. It also provided a common language for this organization to use in the future as they communicate with one another.

FLAG questions open opportunities for kind dialogue in difficult situations. Feel free to share them!

From session responses, the freshly tilled soil of common ground emerged. I reflected back to the group the general themes that were shared, and the collective release was visible in the room. People nodded in solidarity when I voiced the prevailing fears. They noticed each other’s sighs when hearing about each others’ burdens. Compassion flowed…and it created the foundation for a new way forward.

After paying attention to each individual experience, creating a new workflow became more a matter of details than navigating personal angst. Because we began with a compassionate response to the human experience of change, the company attained organizational results that were more comprehensive, sustainable, and humane than moving into problem-solving mode first.

Jennifer will be offering her Charter for Compassion Education Institute course, entitled “Compassion @ Work,” later in 2016. I look forward to seeing more of her approach in action and to learning more about how it activates workplace kindness.

2016-03-18

The Future Of Kindness In Youth Philanthropy

Few things make me happier than seeing a young agent of kindness at work. It gives me great confidence that kindness has a future, even in the face of troubling times.

Blake Ansari is only eight years old, but he’s already begun working to make the lives of homeless children better by making books available to them. His “Blake Mini Library” initiative, begun in 2014 when he was just six, donates rainbow colored libraries and books to children in foster care homes and runaway and homeless shelters.

Why books? Blake knows that being an excellent reader is required to graduate from college and get a good job in order to save money to buy a home. Blake states “reading is important for science, math, technology, lyrics, writing, and drama. But, you cannot become an excellent reader if you don’t have books to read at bedtime and breakfast. I want every child to have a book to read at night in bed and in the morning for breakfast.”

This year, as he has done for now his third year of Valentine’s Days, Blake led the effort to inspire and collect book donations from a broad variety of donors on Valentine’s Day. Over 10,000 books along with a four-foot tall rainbow-colored “Blake Mini Library” were made available to homeless children New York, California and Brazil. Each child from birth to age 21 selects five books to start a personal library.

A sticker, created by Blake, is placed in each of the books.

Blake Mini Library
You Will Go To College!

Blake’s efforts and impact have grown year over year. At the age of six, he became the United States’s “youngest philanthropist.” Blake received the “Kohl’s Cares Regional Philanthropist Award” from Kohl’s Department Stores for his 2014 Valentine’s Day gift of over 600 books to The PATH Center, located in The Bronx New York. His philanthropy was featured in Ellen DeGeneres Good News Blog, The Atlantic, Positive Community Magazine, The Amsterdam News and countless social media sites. In 2015, Positive Community celebrated Blake’s philanthropy by featuring his work on the cover of their Commemorative 150th Anniversary Emancipation Proclamation Calendar.

His mother, Dr. Starita Boyce Ansari, says Blake has created a global youth philanthropy movement that sends the message of love, education and empowerment to homeless children around the world. “My parents, husband and I are committed to supporting this movement.”

In December 2014, Blake sent a letter to President Obama asking the President to help him ensure that every homeless child from Hawaii to Maine is able to read, so they too can attend college. In his missive, Blake equates homeless families search for permanent housing to The Trail of Tears. He hopes to hear from President Obama or First Lady Michele Obama. Blake Mini Library has requests across America and from other nations.

Or as Blake himself puts it, “when you listen to the community, learn from the community, and help the community, you connect to your best self.” I can’t think of a better way to describe why kindness matters.

2016-02-112016-02-11

Kind Business, Kind Results: Story2

In Kindness Communication’s latest Kind Business, Kind Results discussion, I spoke with Carol Barash, Founder and CEO of Story2. Story2 works with students to help them tell their most authentic story as a way to achieve college admission success. Unlike most other college admission support services, Story2 focuses on helping students be their own best advocate. The company offers a mix of online tools and coaching to help students explore their own stories and transform them into authentic writing for college, work, and life. It promotes the idea that telling stories unlocks a bigger, bolder life, beyond getting into college. I deeply appreciate the way they introduce this level of empathy and kindness to the highly fraught, stressful world of students aspiring to get accepted at colleges of their choice.

Here is a transcript of the discussion:

College admissions place so much stress on students and parents. The process can seem cold, even cruel, to aspiring students. How does Story2 work to make it kinder, truer to student needs, and better in outcomes?

The college admissions process has become very commodified and transactional. Students struggle to get top grades and test scores, as if these are ends if themselves—and in the process, they often lose sight of their own purpose and possibilities in the world. Story2 encourages students to start with who they are, what they bring to college, and what they want to achieve and contribute once they get there. When you reflect on the experiences that shaped who you are today, and imagine what type of world you want to create with your unique gifts and talents, the process becomes much more positive and there is tremendous potential for student learning and growth. Students who use Story2 storytelling tools to write their college admission and scholarship essays consistently outperform students with similar grades and test scores. When you reveal your honest and authentic character—in college admissions, job search, or any part of life—people respond and want to help you.

