Is kindness a leadership superpower?
Isabel Berwick is the PRESENTER AND EDITOR OF THE WORKING IT PODCAST AND NEWSLETTER for the prestigious Financial Times on the workplace and writes the weekly newsletter Working It. She is the editorial director of the FT Business Women’s Forum, moderates and organizes events external and FT reviews about the workplace and beyond, and is writing a book on how to thrive at work.
In her contribution today she says some very interesting things such as that showing kindness at work gets a bad rap, but it can be an effective tactic (and is not the same as being kind).
So next, she references researcher Dr. Bonnie Hayden Cheng who discovered that productivity improves with kind leadership
Isabel tells us that she is in Hong Kong for the first time and that she loves it. Let’s leave her words below.
Its borders were closed during the pandemic and it has faced political unrest and uncertainty in recent years, but it remains a dynamic and highly work-focused place.
Hong Kong is also diversity in action: a port city where different communities have mixed for centuries. (I attended a great talk on this topic by Vaudine England, author of Fortune’s Bazaar, a new book on Hong Kong’s multicultural history.)
You don’t need to be cruel to be kind (just avoid being too kind)
Hong Kong has a very different work culture to the UK and Europe, and reflects wider Asian society
Everyone respects older people and corporate leaders. I have been told here that younger colleagues are reluctant to speak. This is an obstacle (although, as I also heard, not insurmountable) for companies trying to foster an atmosphere of “psychological safety,” meaning that teams feel able to have difficult conversations about challenges and problems.
There’s also an old-fashioned view of hierarchy, and people in Hong Kong can be (there’s no way to put it politely) brusque. That’s why I was very interested in meeting Dr. Bonnie Hayden Cheng, Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong Business School, and hearing her about new models of leadership and corporate culture, in Hong Kong and globally.
Bonnie’s recent book is called The Return of Kindness: How Kind Leadership Wins Talent, Earns Loyalty, and Builds Successful Companies
That’s why she firmly believes that being kind (not to be confused with being kind) is an extremely effective leadership strategy (more on this later). But I asked myself: is it difficult to implement that approach in Hong Kong?
Yes, she said, “workplaces [in HK] are more hierarchical, bureaucratic and traditional, which can inhibit kindness in leadership. But I’m optimistic that we can raise the bar.
The pandemic favored kindness
Results from a large-scale “kindness test” by researchers at the University of Sussex, who surveyed more than 60,000 people in 144 countries, show that two-thirds of those who participated believe the pandemic has made people more friendly Ultimately, kindness is a choice and we all have a choice.”
Bonnie came to believe in promoting kindness toward leaders after, as she put it, “reading as many leadership books as there are. And she had been seeing a trend toward “human-centered leadership”: authentic leadership, ethical leadership, positive leadership. But we still don’t see it in practice. Over time, as we all know, these simply become buzzwords. I decided to cut through the jargon and get down to the basics. Kindness.”
Kindness is not the same as friendliness
The key point she is making – and it is one that top-down, authoritarian business leaders find difficult to understand – is that kindness is not the same as kindness.
I’ve struggled with this distinction myself in the past, but Bonnie articulates it clearly. Good leaders are weak because they refuse to bother anyone and don’t address problems for fear they won’t like them.
Real kindness, on the other hand, can lay the foundation for greater loyalty, trust, and openness between teams (i.e., all the things that underpin that coveted psychological safety). Bonnie’s research also found that productivity improves under kind leadership – the metric of metrics for any organization.
Bonnie explained further:
“Kindness doesn’t mean you have to lower your standards. You can still have high expectations, you can still hold your people accountable, but you do it with kindness as the underlying factor that allows your people to trust your decisions, knowing that you have their best interests in mind.”
In practice, we know that many workplaces, wherever they are located, have a long way to go before “gracious leadership” is likely to be implemented.
So I asked Bonnie: What’s a practical way that anyone (whether we’re leaders or not) can show more kindness?
He suggested asking ourselves this question: ‘What can I do for my people today that will make things easier for them?’ This can be something small, like checking in on someone who is struggling, it can be something bigger, like setting change in motion. “Asking how you can remove obstacles for your people so they can do their best work will reap great rewards.”
3 acts of kindness that overcome a bad work culture
Interesting is the contribution that we now offer from Shivani Vyas, who is currently the content editor at “Work It Daily”. She believes that a curious mind that is always open to personal development and self-reflection is the key to achieving anything. She graduated from Johns Hopkins with a master’s degree in Communication in 2018. In her free time, she is a bit of an organization maniac, she likes to paint in oils and is an interior design nerd at heart.
Chances are, each of us has experienced both kindness and cruelty in the workplace. Maybe a coworker made you feel special on your birthday by giving you something you love or your boss spoke ill of you even after you diligently finished a project.
It’s frustrating, isn’t it? Being the victim of a cruel comment or a bad situation.
By negatively contributing to work culture, you:
– Increases employee absenteeism rates.
