What does kindness look like in the workplace?

Transcript

Karen K  00:00

Press record. Okay, three, two. As we were planning this third series, we got to talking about the ways in which we describe workplace cultures. And we started touching on that in the last episode as well. I see a lot of job ads and websites where the culture is described as fast paced, fun performance space, but most often people just use the word great. But we've got to thinking What about kind and we have a tool that we use with clients, we're talking about gold culture, so you know, what's the culture that you want to achieve? And when we first put that together, we actually looked at a lot of research around different types of culture and we came up with four overriding cultures, so performance, innovative customer, and purpose. And although kindness can fit into any of those as a behavior, it did make me wonder if it could be an overriding goal. Culture is the thing that we're trying to achieve. And maybe I should just explain what I mean by overriding goal cultures that we think about someone like Amazon, who is very innovative and very customer focused. But we also know that they say that you know, at Amazon, you you run till you hit the wall, and then you just jump over it so they're overriding culture still seems to be performance, even though they have that innovation and customer bent. So I did some more internet searching on all different types of cultures, but kinda didn't feature in any of those articles. So then I did a poll on LinkedIn and after 41 votes, fun was the winner at 41% followed by kind at 34 and performance and fast pace for the bottom. So I was surprised by the results. And then when I looked at the comments, most of them referred to fun big important because if you're having fun, then that can help with energy driving performance, sparking creativity and ideas. And a number of comments said that if it was fun and kind, then that would be ideal. So today, Lachy, I thought it'd be great to discuss with you three things. So it's kindness in the workplace overrated? Is there a place for kindness in the workplace? And would you describe your culture to potential employees as kind?

Lachy Gray  02:35

For just a couple of quick, quick questions there for me Yes. That's interesting. I think. When I answered the poll, I really struggled to decide between kind and performance. I think when I think about fun, I think absolutely, you want it to be fun, but I think about when that's taken to the extreme and it's almost like it is the shiny things. You know, we got to nurses, on staff, we've got table tennis tables, we've got, you know, a slide down the floors. They occur, that's awesome. But deep, sort of become adapted to that over time. And then, what the next thing which I think we're very good at doing as humans, but I was thinking about this, I thought, well, we should be clear what we mean by kind in the workplace. So for me, it's people treating each other with respect, supporting each other, contributing to a warm and positive environment. And interestingly, another definition of kind is a group united by common traits or interests, which is, I think, certainly true of a high performing culture with a sense of belonging. So do all of those definitions resonate with you, Karen,

Karen K  03:56

I was asking you the questions. Yeah, I think that's that's really interesting, actually, what what is fun? Because there was someone that commented and she said she kind of understands the idea of fun, but as an introvert, it also makes her a little bit wary if someone said we have a fun culture because am I expected to go and socialize with my colleagues all the time? Yeah. Which I think is Yeah, fair enough. So yeah, so what is fun, and I think Kyle does the same and what is kind? And I think that I like the idea that it is those shared traits or interests, that sense of belonging, you know, goes into empathy as well doesn't you know, putting yourself in other people's shoes being more aware of other people. So is there a race of why we don't talk about kindness much in the workplace isn't seen as something that's too soft for the workplace.

Lachy Gray  04:59

Yeah, well, I was reflecting on my experiences and I think kindness does contribute to a healthy culture, especially if it's modeled by leaders. So my boss at the digital agency I used to work at was very kind and generous. And it actively supported my growth. You know, I I started there straight out of uni. I really didn't know much about anything. And he taught me from scratch, how to be a digital project manager and I think also white hope, a good human. And he led with questions he was understanding as approachable and I felt comfortable going to him these questions and challenges and times. I'll start though in hindsight, you know, when I'm reflecting on it now. Perhaps he was too kind. And that actually led him to take on other people's problems and a lot of them and that ultimately, really negatively impacted itself.

