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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.

KBK_screens

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.

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.

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Try Turning Off The Outrage Machine

I’ve stopped following the news, and I have stopped engaging on my personal Facebook account. A simple reason has pushed me to do this. The outrage machine, at last, has exhausted me. But I have learned so much more in the silence of turning it off.

I can’t listen to any more stories about war, conflict, violence, political buffoonery, grievance seeking, or the collapse of the environment. I can’t indulge in anyone’s opinions on any of these matters, my own included. “Oh, that’s a cop out,” some will say, and with even a degree of validity, but I think one comes to a point in one’s life where one has to ask why one is doing something. What matters and what must come first? I can no longer leave consuming news media anywhere on that list and at the same time put my practice of kindness first.

“Well, if you don’t know about the details of the refugee crisis in Syria, how can you feel sufficient compassion for it?” some might object. But I don’t think one needs the details of the suffering of other lives, human or other, to feel compassion towards them, especially when knowledge of those details comes with so much with so much toxic manipulation of opinion.

In all frankness, few people who read about these issues do so in the service of open compassion. Rather, the news serves as a pretext for whipping up outrage, spiraling sharing and opinionating around each crumb of information, regardless of its truth. In order to keep us reading, sharing, and commenting, we are subjected to a deluge of reasons to get angrier at “them” for doing or not doing something, at “him” or “her” for saying or not saying something, at “you” for sharing or commenting in a certain way.

Enough!

And the result of stopping? From inner peace grows the strength to act. Every moment, every quantum of emotional energy that I’ve freed by unhooking from the outrage machine has come back to me multi-fold, with more productivity, greater impact, and deeper kindness.

I have found I can redirect my attention with the force of intention, not dispersed into an outrage that serves no one well and that improves nothing meaningfully. In other words, I have taken back control of that attention, away from the outrage machine that uses my emotions and beliefs to disseminate its products and to bring me back to the trough again and again. I find my time better spent in making a better world than in reading about a worse world.

And, for reasons I still wish to explore but which I still know hold true, I firmly believe that I have not surrendered to ignorance. Instead, I have simply moved along, to running my own machine of kindness and love, to building up steam towards knowing and doing what matters.

Confession: It took me months to build up the courage to form and then act on this principle. It seems to fly in the face of all of the values of good citizenship and informed intellectualism that I have absorbed over the years. So much so, that I have felt reluctant even to admit what I have done or face the stigma of “not knowing what’s going on.” But after a few weeks of doing it, in the face of such freedom, I can’t refuse the call to share what I am doing and why.

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An Anti-Resolution Revolution

We all know that New Year’s resolutions, for the most part, fail. Beyond setting us up for guilt and unhealthy self-criticism come February, resolutions prove ineffective by draining our ego and our willpower, without an authentic grounding for change. I have tried them, with middling success. I’ve tried the alternatives, everything from writing a manifesto for the year to elaborate matrices of written goals broken down into achievable steps. The result? Some progress, but honestly, for what?

In 2015, I tried a new technique for capitalizing on the arbitrary but still meaningful change in calendar year: defining a theme for the year. This year, I committed to the theme “make.” I printed out that one word and hung it around my office so that I could see it from every line of sight. Over the course of the year, among other things, I wrote more than I have in a long time, I took a painting class and created a few paintings, and I even founded Kindness Communication. Without holding myself to specifics or berating myself for missed objectives, I am coming out of the year stronger and more focused, and I believe that themes versus resolutions offer us a kinder and more effective path to personal growth.

For 2016, I have chosen a new theme: “look up.” I like that it means a wide range of things, from authentically meeting the gaze of people whom I encounter and sending them kindness to eagerly, optimistically embracing the future, despite the endless churning of bad news that can easily become an addiction. I see the phrase “look up” as shorthand for taking a position that embraces and engages with my surroundings with greater focus and connectedness.

While I couldn’t tell you now how looking up will manifest itself in concrete actions I take in 2016, I feel confident it will serve as a powerful tool for me as I literally and figuratively meet the year ahead of me with a direct gaze.

With that in mind, if you followed suit, what would you choose as your own defining theme for 2016, rather than making resolutions?

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Small Kindnesses And Holiday Depression

I would like to offer three reminders for kindness practitioners to help boost spirits during the holidays. We all know very well the truth of these simple propositions. The suggest a simple recipe we can use to spread healthy, positive holiday cheer.