What do you do with communities of educators and admissions professionals to promote more kindness in the process?

First of all we help students and counselors to organize all parts of the admissions process—and especially all the different essays—so they can spend their precious time on the parts that really matter. Students can write better essays; teachers can provide one-on-one feedback; and counselors can spend time with students who most need their help. We encourage students to approach college admissions as a team sport, and to help everyone get to the shared goal of college completion with minimal debt.

How do the values that you’ve described affect the working culture at Story2, how people work together, and how you lead the business?

We try to make Story2 a “judgement free zone.” If something goes wrong—and of course it will; that’s life—we try to look at the situation without shame or blame and see what we can learn and do differently next time. We created an instrument for team reflection that I’m quite proud of. It’s call an AOLP, short for Achievements Obstacles, Learning and Priorities. We created the AOLP at first to help students look at their work, day by day, with an eye to what was working and what they were learning—and what they wanted to work on next. When we applied it to our own work, we realized how much we actually do each day, and how much we could learn and grow if we pulled out even on thing we wanted to work on—our priority—for the next day.

To learn more about Story2, visit their website at www.story2.com. You can experiment with their EssayBuilder to learn more about their step-by-step, kindness-based process for completing powerful college essays, or help out high school students and parents you know by sharing the link with them.

Kind Business, Kind Results is a monthly series of posts in which Kindness Communication interviews business leaders who strongly exemplify kindness values and practices. If you’d like to participate, please reach out.

2016-01-14

Kind Business, Kind Results: Kool2BKind

Earlier this month, I had an email discussion with Margaret Dolan, Founder of Kool2BKind Productions. Kool2BKind brings gamification to the practice of kindness by assigning positive points for doing kind things and penalty points for doing unkind things. It fosters a bit of friendly competition among players to see who can build up the most positive points. The current version of the game focuses on younger players, but will expand to versions for adults in the workplace and teens in coming months.

I especially like the idea that tracking kindness in this way draws attention to the fact that kindness consists in small actions, and keeps the player mindful of the impact of his or her actions.

Here is a transcript of the discussion:

What is your overall vision for Kool2BKind?

Kool2BKind is an iPhone game that promotes doing kind acts. Players get rewarded with points, encouragements, and cheers and for doing kind things and penalty points, discouragements, and boos for doing unkind things. Kool2BKind was created to be something fun that parents, teachers, student groups, church leaders — in other words, kindness cultivators — could use to educate and encourage groups on the importance of being kind.

Our current version is targeted for kids, 9-12 years old, but can be used by both teens and adults. We will be launching a Teen and Business version of Kool2BKind in the near future.

What motivated you to create Kool2BKind? Especially any specific stories or events that gave you momentum?

Like many people, I was taught to treat others as I would like to be treated. So, I have strived to live kindness as a life principle for my whole life. In college, grad school and my early business career, I was told by many that my kindness was a weakness, i.e., I was naïve or a PolyAnna because I chose to be kind. I was not deterred by these comments because I have always believed kindness is strength and unkindness is weakness. worked in environments where words of praise were few, but words of criticism a daily occurrence. I make it a choice daily to be kind to others — smile, say hello, compliment their appearance, praise work well done, etc., and I always get positive responses. Kindness makes people happy; encourages them; and helps people come together as a team. I realized that people learn to be kind by watching others be kind. They observe a family member, friend or business associate doing something kind and like what they experienced or observed. The next time they encounter a similar circumstance, they may do a similar kindness.

So, Kool2BKind was born out of a desire to provide a simple and fun tool that people could use to learn to how to be kind; to bring more kindness into their life and those around them. A mobile app was the way I chose to bring this goal to life — simple, fun and rewarding all around.

What specific kindness practices mean the most to you as a kindness practitioner?

As a kindness practictioner, I like to smile and to compliment people. Smiles and kind words are contagious things.

How does your kindness vision translate to the way you do business with others? Colleagues, business partners, suppliers/vendors, customers, etc.

Happy employees are more productive employees and kindness makes people happy. I have used Kool2BKind at work with positive results. I kept the game running on my iPhone and whenever members of the group participating in the game smiled, or said kind words to their co-workers or customers, etc., we counted the points on my phone. And when a co-worker said or did something unkind, e.g., sent an angry email, the sound effects of the game really made it clear that the remark was unwanted; and the penalty points were noted. Instead of being upset at the unkind remark, the group laughed from the sound effects and moved on to other more productive activities. And the person who sent the angry email really learned for the future. The activity was not only fun and motivating, but it brought the group together as a team.

You can download a copy of Kool2Bkind for free on the iTunes App store (search Kool2BKind); via their website, www.Kool2BKind.com; or via The Random Acts of Kindness website under Kindness Links.