Communicating to inspire kindness

The unifying purpose of my work in communications and kindness is human connection. When our communications are effective, we understand each other better and can work together towards a shared goal. When we notice and value kindness in others and ourselves, we can find connections and be more open to working together.

I talk a lot about the power of kindness coming from human connection. It came up in the kindness and wellbeing workshop I ran last week. And in conversation with my good friend, Anna, over a cuppa yesterday morning. To name just 2 recent occurrences.

Just doing your job?

A few weeks ago I wrote an article here on LinkedIn about whether ‘just doing your job’ counts as being kind. For me, it’s not an either/or situation. That article inspired comments from my network about intent. Which in turn got me pondering further on this aspect of doing your job as an example of kindness.

Earlier this month leadership coach, Lucy Whitehall, sent in a story to Time for Kindness about a Transport for London employee she had seen helping a confused couple at a station. She described him as:

“doing his job with an extra sprinkling”

We’ve also had other stories about people going above and beyond while doing their job. For example, we heard about a barista who helped an elderly customer with the settings on his mobile phone. And I had the experience of a Sainsbury’s employee who saw me looking puzzled as I tried to find the eggs and asked unprompted how he could help me.

Going above and beyond

Stories like these get me thinking. What drives that “extra sprinkling”? What elevates something from ‘just’ doing your job to showing kindness (remembering my belief that it’s not either/or)?

Of course, there will be a number of factors and these will vary between individuals. Personality, background and training will likely have a bearing.

• You may simply have a character that compels you to go above and beyond the minimum.
• You may have been brought up to always strive to do more.
• You may have formal training or skills that lead you to always look for the next thing.

What’s the purpose?

There is another factor that I think comes into play. What do you believe your job is for? What is the purpose of your role? And how much are you thinking about that, above and beyond the operational tasks of your job?

The TfL employee is a particularly good illustration of this. If he was focussed on his job being to ensure customers have the ticket they need, helping them to work the ticket machine gets the job done. But if he looks at it as being about helping customers to get to their end destination successfully, the other questions he asked and the information he gave come into play.

Similarly, the Sainsbury’s employee might consider their job to be putting things on the shelves for customers to buy. But if they view it as enabling customers to get their shopping done, helping someone find a product on another shelf is part of that.

Communicating to inspire kindness

This is relevant in terms of my work to inspire people to notice kindness in the world. And it is also important for my internal communications work. The internal comms teams, as well as leaders and managers, have a part to play in communicating with employees about the bigger picture of their work. Making it clear why their job is important and what it is for can help them to think about it in a way that leads to an "extra sprinkling".

So if you’re in one of these roles, I’d encourage you to think about how you are including purpose (or the ‘so what’ factor) in your communications. This will be a great way for you to communicate with kindness in mind and drive human connection.

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I am an independent kindness cheerleader and communicator. I work with my clients to find ways to communicate their kindness stories, change attitudes and behaviours, and achieve their organisational goals. Find out more about my comms work on my comms website and about the Time for Kindness workshops on the dedicated programme site.