Tag Archives: Unkindness

The Jerk Shall Inherit the Earth?

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Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies, God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.” (Kurt Vonnegut)

Bandalier,NM-ladderWell … crap.  I’ve spent the last fifteen years reckoning the importance of kindness in my life, and the last five months deeply immersed in an exploration of kindness.  And I have become convinced that despite local, national, and world current events to the contrary, people are growing kinder; we are on the verge of a kindness Renaissance.

Turns out I was wrong.

At least that’s one interpretation from an article that appeared in the June issue of Atlantic magazine.  Entitled “Why It Pays to Be a Jerk,” author Jerry Useem asserts that—consistent with the old adage—nice guys generally do finish last.  He further claims that some of the most successful people in business are also some of the biggest jerks—think Steve Jobs—and that their jerkiness is exactly what led to their success.

Useem does caution that being a jerk can also backfire and lead to abject failure, but bad behavior done right in certain circumstances is often the path to the top.

For example, stealing supplies or provisions just to benefit oneself doesn’t advance you in the eyes of colleagues, but stealing and sharing the bounty with others puts you at the head of the team.

And someone who aggressively claims to have the answers, even when they don’t, is seen as a leader and often elevated to the leadership position.  Further, it seems that the more unaware one is of how unfounded and even deluded one’s self-confidence is, the more swift and direct is the narcissist’s propulsion to the top.  UC Berkeley Research Psychologist Cameron Anderson explained, “By all indications, when these people say they believe they’re in the 95th percentile when they’re actually in the 30th percentile, they fully believe it.” And somehow they make others believe it, too.

I think this explains so much about our political system, or “jerkocracy,” as I am moved to call it. It would seem that some politicians think they’re a lot smarter than they really are and we’ve bought into their delusion.  Okay, I know that’s a totally unkind thing to say, but really—do a quick run-down of presidential contenders—doesn’t it explain a lot?

Another distressing example in the article showed that people who are treated rudely and condescended to by salespeople in upscale brand stores (e.g. Hermes, Gucci, Louis Vuitton) tend to spend more money than they do when treated well by another salesperson in the same store.  There were some qualifications to this: the shoppers needed to value the brand, the salesperson must convey the image of the brand, and such tactics by the salesperson generally only work once with the same buyer (of course, if you’re selling Rolexes, one sale is probably sufficient).  It also completely backfired if it wasn’t a truly upscale store, i.e., don’t try this if you work at Kohl’s or Target.

Givers and Takers

If anything’s clear from the article, it’s that the whole subject is murky.  Useem cites research by Wharton professor Adam Grant, author of Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success.  Grant depicts “givers,” those whom we would generally describe as kind and generous, and “takers,” who are often labeled narcissists and jerks, noting that both givers and takers occupy the top—and the bottom—of the success spectrum.

The conclusion seems to be that you can be successful if you are kind and a giver as long as you are perceived as strong and are consistent in your behavior.  And you can be successful if you are an overconfident, narcissistic jerk as long as you are convincing and seen as someone whose success will have a spillover effect on those around him.  For both giver and taker, if you don’t convey your understanding of and ability to bring others along on your success journey, you can expect to make a nose-dive to the bottom.

So, it appears we have a choice if we want to be successful: we can be kind or we can be jerks—we just have to do either effectively.  While I have undoubtedly been a jerk at one time or another, I hope those episodes have been rare.  I choose kindness.  Being a jerk to achieve success would be soul-crushing.

Perhaps the choice between the kindness route and the jerk route depends upon how you define success.  I’ve never viewed it as either wealth or power.  Increasingly, I do define success as spreading kindness and helping others.  As long as power, intimidation, and obscene wealth constitute success for some, it looks like jerks will continue to lead.

So, the Atlantic article is discouraging.  There does not appear to be a straight path to a kinder and more respectful world.  Jerks are still reaping the rewards of their bad behavior.  There’s still a long way to go to reach the kindness tipping point.

Nobody ever claimed it would be easy.  But, we’re in this together and each time we choose kindness we move that much closer.