– Creates a disruptive environment, lacking inspiration and productivity.
– Causes a high employee turnover rate (which costs your company a lot more money).
Harvard Business Review statistics also show that positive work cultures are more productive because:
– 550 million people lose their jobs every year due to stress.
– Between 60 and 80% of work disagreements between coworkers are related to stress.
So how can you show acts of kindness in your office?
It can be an antidote to a bad work culture. Be someone who brings inspiration, positive self-esteem and good news. Doing so can also help create a less disruptive world around us.
Don’t overlook the importance of being nice to your boss and coworkers just because they don’t belong in the realm of family or friends. We all spend much of our lives at work, which can become a prosaic environment, lacking creativity and goodwill… unless you start being kinder.
At Work It Daily, we advocate for improving company morale and employee health, so here are three easy ways to do it!
- Create a compliment box
Many offices have suggestion boxes, which provide anonymous feedback to the entire department. This easy and simple method has worked for years. Why not use this same concept for an add-on box?
Everyone can be encouraged to write positive words about their co-workers.
Write compliments on a piece of paper, fold it, and place it in the box! In staff meetings, one person can read praise out loud, which can be an influential technique that makes people feel good about their work and who they work with.
- Commit to random acts of kindness
Random acts of kindness—those actions that create a burst of joy without a hidden agenda—can be extremely rewarding for both the giver and recipient.
Examples:
– Offer to buy a coworker a lunch or coffee.
– Give someone a glowing recommendation to their boss.
– Organize a charity campaign.
– Smile and greet everyone you pass in the hallways.
– Remove ice or snow from your co-workers’ cars in the parking lot.
- Don’t join negative personalities
Just because someone around you is spreading rumors, gossiping, or engaging in negativity in any way in the workplace does not qualify as an invitation for you to join.
Stand. Say something or stop rumors from spreading, for example, when you know they are not true. Or try approaching negative people with utmost compassion and kindness; Sometimes they are the ones who need it most.
Listen: why it’s better to be interested than to be interesting
In this episode, Alison Wood Brooks reveals the secret to having better conversations.
Matt Abrahams is a passionate, collaborative and innovative educator and coach. He has published research articles on strategic communication, cognitive planning, persuasion, and interpersonal communication.
Matt published the third edition of his book Speaking Up Without Freaking Outopen in new window, a book written to help millions of people who suffer from public speaking anxiety. Additionally, Matt developed a software package that provides instant, proscriptive feedback to presenters. Prior to teaching, Matt held senior leadership positions at several leading software companies, where he built and led global learning and development organizations.
Matt is also founder and principal of TFTS Communications LLC, a Silicon Valley-based communication and presentation skills company that helps people improve their presentation skills. Matt has worked with executives to help prepare and present keynote speeches and IPO roadshows, conduct media interviews, and deliver TED Talks.
As a communications expert, Alison Wood Brooks spends a lot of time talking about talking. But, as she says, listening is equally important.
“My course is called TALK,” says Brooks, O’Brien Associate Professor of Business Administration and Hellman Faculty Fellow at Harvard Business School. “The great irony is that it should actually be called LISTEN. It is difficult to be a good listener and yet it is very important.”
In the latest episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Brooks covers conversation strategies for active listening, turning anxiety into excitement, and knowing when it’s time to change the subject.
Full transcript
Matt Abrahams: At the end of the day, communication is about connection, connecting our ideas, connecting with other people, connecting with a higher purpose, like the mission or vision of an organization, but how do we achieve this connection?
Mainly it is through conversation.
I’m so excited to be speaking with Alison Wood Brooks today. Alison is an O’Brien Associate Professor of Business Administration and a Hellman Faculty Fellow at Harvard Business School. Alison’s research focuses on the science of conversation and interaction, and she teaches an award-winning course called TALK.
Welcome, Alison. I’m so excited that we actually get to do this.
Alison Wood Brooks: Hi, Matt. Thank you very much for connecting with a friend from the east coast. I’m so happy to be here.
Reframe anxiety
Matt Abrahams: It’s amazing and I can’t wait to start our conversation, so let’s go ahead and get started. I first got to know you and your work when I was writing my book Talking Without Going Crazy. I came across your research on reframing anxiety. I know it’s from a long time ago, but I’d love for you to share this really helpful anxiety management technique by speaking. Would you mind sharing?
Alison Wood Brooks: Absolutely. I’d love to. When I was in graduate school, my thesis was about anxiety, but what was new about my thesis as a behavioral scientist was that everyone feels anxious and not everyone needs therapy or medication or that level of treatment.
Facing a strategy
What you really need are these smaller-scale coping strategies to help us deal with the normal feelings of anxiety that we all feel most of the time. Matt, what makes you nervous? Is there anything that makes you nervous?