Karen K  05:56

Yeah, when I listened to that, I was thinking you know, sounds like a good example of overall leadership. You know, when we talk about what people should strive to be as leaders it's, you know, almost psychological safety in some ways, what you were talking about there terms of, you know, feeling safe to put forward ideas and talk through things and develop another person. And I think in the workplace, that's how we would normally describe it is as good leadership traits, not necessarily as kindness even though it is. So maybe No, maybe that shows we have that predisposition to not thinking about the worst kind, in a workplace setting. And it's not something that I've really come across in leadership texts, although we are seeing more about empathy. And, you know, is there a place for empathy in the workplace that that seems to be trending a lot more. And I think your point about, you know, is there a line that then starts to impact on your hills? Yeah, that's, I think an area that people do get concerned about is, you know, where are those boundaries in the workplace there seem to be too open too empathetic to kind will be taken advantage of.

Lachy Gray  07:10

Yes, for sure. And I think we touched on this in our previous episode about workplaces family. I think in one of the recommendations we had is to really set boundaries there. I think the same is is true here. I think that kindness can be taken advantage of what if we, what if we flip it and say, Well, what does it workplace look like without kindness? And so on, okay, so probably be pretty cold. People are inconsiderate. They don't support each other. If backstabbing and internal politics, but do you think?

Karen K  07:48

Yeah, it's pretty hard to envision it's a toxic culture for the people demonstrating kindness isn't it? They just they have to go hand in hand and I guess like, everything you know, you can overuse and under use certain traits and behaviors. So there has to be a good level of kindness, doesn't they?

Lachy Gray  08:13

All the time? I think. Yeah. As humans, we're wired for social connection and collaboration. And I, I think kindness is part of that, you know, we hopefully come to the strangers out on the street, if they're hurt. And perhaps reciprocity is related to you know, someone does us a good day. We're more likely to do the same for them. Or someone else. Literally reminds me of a fantastic episode of The Office with US version. Were two of the main characters Andy and Dwight trying to one up each other with helpful favors, so the other one owes them. So it starts with dry bringing in bagels and whenever anyone accepts you owe me Andy cotton's onto a quite early and he says you do me a favor where favor returned. Do not test my politeness and then to go back and forth doing favors for each other. Let me get the door for you. Oh, let me get it for you. Let me know at your seat. help you to your seat. I should say. And I saw it. Yeah, I think kindness can be used for personal gain at work. So if you want to persuade a colleague to support you on this great strategic idea in a bind for, like get out of your way to buy them coffee, stick up for them in meetings and you're essentially building up a bank of goodwill in favors for you to to action and demand repayment or then sometime in the future. So I think with that the act is kind you know, in in helping someone to sign binding coffee, the intention behind that it's not so depending on the circumstance, it might be harmless or that could actually be be serious.

Karen K  10:02

It's well, that facade of kindness, isn't it? And I guess you know, using the Law of Reciprocity for for evil. Because we are wired in that way. If someone does us a favor, we do feel the need to repay that. But I also think that that we're doing it in that disingenuous way. I think it gets sent through pretty quickly, like you might, you know, get taken the first time but I think after that, you kind of understand what actually that person's not being kind there. They're just trying to get something from me.

Lachy Gray  10:38

Yeah, and I think that's true as well. And I certainly hope that except in perhaps those cultures, where performance or results, that number one priority, and those people might actually be promoted because of those results. Even though the tactics are not ideal. I think there's also the danger of withholding feedback or criticism for fear of how it's going to be received or you know, desire to be kind. Hello, him Scott in her book about feedback called Radical candor. Also this and she says how common it is and I I think I've certainly been guilty of this in the past. So I think there's certainly a place for kindness though. I think they know how you separate it from other traits such as empathy or actively seeing. From it's not a core trait. I think it's one that comes along inherently and to answer your question about what we describe. The auto culture is current. We don't explicitly use that word, though. I think kindness is demonstrated. We talk about being a feedback culture, same feedback as a privilege. And I think if you buy into that concept then and then you want to give and receive feedback regularly. I think that you're displaying kindness because you want the best for the other person like you're trying to help them grow. And feedback that's delivered in an unkind way. is probably going to miss the mark because of how it's received. So if their city gets defensive, they start to shut down, mentally fight or flight or freeze becomes emotive, that opportunity to grow from that feedback is lost.