“Our lives are made of these moments.  Simple words and actions, taken together, weave a single day, and our days become our life.  Every gesture is a seed, and the seed determines the harvest.” (Wayne Muller)

Kindness and Curiosity

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“Curiosity is the single most important attribute with which humans are born. More than a simple desire to discover or know things, curiosity is a powerful tool, like a scalpel or a searchlight. Curiosity changes us. It is also a way to effect change, perhaps even on a global level.” (Loren Rhoads)

Attribution: Donna Cameron

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” (Albert Einstein)

Twice in the last week I’ve seen kindness equated with curiosity.  That made me curious. I’ve always thought curiosity is an important quality to have if one wants a rich and insightful life, but I hadn’t directly connected curiosity with the value I hold dear: kindness.

In an article entitled “Kindness and Curiosity in Coaching” that recently appeared in the Huffington Post, business consultant and executive coach Ruth Henderson described how her mother would posit a kind explanation for other people’s behavior: after being cut off by a speeder, Ruth’s mom speculated, “Maybe his wife’s having a baby and he’s trying to get to the hospital.”

Later, when Ruth was a business professional, her own coach encouraged her to approach difficult or frustrating situations with an inquisitive mind.  She told Ruth:  “Kindness and curiosity leave no room for anger and resentment.”

I think it’s true.  If I ponder a work situation where a colleague did something that seemed terribly inappropriate, or a client blew up and offended everyone within earshot, it’s easy to get angry or judge that person harshly.  But if I tap into my curiosity first, I have a very different response.  What made that colleague choose to act inappropriately?  Was she acting out of fear?  Was there a misunderstanding? Did she somehow not realize the nature of her action?  Was something else going on that I’m not seeing?

And what made that client blow up?  Fear is often behind many such outbursts—what might he be afraid of?  Or maybe he’s not feeling appreciated, or perhaps there’s a personal calamity in his life that has stretched him to his limits?  What don’t I know that might explain his behavior?

As soon as I yield to curiosity and allow for the possibility that there may be something going on that is beyond my awareness, I can replace my reflex response of anger or disgust with a desire to understand and even a desire to help.  Curiosity leads to kindness.

“When we aren’t curious in conversations we judge, tell, blame and even shame, often without even knowing it, which leads to conflict.” (Kirsten Siggins)

Curiosity vs. Discipline

In a recent article from the Harvard Business Review—one that I think should be required reading for anyone who manages or supervises other people, or who wants to—Stanford University research psychologist Emma Sepppala, PhD, describes how compassion and curiosity are more effective than frustration and reprimand in responding to an underperforming employee or one who has made a serious mistake.

Traditional, authoritarian management approaches tend to focus on reprimanding, criticizing, even frightening the employee—the rationale being that fear and embarrassment might teach the individual the error of his/her ways.  Instead, the research shows, it serves mostly to erode loyalty and trust and to impede creativity and innovation.

A more effective response to an employee’s error or underperformance is to first get our own emotions in control, and then view the situation from the employee’s eyes.  Here’s where curiosity comes into play.  What caused the mistake or what might be the reason for the poor performance?  What is the employee feeling about the error that he made?  Chances are he is horrified, embarrassed, and frightened.  A kind response—this doesn’t mean overlooking the error, but using it as a teaching or coaching opportunity and doing it compassionately—will engender loyalty, trust, and even devotion.  It will also be far more effective than reprimand or punishment in helping the employee avoid such mistakes in the future.

The loyalty engendered by the kind response extends beyond the particular employee you may be dealing with.  Seppala notes that “If you are more compassionate to your employee, not only will he or she be more loyal to you, but anyone else who has witnessed your behavior may also experience elevation and feel more devoted to you.”

It makes sense.  Everyone makes mistakes, and if our employees see their boss or manager respond kindly to a coworker’s blunder, they can feel secure in the knowledge that when they make a mistake, the response is likely to be similarly compassionate.  This fosters a culture of safety, one that encourages innovation, creativity, productivity, and loyalty—these are the qualities that the best and the brightest are seeking for their career homes.