Manage anxiety
Matt Abrahams: No, I still get nervous. You know, Alison, it’s funny. I get very nervous when I speak in front of people like you, people who study communication, people who know what I know, much more than I know. That’s when I get nervous. Other times I have learned to manage anxiety using techniques like the one you are going to present and others, but I still get nervous. And you? Do you get nervous too?
We are right to feel anxious
Alison Wood Brooks: Oh my god. Completely. Yes. I think it is necessary, in fact. You put a compliment in there, so thank you. That was very nice. I think we’re right to feel anxious, not just when we’re talking to people we admire and don’t want to mess things up, but also whenever there’s uncertainty and any kind of lack of control, which is a conversation… about how you’re constructed. , TRUE?
Matt Abrahams: Right.
The lack of control
Alison Wood Brooks: We are co-building this interaction right now. I don’t know what you’re going to say. I don’t know what you’re thinking, and I can’t know, so the uncertainty is always there and the lack of control is there, because I can’t control how you react to me or what you think of me, so really, the conversation is a very understandable place where you would feel anxious. There are many other tasks that also make us feel anxious.
We tried a very simple coping strategy, a very simple intervention, and the question was:
“Can people reframe their feelings of anxiety as arousal?”
It’s a really simple idea, but the reason it works is because when we feel anxious, we have this crazy instinct to try to calm down, like a really powerful thing. Everyone feels like they should calm down when they’re anxious, and that’s hard. That would require us to mitigate the physiological signs of anxiety, i.e. racing heart, sweaty palms, and elevated cortisol in the body.
Reduce negative emotions
You’re trying to reduce them, as well as move from the negative valence, like a negative emotion like anxiety, and move into the positive zone of calm. That two-step movement, reducing physiological signals and moving from negative to positive, is practically impossible.
It’s very, very difficult, especially the physiological component. Instead, what reframing as arousal does is it allows you to stay in that zone of high arousal. You are not trying to combat your automatic physiological processes, but rather you are simply doing this mental reframing from negative to positive.
Matt Abrahams: I love that it’s so simple, and in fact, it really is. Just say, “Hey, these feelings I’m having could represent emotion.”
Then you can start thinking about what’s interesting about this opportunity. I’m excited to share my information. I’m excited to contribute to this conversation. That allows you to stop fighting with yourself to calm down, not be nervous, and I have found it very useful for me and for the students that I teach and the people that I coach. So I really appreciate not only you explaining it now, but also that you did the work originally.
Alison Wood Brooks: Oh, thanks, Matt. I’m excited to keep talking about it. Come on.
Matt Abrahams: No, it’s great. Well, speaking of TALK: you teach one of the most popular electives at Harvard Business School and it’s called TALK. Can you tell us what the premise of your class is and perhaps highlight one or two key points?
Help people speak a little better
Alison Wood Brooks: Yes. I love teaching this course. SPEAK is an acronym. It is T-A-L-K and stands for Topics, Asking, Lightness and Kindness. What the course aspires to is to help people speak a little better. I started at Harvard Business School teaching negotiation. I started to feel a little frustrated. We have that focus, both as scientists and in public discourse, on difficult conversations or so-called difficult conversations, and this evokes conversations like negotiations or giving constructive feedback or giving tough advice or those things that we come to consider difficult.
What I have realized throughout my life, my teaching, and my research is that even easy conversations are difficult. We don’t just suck at the difficult ones. We also suck at the easy ones.
Matt Abrahams: They can be very stressful.
Make every conversation a little better
Alison Wood Brooks: Yes. Yes. Once you dig into the complexity and nuances that live and breathe within every conversation, you begin to see why it’s difficult, even when our goals are aligned, even when our only goal is to have fun. Even that can be a little difficult, right?
We could say the wrong thing. We don’t know how others feel, what they are thinking. That is the humble and extremely ambitious promise of the course. Let’s make every conversation a little better, but adding up all the conversations in your life, it could make a big difference for you, your career, and the people you love.
Matt Abrahams: As you well know, I’ve spent a lot of time lately talking about spontaneous moments in communication, because a lot of what is taught at your institution, at mine, is how to conduct formal, planned communication, and this Notion of Most of what we do in business and in our personal lives happens in the moment and happens in conversation, and I love that you’re studying it.
Anyone who has listened to this podcast knows that I am a big fan of structure in communication.
I think it can really help us in many ways. I know you also think a lot about structure.
Can you share your thoughts and research on the structure of conversations and how we can better leverage this knowledge to improve those conversations?
Alison Wood Brooks: Yes, of course. I’d love to. When I heard the word structure, it sparked so many ideas and thoughts in me that I actually wanted to turn this around, Matt, and ask you, when you think about the word structure, especially in the context of communication, what kinds of things are you thinking about? ?
A logical connection of ideas
Matt Abrahams: Great question. For me a structure is nothing more than a logical connection of ideas. It is a bridge of ideas, and it is not only the form that communication takes, but also the way you think about communication.
Having a structure helps solve one of the two fundamental problems I think we have in communication: what to say and how to say it.