Karen K  12:31

Yeah, that's a really good point. And I think that I was reflecting on that, because in my line of work, yeah, there's often instances where managers and business owners are needing to have difficult conversations with their employees and they seek us for assistance on the best way to go about those conversations so that they can not have the person counter fight flight or freeze mode. So but I've also had it happen many times over my career where managers don't want to have those conversations. So it either just doesn't occur, or they think they can get the HR person to have the conversation for them. Which has always struck me as incredibly odd that you could outsource compensation to to someone else. And I hadn't thought about it in terms of kindness. Previously, for me, I thought about that more in terms of you know, that concept of cognitive dissonance. I don't want to be a bad person. But perhaps you know, for some people there is that element of I want to stay kind and to do that then that means that I'm not a kind person anymore. So good things for me to reflect on. And as part of this episode actually went back to be a character strengths. Have you ever come across them Lachy. So it's a free website. I'll find the actual website and put it in the show notes for this episode. And it's through the VA Institute in America, which was started by some research scientists and some positive psychology. Gods if you like in the psychology world, and they did an awful lot of research across the globe over many years to work out. What are the main character traits that are common across all different cultures and a positive character traits and, you know, one of them is kindness, which is why I went and got out my books, a bit of a nerd like that. To have a look at what the highest correlations with kindness were. And it was gratitude, teamwork, leadership, fairness, and love. Now, I know he wouldn't talk about love much in the workplace where it gets into trouble. But we do talk quite a lot about gratitude, teamwork, leadership and fairness. I found that interesting that that was they were the words that were highest correlations with the word kindness. The other thing I found interesting was that kindness was one of the top five most prevalent character strikes found in people across the globe. And the other part of the research is they talk about intervention. So how can you get better in certain ways they give you ways that you can increase your kindness for example, if you wanted to, but they also talk about where you have the strength zone. So where you have the best amount of kindness versus where you can under use or or overuse and if you under use kindness, then you can be seen as indifferent. And if you overuse it, you can be seen as intrusive. So I thought that was really quite interesting actually. And worth reflecting on. For Do you. Are we ever like that? Do we work with people like that? And how do we get back into that? You know, the right amount of kindness if you like in the workplace, what are your thoughts?

Lachy Gray  16:01

I like that. I like that as a as a frame of references. It's it's interesting that it's so prevalent, I guess, and it goes back to what we were talking about. As humans, how we're wired. It does make sense, doesn't it for cooperation, to show kindness. I can think of people I've worked with in the past that I perceived to be indifferent. I didn't think I thought of them as unkind but if I look at it through this kindness lens, then it's it certainly does that thought, but I guess without knowing the underlying motivation for their approach, it's hard to know for sure, isn't it? Yes. But I do see how kindness can be intrusive. Where I guess we assume that the motivation is good. But the way that it's delivered is is received poorly, because too much so I think I've certainly experienced that as well.

Karen K  17:05

Yeah. And then I was, you know, thinking about what how do we say this at the moment in the business world, and it's clearly been a tough two years. So you know, are people more open to the idea of kindness in the workplace because we've had to show ourselves as more human versus as employees or managers. And perhaps also less face to face interactions require more kindness, because if we're only ever doing written communications to people that can really take out the humanity and I'm sure you've had examples of where things have just been taken in a completely different way than what was intended because it was written communication.

Lachy Gray  17:46

Absolutely. And I was just gonna say it's since going fully remote, and we rely on Slack, a lot for our communication and we've actually put in a rule that if you go back and forth with someone in slack on a topic say more than three times and you feel like you're just talking past each other that you have to pick up the phone or, or jump on a video call. This reason, I think, because it's quite interesting that how quickly that message gets lost when we're writing especially really short, sharp, real time messaging, like Slack.

