How kindness creates impact.

Coke ran an interesting experiment. A group of colleagues were asked to plan and perform 5 acts of kindness one day each week for a month. The researchers tracked the life and job satisfaction of those giving and receiving these small acts of kindness.

At the end of the experiment, both groups had increases their satisfaction, but over time (months later) only the givers felt better about their jobs and life. The uptick in satisfaction of the receivers had worn off.

What I find interesting about this is, the people who were chosen as kindness givers were not especially kind people. They weren’t asked to make grand gestures, and they spent very little time (and no money) doing it.

But it made a difference. And more so to themselves than the people they were kind to.

This tracks with other research measuring levels of happiness in people who were asked to either spend money on themselves or on others. The people who spent money on others were much happier than those who spent money on themselves.

The mountain of data is irrefutable - people who carry out the acts of kindness AND those who receive it have higher levels of wellbeing.

This explains the results from a research study carried out by Oxford University on workplace wellbeing programs. They found the only program that reliably created employee well-being, was volunteering. Everything else had - at best - marginal benefits.

Which makes the $53 billion spent globally on ‘corporate wellness’ seem a bit ridiculous. An amount close to what experts estimate would solve poverty in the uk.

My point is, kindness (in whatever form) is an incredibly powerful driver of well-being and job/life satisfaction.

And remember, it still costs more to replace people than it does to keep them... which makes the top 3 reasons people leave companies insane:

• Not feeling valued (54%)
• Having a ‘bad boss’ (52%)
• Lacking a sense of belonging (51%)

The research is clear: ’75% of employees a) consider their boss to be the most stressful part of their daily work, and b) feel that their boss causes them more stress than happiness’.

That is not the recipe for high performance.

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But let’s be clear, kindness is not about being nice.

Kindness is not allowing under-performance because the person is nice.

Kindness is not speaking about someone behind their back because you’re too nice to have the tough conversation the relationship needs.

Kindness is not ignoring the elephants or allowing the unspoken truths to derail your meetings because of an abundance of nice.

Avoiding difficult moments just deprives us of opportunities to demonstrate courageous kindness.

Courageous Kindness in action

When someone is a chronic under-performer, living with the sword of Damocles above you is unhealthy. Addressing it and offering support is courageous kindness in action.

Speaking to someone, not about them, even when it’s tough, removes roadblocks and unlocks difficult relationships. That’s courageous kindness in action.

Exploring the tough stuff together in meetings, even when it introduces conflict is absolutely courageous kindness in action.

When leaders model this kind of courageous kindness, people adopt it as the default course of action. As courageous kindness spreads the shared value is far-reaching, impacting people, company, community, and society.

Hello. I'm Jason Moore.

I've spent 20 years leading, designing and coaching the planet's most ambitious and innovative culture transformations. I've activated game-changing purpose, values, habits and rituals, resolved the impact of toxic beliefs, prepared leaders, and I've been deeply involved in the nitty gritty of everyday change.

I've worked with culture heavyweights, including Microsoft, HSBC, Nordea, Netflix, Equinix and many others in more than 30 countries.

If you'd like to chat about how I might be able to help you, I'd love to set up a time to talk. Connect here on Linkedin or via [email protected]...