Whoever said “curiosity killed the cat,” had it wrong.  Curiosity is one of the most beneficial qualities we can cultivate.  Combine it with kindness and magic happens!

“Let go of certainty. The opposite isn’t uncertainty. It’s openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow.” (Tony Schwartz)

Uber Kindness

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“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” (Desmond Tutu)

If You Are GrouchyI’ve been reading about how Uber and other companies are changing the dynamic of customer relations.  That old “the-customer-is-always-right” mentality is being stuffed in the trunk with our luggage, and in a nifty bit of table-turning, businesses are rating their customers and rejecting those who don’t measure up.

One would hope that the ultimate outcome will be both companies and customers who strive for pleasant and kind interactions.

In the case of Uber, while passengers have always rated their drivers, now drivers are also rating passengers, and low marks may mean the customer is left waiting at the curb for future transport.  From an Uber blog post:

“An Uber trip should be a good experience for drivers too – drivers shouldn’t have to deal with aggressive, violent, or disrespectful riders. If a rider exhibits disrespectful, threatening, or unsafe behavior, they, too, may no longer be able to use the service.  Have partner drivers been deactivated for consistently poor ratings? You bet. Have riders been given a temporary cooling off period or barred from using the app for inappropriate or unsafe behavior? Yes. The system works to make sure the most respectful riders and drivers are using Uber.”

Lyft, a private-driver taxi company similar to Uber, has followed suit in rating passengers and using those ratings to help determine whether or not to accept ride requests.  Home rental service Airbnb also makes ratings of guests available to help home-owners decide whom they will and will not rent their homes to.

It makes sense.  If I have a choice in who I drive to the airport or who I rent my house to for a week, I’d like it to be the courteous passenger or guest—not the ones who are rude, ill-behaved, or unpleasant.  Admittedly, courtesy can be subjective: one driver might give high marks to the passenger who sits quietly in the back seat, while another might feel that person was cold and unfriendly.  One driver might like conversation and banter, while others prefer silence.  The same holds true with passenger preferences.  Maybe it all comes down to simple common sense: when we meet a person, we gauge their communication style and their personality and we adapt to them.  Ideally, they do the same to us and we meet in the middle, recognizing that we’re each doing the best we can.

The implications are fascinating.  In the case of Uber and Airbnb, customers are learning to be polite and considerate.  They’re learning that people in service industries expect and deserve to be treated with respect.  And they’re learning about the consequences of behaving otherwise.

When the customer rates the service and the service rates the customer, the hope would be that the rating is approached with a spirit of positivity.  All are looking for what’s good rather than for what isn’t.  Those who are optimists and seekers of virtue will find what they are looking for.  The danger is that people who are naturally critical or negative will revel in their new role as faultfinders.  Perhaps the answer is a complex algorithm that calculates each individual in his or her role as both the reviewer and the reviewee.

While there is always the chance of abuse if a subjective system is utilized by subjective and/or flawed individuals, if the company culture is positive, I suspect the system will settle into one that is also predominantly positive.

The Comcast Factor

If one starts out with poor intentions, though, a two-way evaluation system is rife for abuse.  Look at what happened recently with Comcast—a company notorious for both abysmal customer service and a poor company culture.  In February of this year several stories of customer abuse were revealed.  When a customer tried to cancel service, her closing bill arrived addressed to A%#hole Brown.  Another customer who called Comcast to resolve channel access issues found her first name had been changed to “Super Bitch” on her next bill.  It would seem that these are not isolated incidents.  On another customer’s bill, the word “whore” was added before her first name and another customer was given the appellation “dummy.” Stories like this go all the way back to 2005, which would lead one to believe that Comcast has a serious culture problem and is doing little to fix it.  That obvious assumption is supported by the fact that Comcast consistently has the worst customer satisfaction ratings of any ISP in the country and is was named the “Worst Company in America” by a 2014 consumer survey.

The Beginnings of a Consideration Movement

Leaving aside companies like Comcast which show scant hope of ever exhibiting kindness or quality, perhaps there is a burgeoning consideration movement whose time has come: service companies rating their customers … dentists rating their patients … movie theaters rating their patrons….and all with the intent of creating a more pleasant and rewarding two-way relationship.  What do you think?