Structure is how you say it, and then you can focus on what you’re saying. People call it history; People call it a framework, but it is actually the logical connection of ideas.
In a conversation, from my point of view, the structure unfolds in many different ways and you also take turns within that structure. That’s my perception.
I’m curious, what is your insight and what does your research tell us about the structure?
How a conversation develops
Alison Wood Brooks: That was a great answer. It really helped me understand what you’re thinking about. When I hear the word structure, I think there are three levels of things I think about. The first is mechanics, and this comes down to the most basic and fundamental of “how a conversation goes”, i.e. things like turn-taking and the very definition of what a conversation is. The way we define conversation in our very dry and academic sense is any exchange of verbal content between two or more people. It is the verbal, and by verbal I mean that there has to be language. There have to be words. They may be typed. They can be through sign language, but there must be verbal content.
So the mechanics I have in mind are things like taking turns. I talk, and then you talk, and then someone else talks, and then I talk, and ideally, you try to avoid as many cross-talk and overlapping turns as possible.
You can start thinking about what the time interval is between shifts
There is amazing research that shows that shorter pauses between turns, or silences between turns, as we would call them, indicate that you are closer to someone, that the speech is effervescent and exciting, and that it is fun and going well. You are clicking. Even just thinking about taking turns, there are a lot of things we can study and learn, even just with that basic mechanical thing.
Then they take turns and, in my research, I am very interested in the topics. What themes are is that you take a series of turns. You ask me this question: “What do you think about the structure?” Shifts are an organizational structure, but if we take all the things we’ve said on this topic about structure, that’s one issue.
Then we can break down the turns we’ve taken on this topic into one topic, and that opens up new ideas and thoughts about, “Well, how do we choose the best topics?” And once we’re on a topic, how do we steer it in a direction that serves my purposes and that best serves your purposes? And how do we manage the boundaries between topics? The heuristics of the topic are very intuitive for the human mind. What we don’t realize is that we constantly make these micro-decisions in our conversations to manage issues.
Literally every time you speak, you choose whether to stay on this topic or move on to something else.
So I’m trying to be a very polite guest on the podcast and answer your question about the structure, but I could joke and start talking about the Kardashians. That’s an option I have.
Matt Abrahams: Yes. Yes. That’s right.
Alison Wood Brooks: Anyway, those are topics. Themes divide our turns into thematic and logical fragments. Then, even within this mechanical cube, we think a lot about (and you said it very well before) what we talk about. There’s actually a lot more complexity there than we might intuitively imagine. There are actually three content streams. The first is verbal, the words we say to each other. The second is non-verbal, and it is about how your body moves, the gestures of your hands, your facial expressions, your gaze. Everything you perceive visually from other people is non-verbal.
The importance of paralanguage
Then there is this third segment that many people don’t know about or don’t consider as a separate category and that is extremely important to the structure of conversations, and that is paralanguage, and it is everything acoustic about how we talk to each other that is not words. .
Words carry meaning, but paralanguage can also change meaning. If I say, “Oh, I love it, Matt,” that’s very different than, “I love it, Matt.” I love it.” It changes it completely, and it’s just an acoustic property, the tone of my voice, how quickly I say it, the pauses, whether I laugh while I’m doing it, and there are so many aspects of paralanguage that that can change. .
Matt Abrahams: I want to go back to small talk, because small talk is something that a lot of us struggle with. The small talk we have in meetings, coffee gatherings, or even cocktail parties can really be a challenge for people.
What advice and guidance do you have to make small talk less challenging?
Are there certain choices (you talked about conversation being a series of choices) we can make to help small talk go more smoothly?
Alison Wood Brooks: Yeah. Small talk gets a bad rap, man. It’s not fair. It has a very bad reputation. The purpose of small talk is to help us easily coordinate around more interesting topics.
Everything about conversation is a kind of hubbub of coordination.
We are trying to coordinate with another human mind, like
– “What should we be talking about?
– How should we interact?
– What do I feel safe sharing with you? etc.
Small talk is really helpful
It’s the predictable way we open up this really crazy experience we’re about to have together. So I think it has a bad reputation. It serves a very important type of search process.
Matt Abrahams: Right now, Alison, let’s rename the small talk, you and I, together. Let’s change the name. Well.
The importance of small talk
Alison Wood Brooks: Yes. There’s a really amazing article in The Atlantic. It was written by an author, James Parker, and the title of the article was his Ode to Small Talk. I highly recommend this. He had this incredible quote where he said, “The slightest morsel of a word can launch you headlong into the burning void of another person’s soul,” and it’s really dramatic, but I think it captures the spirit of our quest. for a topic we are both excited to move forward on together. If you think of small talk as a search and really lean into it as an enjoyable searching process, then it can become less awkward.
Matt Abrahams: I like that notion of reframing, for sure, and I think it can help, when you see it as having a purpose beyond this awkward, “I’m standing next to you and I need to say something.”
