Through kindness we have a greater opportunity to achieve higher results. Individuals who combine their skills with kindness and drive can’t be stopped. Studies even show leaders who project warmth are more effective than leaders that lead with toughness. This week, Dr. Pilcher provides you with 8 quick actions you can do immediately to accelerate kindness. Practicing kindness is one small thing, that has really big results.
This episode addresses questions, such as:
Recommended Reading: Connect, Then Lead by Amy J.C. Cuddy, Matthew Kohut, & John Neffinger via HBR
Recommended Learning: Exceed with Delight
__________________________________________________________________
Through kindness we have a greater opportunity to achieve higher results. Individuals who combine their skills with kindness and drive can’t be stopped. Studies even show leaders who project warmth are more effective than leaders that lead with toughness. This week, Dr. Pilcher provides you with 8 quick actions you can do immediately to accelerate kindness. Practicing kindness is one small thing, that has really big results.
This episode addresses questions, such as:
Recommended Reading: Connect, Then Lead by Amy J.C. Cuddy, Matthew Kohut, & John Neffinger via HBR
Recommended Learning: Exceed with Delight
__________________________________________________________________
Thank you for joining today’s Accelerate Your Performance Podcast. And thank you for having a desire to be your best at work and helping your organization achieve success. This podcast focuses on tactical actions to improve workplace culture and these tactics align to our Nine Principles® for Organizational Excellence.
Today, we’ll focus on “A Small Thing, BIG Difference.”
What do we know about small things. Mother Teresa tells us “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” In order to have strong working relationships to achieve big outcomes, we must first do the small things and an important small thing is intentionally acting with kindness. Great advice is given by the Dalai Lama - Be kind wherever possible, it is always possible.
Over my 30 years as a professional and my recent encounters with new hires, I’ve been much more focused on hiring people who are friendly and kind. In fact, gaining insight from new hires on these two characteristics is becoming a must to hiring.
I first review new hires by finding answers to these two questions:
Is the person kind?
Is the person driven to achieve results?
When a person has the skills for the job and knows how to integrate kindness and drive, they tend to be unstoppable. We are kind when we are friendly, generous, considerate, warm, and concerned. Being kind does not mean a sign of weakness; rather, it takes courage and great intention to be kind to others. Through our kindness we have more opportunity to achieve high performing results.
I spend much of my time working with top executives. I find them to be kind people. Natalie Harder is the Chancellor at South Louisiana Community College. She has great concern for students and the employees at her college. As we’ve gotten to know each other, I am constantly touched by her kindness with me – asking about my well-being and my family, and things she knows are important to me. It means a great deal to me and she is a great model for me to follow.
Sometimes kindness means starting a meeting with “tell me something about you.” Sabrina Hebeler, the chief of staff for Michigan State University’s Infrastructure, Planning and Facilities division, started an executive retreat by asking the executives to tell something about themselves that no one knew about them. It was magical to learn the neat things about each other. It started the retreat on the right foot – being kind.
Our team recognizes one of our teammates, Deborah, for her kindness time and again. They also recognize her for her drive to get things accomplished.
Kindness is also a willingness to full-heartedly celebrate someone else's successes. Kindness is to be openly happy for the other person. We’ll circle back to this concept on another episode. This one can be difficult to get right.
Our job as leaders is to make kindness intentional rather than some random act we exhibit from time to time. For those of us who have been teachers, we’ve taught children to intentionally practice kindness. We start doing so when children first enter school and somehow, we lose this teaching as we grow into adulthood. So, let’s take a journey back a few years to review the kindness teaching.
Listen as I read a story in a children’s book titled, Be Kind, by Pat Zietlow Miller.
Tanisha spilled grape juice yesterday.
All over her new dress.
Everyone laughed.
I almost did too.
But mom always tells me to be kind,
So, I tried.
I don’t think it worked.
I said, “Purple is my favorite color.”
I thought Tanisha would smile.
But she ran into the hall instead.
When she came back snack time was over.
She put on her smock
And didn’t look at anyone.
I almost told Tanisha that art was my favorite class.
But I didn’t want her to leave again.
So, I painted purple splotches and added some green
Until I had a bunch of beautiful violets.
While I painted I thought about Tanisha.
Should I have handed her my napkin?
Let her borrow my sweatshirt?
Spilled my juice so that everyone starred at me instead.
What does it mean to be kind anyway?
Making cookies for Mr. Rinaldi who lives alone.
Letting someone with smaller feet have my too-tight shoes.
(He might win races with them too.)
Maybe it’s helping put dirty dishes in the sink.
Cleaning up after Otis, our class guinea pig.
(He’s a messy eater.)
Maybe it’s paying attention.
Telling Desmond, I like his blue boots.
Asking the new girl to be my partner.
Listening to Aunt Franny’s stories.
(Even the ones I’ve heard before.)
Being kind should be easy.
Like throwing away a wrapper.
Recycling a bottle.
Or saying, Thank you. Bless You.
My mom says the quickest way to be kind
Is to use people’s names.
Hey Carla?
What’s new Omar?
Good afternoon, Rabbi Mandlebaum.
Being kind can be hard too.
Even when you know what to do.
Teaching someone something I am good at is tricky.
(Even when I am patient).
And sticking up for someone
When other kids aren’t kind is really hard.
(And really scary.)
Maybe I can’t solve Tanisha’s grape juice problem.
Maybe all I can do is sit by her in art class.
And paint this picture for her.
Because I know she likes purple too.
Maybe I can do only small things.