  1. Many people feel an unexpected but still familiar sense of depression at this time of celebration.It may stem from personal memories, regrets, loneliness, feeling left out, feeling guilty for not seeming as chipper as those around us. Not getting enough sunlight may contribute further. Regardless of whichever personal combination of these factors affects individuals, the impact can result in pain, withdrawal, and sometimes even unhealthy behaviors.
  2. Showing even small acts of kindness to people can help alleviate their feelings of depression.We don’t need grand gestures of charity and holiday cheer, which may even play into the triggering factors in holiday depression. In many cases, feeling more empathy, more inclusion, more validation, and the like can help dispel depressive feelings and thinking.
  3.  Acts of kindness make the kindness practitioner feel better, too.We all benefit from an improved outlook and increased positivity when we act kindly towards others. Study after study has explored and validated the virtuous cycle of greater empathy and increased sense of interdependence sparked by acts as simple as smiling, greeting, helping, and connecting.

From these three, we can infer a simple holiday recipe as warming as any cookies or eggnog.

  • Take your best heart
  • Add small acts of kindness
  • Spread liberally.

Serves everyone.

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Morning Kindness

When I wake up in the morning, bleary-eyed, thinking about going back to sleep, I like to remind myself of what I can do with the day ahead using this simple mantra.

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Three Thoughts On Kindness And Language

I strongly believe that the language we use frames how we think about the world. For that reason, I also believe that we adjust our approach to the world when we adjust the words we use to think, speak and write about it. When we choose to enhance our practices in the world, as I have chosen with kindness, we can have noticeable impact when we reflect on how our words work on our minds and hearts.

Recently, I have been focusing on eliminating three very common words from my mental framework, in order to fine-tune my kindness practice: “is” (and all forms of “to be”), “not,” and “should.” Why?

“Is”

When we think/say something “is” something, we impose a certain reductiveness, equating what we say about it to the entirety of its being, even if just temporarily. When I think, “I am tired,” I foreclose so many other aspects of my feelings, intentions, and position in my own world. Even the subtle shift of thinking that I “feel” tired reinforces the reality that will have more energy later, that I honor my other feelings, and so forth. Or taking it further, I can say to myself, “I did a lot of good work today,” or “I want to get extra sleep so I can do my best tomorrow,” and suddenly, my thoughts don’t judge me or reduce me to one small aspect of myself at that moment. Instead, they open me to reflection and to action.

Similarly, think of what our words do when we say “you are mistaken,” or “she is homeless.” Again, we plunge ourselves into judging another, and reducing that other to our verdict rather than saying instead “I’d like to explain myself better” or thinking about potential acts of kindness.

You can always think of a replacement for “am/are/is” thinking, in a way that makes you an agent of kindness and a wielder or your own intentions. I have found, in making this change, that my thoughts of kindness to the world around me increase, and it makes my writing and communication stronger as an added bonus.1

“Should”

The language of external, abstract obligation tends to separate us from our own inner sense of purpose and our opportunities to inspire collaboration with others. Words like “should”2 introduce a sort of implied ultimatum into our thinking and communication. “I should finish this,” or “I should meditate every day” — well, what if I don’t? How much more constructive for myself if I say “I will finish this,” or “I will meditate every day so that I can think and act more mindfully.”

And when we communicate with others, every “should” shuts down a means for us to create shared mission, when a simple “let’s” can rally and inspire instead.

So, I see little use for “should” in my own life as I pursue my own kindness practice. Directed at myself, it feels like a weapon against self-compassion and personal motivation. Directed at others, it feels like a power play and a disacknowledgement of the value and energy my interlocutor can contribute to whatever goal or context we share.

“Not”

I’ve only just begun to focus on the word “not,” on my intention to avoid it, and on the mechanics of how to do so. Rather than thinking in negative terms, I would rather think positively, using statements that frame things in terms of what I see, feel, want, intend, etc. But my thinking depends heavily on dialectical contrasts, where I want to say something like “does not X, but instead Y.” If “Y” matters more, then why put focus on X at all? While contrast does help create clarity, I’ve started to think that I would rather use positive than negative contrasts (as I am doing even in this sentence by stating it as an active, positive preference).3 Dropping “not” opens up the opportunity to think more consciously about change, growth, evolution, development, etc.

Reduced use of “not” ties into the practice of kindness because it gives greater faith to what or who I am thinking about, rather than what I think about them, or my negative judgements about them. Rather than negating a perception in my own mind, I am trying to look more carefully at that matter from the external point of view. In other words, I only have to say something “is not” or “does not” if somehow, I am combatting something I previously concluded or imagined.

Honestly, I struggled to articulate my thoughts about “not” without saying “not,”and I don’t think they have fully developed. But I do remain convinced with all the certainty of strong intuition that avoiding it, along with “is” and “should,” will make me a stronger, kinder person.