Decisions that influence the conversation
I’ve learned (and I’m curious if you have any other thoughts on this) that in small talk, the decisions we make can really influence how the conversation goes. I have heard that there are two options that people usually make: support the options of the topic being discussed or change the options. Do you have any thoughts on that and maybe other types of decisions we can make to make things better or worse?
Alison Wood Brooks: Yes. We do a lot. We studied topic selection a lot and called it topic management. Two options is actually a good heuristic, but it oversimplifies what we’re doing, right?
The micro-decision when choosing topics
How we study this: We study the selection of topics step by step. Every time someone speaks, they are making a micro-decision and you could imagine it as “I’ll take this issue. “I am going to support the issue or I am going to change.” It’s a nice heuristic, but in reality there is a gray area between those two poles. There is also the option “I’m going to passively let you stay on this topic” versus “I’m going to actively encourage us to stay on this topic.” I’m going to say, ‘Oh my God, that’s amazing.’ Tell me more,’” which is very different from “Aha.” Good? That’s a big difference.
The same with change. You can imagine very subtly drifting movements that are almost ambiguous, as if we’re not sure if we’re moving toward a new subject or if it’s just some kind of blurry adjacent drift away from the current one.
More aggressive changes
Then there are really aggressive changes to new ones, where we talk about talking to each other, and then I say, “And also let me tell you about my chicken salad sandwich. Wow. Very delicious. “Everyone should eat chicken salad.” When we make these decisions about how to manage topics, there are several things you can do to support, like you said, or change to something new.
Something that really helps: we can all feel when the juice of a topic dries up
What we found in our research is that people who assertively shift in those moments are great conversationalists. If you can feel it, if there are longer pauses, if there is awkward laughter, if people start repeating things they have already said about the topic, these are signs that it is time to change, and doing so assertively is something we can all do. a bit better.
In reality, the risk is quite low because, if either of you feels that he has more to say, he can always come back to it.
That’s what’s surprising about the conversation. You can always come back and say, “Oh, yeah, wait. “There’s one more thing I wanted to tell you about this, and this is what I wanted to tell you all along.”
Or you can text or email them afterwards. Alright. We have an instinct to be a little afraid to change the subject because it seems rude or abrupt, or maybe they have more to say, when in reality it is much safer and it is usually a good idea to change to something new, because boredom and stagnation are the biggest risks we know of.
Matt Abrahams: I’m not going to take the advice you just gave and abruptly change the subject, because I hear a theme in several of the things you’ve talked about, and it’s really about being sensitive to what’s needed in the moment. .
For me, this consideration, this slowing down, is actually related to listening. You and I studied communication and there’s this notion that, in communication, it’s about what you’re saying.
But very often I find that it’s about what you’re hearing and hearing.
I know, in a recent conversation that you and I had a while ago, you told me that you’re really starting to focus your research on listening.
I’m curious if you could share a little bit about how you view listening and how we can become better listeners.
Alison Wood Brooks: It’s so funny you say this, Matt, because my course is called SPEAKING, and the great irony is that I think it should actually be called “Listening.” That’s one of the most important takeaways: it’s very difficult to be a good listener and very important. We have some really interesting research on listening that just came to light.
I work on this topic with a PhD student here at Harvard named Hanne Collins and a co-author named Mike Yeomans and my colleague at the Harvard Kennedy School named Julia Minson.
What we realized is that the human mind is made to wander
It’s not designed to focus on one person for long periods of time, and yet that’s what conversation demands of our minds: paying attention to those three streams of content that I mentioned earlier, the verbal content, all those nonverbal cues. , and also paralanguage.
It’s like drinking from a fire hydrant. We are bombarded by information and that information is very interesting. It often causes our mind to make connections to random ideas and then we want to elaborate and think about something else.
This feels like a personal profession where my own crazy mind wanders, but in reality, for everyone, it is a tremendous job to stay focused on one interlocutor while the entire conversation is going on.
What we have discovered in our research is a key piece:
If you make an effort to listen carefully to someone, show it to them. Don’t just assume they know.
There are decades and decades of work on active listening. This focuses on things like eye contact, nodding, smiling and laughing at the right times, and leaning in toward your partner, these kinds of nonverbal cues that you’re listening to someone, and all of that is great, but it’s great as a point of reference. very basic game.
What we are discovering now is that expressing your attentive listening with your words is what makes someone such a compelling communicator. I heard you talk before [about] how you also eat the same lunch every day, and the only way I can say that now is because I was listening to you and therefore remembered to mention it later or express affirmation and say, “It’s very interesting that you eat the same lunch every day. Why are you doing that?” and asking a follow-up question: These are undeniable signs that you really listened to someone, processed what they were saying, and are repeating it back to them.
These are the kind of high fidelity signals of good listening
And often people try hard to listen to someone and simply forget to show it. They forget to say it out loud and it’s a huge missed opportunity.