In our small company, we have exercised our prerogative to dismiss clients a few times over the years—nearly always for behaving disrespectfully toward our employees.  In every case, the decision resulted in improved office morale and created a space for a better, kinder client to fill.  Invariably, our only regret was that we didn’t do it sooner.

While it would be preferable if courtesy and kindness came naturally as a first response, perhaps the threat of a public rating system is what’s needed to arouse our kindness awareness, and that will ultimately lead to habitual kindness responses.

One can always hope….

“Unkind people imagine themselves to be inflicting pain on someone equally unkind.” (Marcel Proust)

Kindness Takes a Holiday…

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“If you treat people right, they will treat you right … ninety percent of the time.”  (Franklin D. Roosevelt)

Attribution: Bill WiederkehrI’m not sure how kind I was yesterday.  I don’t think I was exactly unkind, but no one hearing me would have remarked on my kindness, that’s for sure.

Maybe there are times when “not unkind” is the best we can muster.

It all started Friday afternoon when a work colleague alerted me to the fact that a client’s website would not accept credit cards.  We had set up the account months ago and this was the first occasion this small client had needed to process credit cards through its website.  And the need was immediate.

Since I was the name of record on the account, it was my responsibility to resolve it.  It wasn’t clear where the problem was, so I tried to communicate electronically with the two companies involved.  Neither company would recognize the account number.  So, I got on the phone to them.  After nearly two hours of back and forth and lots of automated messages and irksome hold music, it became clear that the account I had opened had been inadvertently closed, and an account we had closed had been kept open, but was not compatible with web-processing (more information than you could ever want, sorry).

Since I had a copy of a letter in hand confirming what account they told us last November was open and what account was closed—and the reverse had clearly transpired—it seemed like a simple matter to rectify the error. However, by the time it was discovered, it was close-of-business on the east coast and I was told that I would have to call back Monday.

It was a frustrating weekend, imagining members trying to register for an event and getting continued error messages.  We put a note on the website asking them to call us if they encountered problems.

First thing Monday morning—after a fortifying cup of coffee—I took to the phone again.  All the relevant information was at my fingertips: The name of the person I had spoken to when I opened the account, and the one who had assured me in November that account “A” was open and account “B” was closed, and copies of correspondence confirming the same information, and specifically saying that it was “web-ready.”  I also had copies of all the monthly bills our client had paid for a non-functioning account.  I was prepared.

Upon finally reaching a live human (no easy feat on a Monday morning), I was shuttled to three departments before someone would acknowledge that there had been an error and it was theirs.  Then I made the mistake of asking what I thought was a perfectly reasonable question, “How are you going to fix it?”

Well, it turns out, that’s another department, and they would cancel our non-functional account (at a charge of $125) and send me the paperwork to open another account.  If they expedited it, we should be able to take credit card payments within a week or ten days.

That’s when I got cranky.  “This was my problem, but it’s now yours.  You’re not going to charge my client a cent to cancel an account that is entirely useless to us.  And this needs to be fixed today, not tomorrow, not next week.  Whom do we talk to to make sure that happens?”

She named someone in another department.  “Okay,” I said firmly, and maybe a teensy bit loudly, “get him on the line, and you stay on the line, too, until we’re all in agreement that this is resolved.”

“But once you’re in Bryan’s hands, he’ll take care of you.”

I was now well into hour four of phone wrangling (phone hours being much longer than standard hours) to resolve this issue.  Bryan might be Pope Francis’ kinder brother, but until my problem was fixed, I wasn’t going to let Elsie off the phone.

After about 15 minutes I had assurances—both oral and emailed to me—that the account would be opened within 24 hours, there would be no fees for opening or for canceling the incorrect account, and they would personally petition for the repayment of monthly charges since last November.

One of our team members had heard part of the exchange.  “That wasn’t a pleasant conversation,” she commented.

I filled her in on some of the details.  “Was I terribly unkind?”

