Practice Kindness
I recently had the privilege and pleasure of celebrating World Kindness Day with hundreds of Chicago high school students. Inspired by the World Kindness Movement which started over 20 years ago, this year, the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute launched thousands of global events recognizing the critical importance of kindness in changing our world.
The SIY curriculum teaches us that kindness is the engine of empathy, the answer to becoming a more peaceful and productive society. It also teaches that we can cultivate empathy through a simple two-step practice:
Recognizing our common humanity
Extending kindness to others
When we see others as similar to us, we become naturally more inclined to better understand them. Extending kindness makes us more receptive to them, and they to us in turn.
Ironically, in spite of our technology-enabled ability to connect globally with others, we seem to have become more isolated, divided, and unable or unwilling to cross the aisle to have meaningful conversations that are respectful, kind and support forward movement. Even in corporate settings we see a special variety of “othering”— rather than cross-functional collaboration—with sales versus marketing versus planning versus finance. It can become highly disruptive and destructive, for both corporate efficiency and social decorum.
Personally, I believe there is great power and beauty in becoming more kind and empathic as individuals, organizations, and a culture as a whole. When we express empathy—feeling with and as another being—we connect with fellow citizens in ways that enrich our communities and enable us to collectively achieve great things. Even when we perceive significant differences or have conflicting ideas or goals, the more we can recognize our common humanity, and extend kindness, the more we can diffuse reactivity, communicate in ways that serve, and decrease stress.
The good news is that, as human beings, we’re wired for just that sort of connection. Douglas Gentile, a professor of psychology at Iowa State University and author of a recent study on kindness, observed that students who practice loving-kindness—or wishing others well—experienced “lower anxiety, greater happiness, greater empathy, and higher feelings of caring and connectedness than those in a control condition”.
Numerous other studies on the science of kindness affirm the benefits of kindness to both the giver and the recipient. Gentile also noted, “It’s a simple strategy that doesn’t take a lot of time [and] that you can incorporate into your daily activities.” In other words, make kindness the norm.
One way to normalize kindness is to make a pledge to practice it on a daily basis. Kindness is contagious, and its impact spreads farther than we can imagine. And, frankly, it feels good when we practice kindness!
You may have heard or read news reports about a man in Manitoba, Canada, who picked up the tab for the next car in line at a coffee shop drive-through. His anonymous act inspired the next person in line to do the same and eventually spread to impact 226 people.
The very same thing happened to me just a few weeks ago in Chicago. The driver in front of me paid for my coffee, which sparked me to engage in a random act of kindness at the coffee shop, and it’s possible the chain reaction is still alive. If you want to start your own chain reaction that extends well beyond a donut and a latte, you can do it in three easy steps:
Pledge to do an intentional act of kindness
Share about it on your favorite social media
Pick three other friends and challenge them to do the same
On a broader scale, as a corporate leader, you can help create a ripple-effect by fostering a culture of kindness in the workplace—one that produces a less stressful, more productive workplace. Institutionalizing corporate kindness doesn't have to involve an elaborate plan or system-wide initiatives. It can start in simple ways: offer an honest compliment for a job well done, smile and greet a co-worker you don’t know, listen actively and with interest, ask a colleague how their day is going, or organize employee participation in a community event or altruistic cause.
Empathy can be nurtured by consistent mindfulness practice. Mindfulness naturally aligns with kindness and empathy in its focus on being present in the moment and outside of self. Meditation, in particular, can promote a sense of our common humanity and compassion for others. To get started, check out this guided meditation we teach regularly as a part of Search Inside Yourself, called Just Like Me, below. It’s my gift of kindness to you. Enjoy!
Mindfully yours,
Ashley