Ways to do this are through things like follow-up questions, callbacks to previous topics, paraphrasing what someone has said, or, if someone has said something confusing, revisiting those repair strategies, like, for example, can you ask a question that helps solve a problem quickly? misunderstanding or this type of break in your shared reality.
Can you do it right then and there, as if to say, “Oh, I heard you say something about listening that I didn’t quite understand.
Can you explain that to me a little more? All of these things show that you are listening carefully to someone and that you care.
Matt Abrahams: I think the gift of listening is a real gift and having to demonstrate it through your words is really important.
As someone who hosts a podcast and teaches people how to interview and lead panels, all of the skills you just talked about are critical to that success.
Alison Wood Brooks: Matt, are you always stuck in the meta-loop? Do you feel like you’re floating above the room, looking down at yourself? Is it like you’re communicating about communication?
Metacommunication
Matt Abrahams: Metacommunication is really key to becoming a better communicator, but I absolutely agree, and I actually describe it just like you did, that to become a better communicator, you have to engage and be present in the moment, but at the same time observing it from above to see what is happening and what is needed. Truly effective communicators learn to alternate between those two areas of focus to be effective, and it takes practice and time to do so.
You know, Alison, this conversation has been absolutely fantastic. I have learned a lot. I’d love to ask you the same three questions that I ask everyone on this podcast. Are you ready for that?
Alison Wood Brooks: I was born smart.
Matt Abrahams: Sure. I know for sure. Question one: If you had to capture the best communication advice you’ve ever received in a five- to seven-word presentation slide title, what would it be?
Be interested or interesting
Alison Wood Brooks: One thing that sticks with me: This was from a professional matchmaker named Rachel Greenwald, who I love and adore and who also teaches communication. She uses this catchphrase: “Be more interested than interesting.”
Matt Abrahams: I think that’s really powerful advice, especially going back to the notion of small talk and small talk. It’s really not about you. It’s about them. And I love that idea of being interested instead of interesting.
Communication allows us to express our humanity
Alison Wood Brooks: Even more deeply, I know we both teach about communication and conversation, but for me, conversation is just the vehicle through which we express our humanity to each other and our care for other people. So this idea of being more interested in others than trying to be interesting yourself is a good push to go further: it’s not about you. It’s about the people around you.
Matt Abrahams: And what you’re building with them, for sure. I’ll be very curious to hear your response to this one. Number two: who is a communicator you admire and why?
Alison Wood Brooks: That’s a great question. There are so many communicators I admire, Matt. I mean, I admire you as a communicator and for many reasons. Perhaps the most embarrassing thing is because you have such a lovely timbre of voice. It’s nice to hear it all the time.
Matt Abrahams: Wow, thanks.
Alison Wood Brooks: Yeah. We should get you to sing on this podcast.
Matt Abrahams: No, that would be a disaster.
Alison Wood Brooks: I think my real answer here is Stephen Colbert. In my course, we see some examples of his live conversations with other people. The first is a conversation he has with comedian Ricky Gervais and they debate the existence of God.
Matt Abrahams: Oh.
Alison Wood Brooks: Have you seen this conversation?
Matt Abrahams: I haven’t.
Alison Wood Brooks: Ricky Gervais is trained as a philosopher and what I love is that it’s a super serious topic, that they take it seriously and yet find these moments of levity that are so surprising, and even beyond lightness, they show incredible gentleness towards the other person’s perspective, particularly Stephen Colbert, very great for Stephen Colbert.
Matt Abrahams: Wonderful. Question number three: What are the first three ingredients that are part of a successful communication recipe?
Are there recipes for successful communication?
Alison Wood Brooks: This is very difficult. It is very difficult to choose. As a scientist, I can tell you what the strongest predictors of a good conversation are. It’s hard to narrow it down to three. I think it comes down to choosing good topics and making any topic good, asking good questions, finding moments of levity, and expressing our kindness to other people, but that’s an easy answer, so it won’t be my answer.
My real answer: I’m talking about this. I have a book coming out next year and so in the book we talk about Minding the GAP, G-A-P. G-A-P are these three ingredients of gratitude, so be grateful for your conversation partners, including giving you the honor of their time and being in their presence.
The A is acceptance. Every great conversation starts from a place of acceptance.
It’s a kind of “yes and” mantra that we borrow from comedians. So the P is patience, that is, knowing that we are always going to make mistakes, being patient with ourselves and other people, and trying to fix them, that is, being patient with people when, as expected, we falter.
Matt Abrahams: Well, I can’t wait for your book to come out and I really appreciate you filling in those gaps today.
Alison Wood Brooks: Oh.
Matt Abrahams: And helping us better understand how we can communicate, converse and really listen, so we can engage, show warmth and learn from others. Alison, it was a great pleasure having you and great talking to you.
Alison Wood Brooks: I am so grateful for your time. Thanks, Matt.
Matt Abrahams: Thanks for joining us for another episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart: The Podcast.
Being a good person is not the same as being kind. Why is the difference so important?