“Not unkind.  Not kind, though.  You were rather, uh, forceful.”

I found I was okay with that. Sometimes forceful might be what’s called for.  I don’t think I was rude, and at no time did I yell or swear at a human*.  I flunked “kind,” but I got at least a passing grade for “civil.”

When I started this blog, a cynical (but lovable) friend asked me if “living kindly” meant I was going to be a pushover for everyone who wanted to take advantage of me or of my kindness.  I told him kindness and pushover don’t equate in my estimation.  Perhaps we tested those waters this week.

I know there are people who could have resolved the credit card issue and remained kind throughout.  I am not yet one of those people … and perhaps may never be.  I guess that’s why I’m here….

*Is it wicked to yell at automated messages?  If so, I confess I was unkind.  In my defense, the disembodied voices seemed not to care….

“Being kind doesn’t mean being gullible.” (Aniket Jawale)

Extending Kindness to All

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“Being considerate of others will take your children further in life than any college degree.”  (Marian Wright Edelman)

Attribution: Donna CameronThere’s an old adage that “a person who is kind to you but rude to the waiter is not a kind person.”

We’ve all seen it: some clueless person who treats a waiter, or a cashier, or a laborer as if they don’t matter and are only on the planet to serve Mr. or Ms. Clueless.

Viewed from another angle: we’ve witnessed the people who fall all over themselves to be agreeable when the individuals they are dealing with are famous or “important,” but who look at the rest of us as if we were either invisible or something to be scraped off the bottom of a shoe.

True kindness isn’t selective.  A kind person doesn’t pick and choose whom to be kind to.

A few years ago, there was a story on the news here in Washington about a farmer in the Spokane area who closed his million-dollar-plus account when his bank treated him rudely.  He had gone into the bank somewhat dirty and dressed as he had been when working in his fields.  The bank personnel assumed he was a vagrant and spoke impolitely to him, making it clear they wanted nothing to do with him.  So he decided he wanted nothing to do with them.  He closed his sizable account and moved his money to another bank.  Good for him.

As the story was repeated in different news media, the moral seemed to be “don’t judge a book by its cover,” but that misses the point.  It implies that if, indeed, he had been a vagrant, then it would be okay to disrespect him.  It’s never okay to disrespect anyone.  The deeper lesson of the story is that kindness isn’t situational and it isn’t reserved for some people and not others.

Along this same vein, there have been occasions in our office when someone will call to talk to me and I’ll learn afterward that they were rude and pushy to our receptionist.  I remember one instance in particular:  a representative for a national speaker called to see if any of our client associations were interested in hiring his boss to speak at their conferences.  He bullied and badgered our receptionist, he spoke to her as if she were insignificant, and then asked to talk to me.  When he spoke with me, he was deferential and even fawning—he wanted to do business with our company and he saw me as the key to that door.  When I hung up, Alison came in to my office to ask if he had been as rude to me as he had to her.  Indeed not.  Needless to say, his boss never stood on a stage in front of any of our clients.

Robert Louis Stevenson famously said, “Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.”  I suspect the food at such a banquet is far more appetizing for those who have consistently chosen kindness.

Some people seem to think they only need to be nice to people who—in some way or another—can help them achieve their aims.  Maybe it’s advancing their career, making an advantageous introduction, or helping to acquire something.  Or perhaps—like the bank personnel—they make a judgment:  this is (or isn’t) an important person and I will treat them accordingly. 

Where do people learn that they don’t have to be kind to the cashier, or the waiter, or the service worker, or the homeless person?  I suspect they learn from watching others—parents first, but then probably bosses, friends, acquaintances, strangers.  Maybe they see it on television.  Children mimic what they see others do and say, not always understanding why.  How good it would be if parents and teachers remember the Marian Wright Edelman quote above and teach children the enormous lifelong value of practicing kindness.

It’s true that there are some people who don’t see any value to being kind, unless it can get them something.  There are some people who are, let’s face it: jerks.  But most of us aren’t.  We just need reminders occasionally that kindness begets further kindness, and that we can always choose kindness.

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” (Kurt Vonnegut)