The business case for recognising and understanding the importance of kindness at work and the
need to use these skills to enhance performance and develop a healthy and sustainable working
culture. In the range of leadership skills kindness is inherently quieter more personal
harder to see - and yes less interesting or cinematic than controversial tweets and 'bullying
boss' behaviour. But the most successful leaders and organizations recognise that kindness
builds empathy trust and psychological safety the cornerstones of so many desirable traits
and outcomes in many businesses: more creativity a better quality of decision-making safer
critical thinking higher levels of staff loyalty flexibility and retention a heightened
sense of engagement and higher productivity and profitability. The central premise of Kind is
that if you want to create psychological safety in your organization then there are no better
approaches than to create a culture that encourages kindness. Kindness and empathy act in a
sort of loop: acts of kindness inspire more empathy empathy inspires acts of kindness. This in
turn creates more trust between individuals which ultimately leads to a collective sense of
feeling safe to take interpersonal risks. Through this psychological safety people communicate
their riskier and more creative ideas own their mistakes instead of trying to cover them up
give the feedback that helps people to grow (even when it risks upsetting them) and support
each other with a sense of loyalty and reciprocity. By using the language of competency and
performance the author aims to convince the cynics as well as helping already 'kindful'
workers to articulate the power of kindness and make a strong case for its greater profile in
their organizations. The author argues that far from being a ?fluffy' or nebulous idea
kindness and empathy should be seen as 21st century superpowers. Part One of the book makes
the case for how kindness can support productive and positive work cultures and draws upon
research and data from psychology neuroscience management theory sociology and business
research. It also busts three important myths that need to be addressed to engage the more
cynical reader (or the reader's cynical colleagues). Part Two is centred around the Eight
Principles of Kindfulness. Each chapter covers one of the eight principles. These offer
practical advice for how to make kindness part of the fabric of your team and organisation and
are structured to take the reader on a journey from thinking about themselves and their mindset
("kindness starts with you?) through to thinking about the people around them and then finally
organisational culture ("it doesn't end with you?). Each chapter includes: an opening quote
original graphics a kindful hero story and a range of exercises to ensure practical action is
taken by the reader. The end of each chapter includes questions for reflection and a kindness
challenge.