This contribution is from Jocelyn Solís-Moreira, for CNN, who is a freelance science and health journalist with experience in neuroscience and health content for women’s health and news/features for publications such as Health Magazine, Discover Magazine and Medscape , among other. Additionally, she has interviewed doctors and scientists about her research ranging from Alzheimer’s disease to the gut microbiome. She also has experience fact-checking for Everyday Health and updating existing health content.
It doesn’t take much to harness the power of kindness and it can be as simple as wishing someone a good day via text message.
When my father died of bone cancer last year, I received a flood of messages from friends and family expressing their condolences.
While I appreciated everyone who stopped by, I was especially grateful to two of my old college roommates who surprised my family with a delivery of breakfast bagets. Even though there was a mix-up with management and we never saw those bagets, this act of kindness stuck with me. It was the intention that mattered more than the food itself.
There is a difference between being a good person and being kind; even our bodies recognize the distinction. Kindness not only brings a lot of good to the world, but it is also good for your own health. It doesn’t take much to harness the power of kindness and it can be as simple as wishing someone a good day via text message.
Being kind versus performing kind acts
When was the last time you were kind? You may remember greeting a veteran for his or her service or greeting a stranger. Being kind means being polite and pleasing others. This may seem less authentic and rewarding than performing kind acts, said Dr. Carla Marie Manly, a clinical psychologist and author of the upcoming book, “The Joy of Imperfect Love.”
“If you’re a people-pleaser, you’re setting the expectation that the person you’re being nice to will respond to you in a certain way,” Manly said.
Kindness can be used as a social strategy to get someone to like you, she said. Think about the last time you complimented someone’s outfit, but you didn’t really mean it. Did you do it to get them to like you or did you feel obligated to comment on their new look like everyone else did?
The health benefits of a simple act
Being kind is less selfish, said Dr. Ash Nadkarni, associate psychiatrist and director of wellness at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts. On the one hand, kindness involves being generous without expecting anything in return. The other half is the purpose behind the action. A kind person acts out of compassion and genuine concern for another.
The difference is intentionality, said Dr. Catherine Franssen, an associate professor of psychology at Longwood University in Virginia, notes that a kind person tries to really understand what another person is going through.
Practicing kindness instead of kindness allows people to foster deeper, genuine connections with others, Franssen said. The more you do it, the easier it will be to relate to others and build more meaningful relationships in all aspects of life.
How kindness affects your body
When people act kindly, the brain releases a hormone called oxytocin. Popularly known as the “love hormone,” oxytocin is used to promote social connection with others.
Nadkarni said the influx of oxytocin into the brain dampens the activity of the amygdala, a region implicated in fear and anxiety. “It suppresses the feeling of fear and has a powerful impact on the socio-emotional functions of the brain.”
If you’ve ever felt less stressed about helping others, it’s thanks to the calming effects of oxytocin. It reduces cortisol, the stress hormone that triggers inflammation and a fight-or-flight response when the body detects a potential threat, whether it’s a wild animal or an email from your boss.
In addition to having less cortisol, Nadkarni said oxytocin helps keep the heart strong and healthy. The hormone releases nitric oxide, which dilates blood vessels and, in turn, lowers blood pressure.
“Oxytocin has wide-ranging functions and has a great impact on our health,” Nadkarni said. “Not only does it improve social connection and cardiovascular health, but it also ensures that inflammation decreases. “(Chronic) inflammation is the basis of many different diseases, such as diabetes and depression.”
Your brain in goodness
The warm feeling you get from performing an act of kindness is your brain releasing a ton of feel-good chemicals. Franssen said being kind increases the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter involved in mood, including happiness.
Kindness also releases dopamine, a brain chemical responsible for reward and pleasure. It’s why doing one act of kindness makes you feel so good that you want to do another.
Franssen said kindness can secrete endorphins, chemicals in the body that activate the opioid system, the same hormones that produce a runner’s high. Endorphins promote pleasure and act as natural pain relievers for both physical and emotional pain. “When we do nice things for others and someone does something nasty to us, we don’t feel so bad,” he added.
Random Acts of Kindness You Can Do Today
Being kind brings the same health benefits, no matter how big or small the gesture. Here are some good things you can do, starting right now.
– Pick up trash
– Talk to a friend who is going through a bad patch.
– Donate blood
– Text someone good morning.
– Keep the door open for someone to pass
– Surprise your parents with a visit
– Send a positive message
-Leave a generous tip for a waiter.
– Be an active listener
– Cook a meal for someone in need
Acts of kindness may seem strange and out of place at first. However, Manly said this feeling goes away the more you keep practicing. Very soon, it becomes so familiar that you will notice the benefits for yourself and others.
Let’s be specific about kindness in business
Nadav Klein is an assistant professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD. His research focuses on basic judgment processes that affect how people make decisions, process information, and evaluate others and themselves.
