One of the most noticeable and alarming effects of
the increasing demands in the workplace is the much greater levels
of stress, leading to high turnover, absenteeism, increased
disability claims, lawsuits and, worst of all, rising incidences of
workplace violence. Companies can no longer avoid dealing with what
we call the "soft" issues such as stress, training and employee
morale. This is because an abundance of research shows that
neglecting these issues is significantly debilitating people,
productivity and, consequently, profits.
It’s important to set the tone of this series of
articles by first explaining how the kindness movement in North
America began. Kind acts aren’t new to the world, but one woman
stood up for an ideal that sent ripples of hope around the world;
she was Anne Herbert, a California journalist. Anne Herbert was a
columnist during the early eighties who coined a phrase simply by
chance that has become one of the most famous quotes of our time.
From bumper stickers to key chains, this profound piece of advice
reads “Practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of
beauty.” Herbert grew tired of hearing news of random acts of
violence on the news, something I think we can all relate to. She
decided to do something about it and challenged her readers to
change this negativity to a positive by
promoting the opposite. She encouraged them to go out and commit
random acts of kindness.
Her method was simple. Convinced that people needed to hear more
good news, she started to write stories about kindness and
encouraged her readers to join in by spreading good news rather than
negative. Stories of random acts of kindness started to flood in
from around North America. Stories told of people paying for the car
behind them at a toll both, letting cars in during rush hour, paying
for someone’s coffee in a café, and on and on.
he Kindness Movement also has its roots in other countries around
the world. In order to provide a focus and springboard for the
promotion of kindness, November 13 was officially declared World
Kindness Day.
Why the Kindness Connection at Work
So how does an organization, or better yet, the
individual leader, make the leap to tabling the word “kindness” at
work without being ridiculed out of the room, perceived as someone
who is more interested in promoting those things considered “light
and fluffy” than the crucial bottom line? Kindness, in my opinion,
goes to the heart of the matter.
Our
society is
built on a foundation of many different types of relationships,
which connect individuals to families, friends, work colleagues,
communities, countries and our global community. From the
playgrounds to the boardroom and into our courtrooms, relationships
are at the very heart of our challenges as well as our solutions
both personally and professionally. The way we affect each other
relates to the quality of our interactions and ultimately determines
the health, well-being and success of our employees and our society
as a whole.
Leadership is all about relationships, and no matter
how hard a leader may try to ignore the fact that their team members
are bringing their personal lives to work, the reality is that they
cannot be expected to leave a part of who they are in the parking
lot. Although this has been the trend for most of our careers, it no
longer will fly in the face of the new generations entering the
workplace, and the older baby boomers are finally saying enough is
enough. Together we will see the workplace take a positive and
constructive turn over next few years as the issue of life/work
balance comes to the forefront as a recruitment and retention tool.
Kindness is a simple concept — too simple, one might
be inclined to think, to provide a solution to the complex and
serious challenges we face daily in work, and our growing propensity
toward overt and covert workplace violence. However, it is precisely
this simplicity that allows kindness such power and magnitude to
affect change at all levels within individuals and organizations.
Promoting kindness in the workplace as a core value only strengthens
the foundations of our businesses
We all know
what it means to be kind — how it feels to be the recipient of a
kind act — and the rewards of committing a random act of kindness
upon another human being. It does not take days of training seminars
or piles of manuals to teach people how to be kind to one another.
Kindness is something that each and every person knows how to do and
can appreciate across all cultures, religions, genders and age
barriers.
Thanks for reading,
Olivia