Notes

  1. One exception: don’t drive yourself crazy trying to replace “to be” when it’s just for grammatical purposes, in cases such as “I am going,” “it is raining,” etc.
  2. Their cousins “must,” “have to,” and “need to” have similar effects.
  3. I am thinking of “positive” and “negative” here in philosophical terms rather than meaning “only say nice things and think nice thoughts.” To “posit” is to put something forward or assert it, rather than contradict or negate.
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Kind thoughts in the face of Syria’s refugee crisis

I try to focus my writing on positive calls for kindness, on inspiring examples. And at the same time I promote no religion. I will, however, offer this to people who speak about denying refuge to people fleeing violence in Syria, or setting out criteria of allowing only Christians.

Matthew 25:41-43
41 “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: 42 for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’

The hostility directed at people in need may score political points, but in no way serves the Christianity that many of those promoting it most strongly profess. I believe it demonstrates that religions of hate do not exist–people who use religions as instruments of hate do.

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Let’s demilitarize marketing

I have worked in marketing and communications for many years. Times such as these, most recently faced with the massacre of ordinary people in Paris just living their lives, remind me of a fundamental reservation I felt when entering this field. Why does marketing language tilt towards militarization and violence? If we believe that language and tone matter, should we not promote a change in the dynamic, and demilitarize marketing?

I came to my current profession by way of studying and then teaching French literature at the university level. That experience made many of the quirks of business language sound odd to my ears, but, over time, I assimilated, and wrote off my discomfort as the naive perspective of inexperience. I concluded it didn’t matter, and that I could ignore how strange it is to consider what we do as “strategy,” to speak about “penetrating” a market, to consider our audiences as “targets,” all straight out of the domain of military planning and tactics.

Yet a violent world calls for deeper reflection, calls for accepting that discomfort, and finally calls for constructing a better view of the world. To repeat, language and tone matter, so after a steady stream of mass murders by lone actors and by coordinated groups, I can no longer let it pass. Not in my own thinking, and I ask my peers to demilitarize their own mindset, too.

  • I will no longer call people “targets.” In my marketing and in my work for clients, I am helping them connect with humans. And, along the same lines, I won’t “target” any audiences. I will focus on connection and engagement.
  • I will no longer wage “campaigns.” For now, I have no better words than “initiative,” or “effort,” but in this case the less vivid language suits my purposes better.
  • I will no longer develop “strategies.” I will craft approaches, plan programs and projects, and then work with my colleagues to carry them.

Seemingly everyone in business speaks this way, so even in stating my commitments, I know I will slip. I will certainly not position myself as a language policeman to correct others who use this militarized language. But maybe, just maybe, it will wield the same subtle influence that I believe words have in connecting with people. And maybe, just maybe, it will demilitarize our world just one little bit.

 

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Kindness To Animals In Business

Kindness To Animals

People occasionally ask me why I speak of kindness to animals and kindness in business in the same breath. And I, too, have wondered whether these are parallel moral passions, or part of a consistent ethos. Even though they feel intuitively congruent, I feel the need to connect them with more rigor.

What I have concluded is that kindness to animals constitutes a core capability of compassion. Animals exist in a world of feelings and perceptions that we cannot access. One could argue the same for humans, as well, but with animals, the stakes for empathy are higher because of the greater distance between their worlds and ours. Our ability to be kind to them defines the outer limits of an empathy where our kindness to fellow humans sits in a comfortable and secure center.

If we can accept the imperative to treat animals well and acknowledge that their worlds are as legitimate and as subject to equal ethical consideration as our own, we can certainly treat our fellow humans and our fellow colleagues well, too. We can acknowledge their diversity and their unconditional entitlement to that consideration independent of power relations. As with animals, the worlds of our peers and of our customers may differ, but not our accountability for how we treat them.

And it goes further. Kindness to animals also enables a shift in attitude from exploitative dominion, viewing them as merely a means to an end, to responsible stewardship, viewing them with full faith in the integrity of their interests. As leaders and colleagues within our own organizations, as users of resources to which we add economic value, and as providers of services or products to our customers, there, too, we can map the way we treat animals onto a larger responsibility for care of our environment and the feeling beings within it.

More than mere metaphor, I believe we can intentionally shift from transactional to interdependent action in business, just as we do with friends and family and with non-human beings, to the greater benefit of all. The result: kinder practices in how we view the environment and in how we view labor, and deeper, more profitable, and more sustainable relations with our customers. Between these forms of kindness we find not only compatibility, but also congruence. The practice of one reinforces the outcomes of the other.