Some of the findings Nadav has explored are the surprising reputational benefits of being a little nice to other people, the ability of groups to detect lies, people’s weak desire to be seen as moral, and the strong desire not to be seen as immoral, and the overestimation of the amount of information they use to make decisions.
Nadav’s work has been published in academic outlets such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. His work has also been published and covered in professional and popular media such as Harvard Business Review, Scientific American, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, Business Insider, and Fortune.
Being nice in business has its limits – here’s why you shouldn’t go overboard.
Being kind to others is great when it comes to personal relationships. But is he great at business?
Regular readers of business publications would have noticed an increase in discussions about the value of kindness in the workplace and how it can be practiced effectively.
Kindness has also been increasingly emphasized in various industries such as oil and gas, fashion and beauty, consulting, security, marketing, agriculture and banking, to name a few. It seems that kindness has risen as a key management practice and business strategy.
In fact, being kind is better than being cruel.
Everyone would rather work with someone who is friendly, generous, and considerate than with someone who is distant, selfish, and indifferent. This is clear. But thinking more carefully about this point gives the disturbing feeling that it lacks substance. It is like a doctor suggesting medications to cure a disease or exercise to improve health. The key questions are: “What is the dosage?” and “How much and what type of exercise?”
As with many buzzwords in business, the idea of goodness seems true but also vague. It’s true that kindness helps in terms of how we are perceived by others, in negotiations, and in our treatment of internal stakeholders and customers.
However, recommending that people be kind in a business environment lacks specificity. It’s easy to find ways to be kind to others. But it is more difficult to determine how kind we should be.
Kindness has its limits
Consider the following situation. They give you a certain amount of money (say $10) and the opportunity to be nice. This opportunity is as follows: there is another person in the room with you and you can choose to give them some of the money. You can’t give anything; you can donate the full $10; or you can give anything in between. You don’t know this person, they can’t retaliate, and you’ll probably never meet them again. So, she really depends on you.
How will the other person judge you, based on the amount you decide to give?
Academic research has studied this question in several countries. The findings revealed that as the amount you give increases from nothing to an equal split, the other person views you more positively. But, most importantly, giving half is optimal. Giving three-quarters or even the full sum does not benefit your reputation any more than giving half the amount.
The result is replicated in various monetary amounts. It was also observed in cultural contexts, including Western (United States, United Kingdom, and Denmark) and Eastern (China, Russia, and Turkey). Although it is true that the situation described in this experiment is artificial, the findings are replicated in other scenarios, including donating to nonprofit organizations and sharing food with others.
What’s so special about giving half of what you have?
Additional experiments clarified that what matters is compliance with acceptable norms of behavior. In the case of unearned money, an equal division is the acceptable standard.
When it comes to dealing with customers, the necessary kindness consists of meeting their expectations. When it comes to responding to work requests from colleagues, meeting expectations is also key.
People simply appreciate others who meet social expectations so much that there is little room for their reputation to improve by exceeding them. The key idea is to understand how to manage the balance between benefiting another person and benefiting yourself. This will allow us to understand how much kindness we should exhibit.
Strike a balance
It seems that what others really want is for us to be decent. As long as we treat people according to basic standards of fairness and acceptable behavior—and are “a little nice” to them—we will quickly gain their approval and good will. In fact, other research has found that when people are treated decently, they respond with the same kindness as if they had been treated with more extreme generosity.
On the contrary, when we give so much of ourselves that we undermine our own goals and our situation, our reputation does not increase proportionately.
Herein lies the limiting principle of kindness: the “dose,” so to speak.
Be kind enough to meet expectations of what a decent person would do in the given situation. If you don’t, your reputation will suffer.
People will be less likely to want to work with you, and the goodwill you’ve built will quickly deteriorate. Go beyond what a decent person would do and you will not be rewarded, at least not in terms of reputation and working relationships.
One objection to these conclusions is that they imply that we should set limits on our generosity.
Does saying that kindness should not be exaggerated mean that there will be less kindness in the world? In my opinion, this is where the “in business” qualifier comes into play.
We’re not talking about romantic relationships or close friendships, nor about philanthropy. Although business relationships may be warm, they are largely transactional in nature.
Throughout the day, most of us who work in companies interact with many people: clients, colleagues, stakeholders.
It is not sustainable to maximize our kindness in all, or even most, of these interactions.
In reality, we often have to balance our own goals with those of our team and those of other people we encounter. If we set the goal of giving ourselves endlessly, we are not being realistic. And we might develop resentment toward others who seem to simply take from us without giving us enough in return.
In general, the recommendation to be friendly in business is good
Being kind is clearly better than being cruel. However, we must remember that in doing so, we must be in tune with the norms, social rules and expectations given in any given situation, especially those that are repeated throughout our days. Focusing on meeting those standards and expectations leads to enormous reputational benefits, while preserving our ability to, at times, prioritize our own goals over those of others.
Maintaining this balance and benefiting from its rich reputational rewards is the essence of the business case for kindness.
This article is adapted from a commentary published in The Straits Times.