But my small things might join
Small things other people do.
And together they could grow into something big.
Something really big.
So big that all our kindnesses spill out of our school…
Spread throughout our town…
Travel across the country…
And go all the way around the world…
Right back to Tanisha and me.
So we can be kind.
Again, and again and again.
Thank you, Pat Zietlow Miller for the beautiful story. We can learn from it.
We all have childhood stories similar to the one told here.
When I was in 3rd grade, we had a new student join our class. He was new to the area and was a short, plump boy. His name was Henry. You can imagine when he walked in the room the type of reception he received – giggles erupted until our teacher put a stop to it. She asked Henry to sit by her until she could make him a place. She asked me to come to her desk. With dread I walked that way. She asked me to be Henry’s guide for the week and sat his desk next to mine. Similar to the young girl in Miller’s story, I had a mom who taught me to be kind. So, I took my job seriously. It was hard to do knowing I too might get a few giggles coming my way.
When we went to recess, I was the leader of one of the dodgeball teams. I was a good athlete, so I received that ranking many times. For some reason in school back then we did a cruel thing – let kids pick their teams. Hopefully, we’ve stopped doing that. So, the best players were selected first, always leaving the same people selected last. I chose my first player and so did the other captain and then it hit me that Henry would be the last one selected. I felt at the time that this had to be the worst day of my life. I needed to do the right thing and I couldn’t stand watching Henry standing alone waiting to be selected. So, I selected Henry as my 3rd team player. To this day, I remember him looking so relieved.
I think I had made a friend for life. When we got back in class sitting at our desks, he was so happy he decided to do this finger walking thing across my desk with a big grin. At that point, I said – you’re pushing it Henry. And we both laughed.
All these years, I’ve never forgotten Henry. He taught me a great deal about being kind. And, thanks to my third grade teacher for giving me an opportunity to be kind and for my parents expecting that of me.
After all isn’t kindness making someone’s day a better one and looking out for one another.
We’ve taken a moment to travel down memory lane back into our childhood. What’s fascinating is that we can also refer to research to understand how intentional kindness makes us better leaders.
I encourage you to read a Harvard Business Review article, by Cuddy, Kohut, and Neffinger call Connect, Then Lead.
Here’s what we learn from the researchers.
Leaders who project warmth are more effective than people who lead with toughness. Warmth is the channel of influence and helps leaders connect with others by showing they hear and understand what others are saying. By doing so, leaders build trust. So, kindness and warmth accelerate trust.
Trust increases information sharing, openness, and cooperation. If leaders can be trusted by their teams, coworkers can be trusted to do the right thing and live up to their commitments. Execution to achieve results becomes much easier.
Trust provides the opportunity to change people’s attitudes and beliefs, along with the outward behavior. This combination is the catalyst for getting people to fully accept a leader’s message.
The summary statement provided by the researchers is powerful.
“Before people decide what they think of your message, they decide what they think about you.”
Trust is usually the number one barrier employees identify as getting in the way of organizational success. Being kind as we’ve discussed today, can break this barrier in our organizations.
The best news is that we can engage in simple actions that can produce the Big result – establishing trust.
Here are eight actions you can do immediately.
1. Greet people - Use the 5 feet/10 feet rule. When you are 10 feet away from someone greet them with a smile. When you are 5 feet away, greet them with a message such as Hello, How are You Doing, Good day to You.
2. Say please – Would you please make a connection with Jerry to see if the two of you can work on a solution together? Would you kindly lend me a hand tomorrow to set up the room for the meeting?
3. Say Thank You – I appreciate your timeliness with getting me the report. It made my client visit much more productive. Thank you.
4. Be helpful to others – I see that you have a deadline to get the web page content online by the end of the week. Is there a way I can be helpful to you so that you can get that project completed? Or simply, how can I be helpful to the team? How can I be helpful to you?
5. Offer a positive outlook to get things accomplished – I am excited about this team focusing on the strategy we’ve defined to achieve the first quarter results. I see great promise in this team’s ability to do the right work that will have impact for our clients.
6. See a situation from another person’s point of view – I want to understand your thinking a little better. Could you give me an example of what your point of view looks like in action?
7. When you say you will do something, do it on time and with thoughtfulness. The team meeting begins at 3:00 pm. I will be there ready to go over the plan so we can make sure we provide the best experience for our clients.
8. Recognize others for a job well done. Shiva – you have inviting interactions while you are answering questions from people interested in the TeacherReady program. You get potential students excited about our program and you passionately answer their questions. If I’m on the other end of the call, I’m signing up today.
So, as leaders let’s focus on the one small thing that is really BIG. Intentionally practice kindness.
When we are kind we model intentional actions of kindness for our employees. As the young child said in the book Be Kind, our one kind act spreads to another person, and their acts spread to our teams throughout our organization and to our customers who may take the kindness and spread to people they come in contact with.
This week, what actions will you take to Be Kind? I’ve provided eight. Use some of these actions or come up with your own.
1. Greet people
2. Say please
3. Say thank you
4. Be helpful to others
5. Offer a positive outlook to get things accomplished
6. See a situation from another person’s point of view
7. When you say you will do something, do it on time and with thoughtfulness.
8. Recognize others for a job well done.
Why is this small thing so BIG? Remember -
Before people decide what they think of your message, they decide what they think about you.
Thank you for tuning in to Accelerate Your Performance. I look forward to connecting with you on our next episode where we focus on “Build an Emotional Bank Account” as we set the stage for how to engage in performance coaching conversations with our teams. Have a great week.