Karen K  18:26

how things can escalate very quickly. Yeah. Yeah. And then I was thinking, you know, can actually be a competitive advantage to add kindness into your employer brand or into your values because, at least at the moment from what I was looking at, there aren't a lot of people doing that. Whereas our very small sample size of poll I know that, but you know, it's not millions of people, but it does suggest that that would be really attractive to people to have a current workplace.

Lachy Gray  19:00

Yeah, I think so. I think the trick would be to define what that looks like in terms of behaviors in the culture. And I wonder would it turn anyone off the organization? Because kindness is so highly valued, what do you think?

Karen K  19:19

Well, then other type of people that you want, working in your business going back to what you're saying before, if you're out when you don't have kindness in the workplace, what that looks like. So if you have people turned off because you say your workplaces kind, yeah. Are they the problem? People that you don't want to hire? Anyway, so it could be an interesting piece of research in itself really.

Lachy Gray  19:43

Experiment between fun and time.

Karen K  19:45

Yes. Yeah. No, I think it'd be so interesting and I I gotta keep an eye out in job ads now and see if I start seeing any other words other than great culture, which seemed to be what everybody so that's always an enormous opportunity. So, you know, the takeaways from today, I think the three main things I would love for our listeners to think about is, you know, just revisit how you describe your culture, on your website and on your job ads. And can you add a more humanized element? So you may not choose the word kind, but is there another way that you could choose to describe your workplace? The second thing is what are your stated values and do they have an element of kindness and humanity you know, too often values things like accountability, service and, you know, do they actually have that element of humanity and something for your employees in those values as well? And consider if you want to be more intentional about kindness in your workplace, maybe you don't, maybe you completely disagree with us. In which case also, shout out. So what about you look any takeaways for you?

Lachy Gray  21:07

Oh, I think that that if we were more intentional about talking about comments, what would that look like? I'm certainly going to I'm going to think about this one. And also, is there an opportunity to talk more about fun. I feel like though there could be some pressure to really maintain that font by What does fun look like for everybody and how do you how do you keep doing it? Although we do have a party planning committee so they can take that on?

Karen K  21:36

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's the thing like you. I don't know. I guess it comes down to personality as well. That whole introvert extrovert thing? Yeah, there'll be people that will be really excited about a fun workplace and people that'll just be like, oh, what does that mean? How much work? Is that gonna mean for me? Yeah. So links to the articles and anything else we've discussed will be over on our websites yahoo.com.au or amplify hr.com.au. Just follow the links to the podcast section. And if you've received value from this episode, if you disagree with us or have anything that you would like to give us feedback, we would love to hear it. Just leave a rating or review over at Apple podcasts. Yeah,

Lachy Gray  22:21

please disagree with us. That makes it really interesting. And coming up in the next episode, we discuss onboarding and what we should be doing in the first 30 days for new starters really critical time. And for the first time, we're actually doing a webinar together can and onboarding is going to be the topic.

Karen K  22:41

Yeah. It's pretty exciting. So the podcast episode is coming up in two weeks from now. And the webinar is on March 30. So if you do want to join the webinars, it'll be an opportunity to be live and ask questions. We'll have a chat function there that you can type in your questions, you can email them in advance, so you can connect or follow us on LinkedIn because the event details will be in there. They'll also be on our websites, but it might be easier to find them on the LinkedIn pages for more details if you want to attend that webinar. Any final thoughts Lachy.

Lachy Gray  23:21

are thinking about fun and kindness in the workplace and see if there's an opportunity for us to incorporate those and and certainly encourage you to give us feedback and disagree on anything that we've said today. And thanks so much for joining us, and we'll see you next time. On the Make It Work podcast here we go. I was better. Yes.

Karen K  23:50

Was that the video back on? Did that episode I had the