Dave Stachowiak (5:35)

Ah, indeed. There is a lovely graphic in the book. It's a little four by four of nice versus kind. And there's two axes. One is concern for others and one is concern for self. And as folks would imagine what you just described, that the people who are too nice, there's a lot of concern for others. The part that I thought was really interesting about the 4x4 is the concern for self part because oftentimes when we think of, when I think at least of the word kindness, I don't necessarily think of concern for self right away. Could you tell me a bit more about that variable and what's so significant about it?

Graham Alcott (6:20)

Yeah. So I think when it comes to work and careers, often we have a sense that it's almost like a zero sum game. So for us, for me to be on a pedestal and for me to be progressing my career, I have to do that at the expense of other people and so on. And that's where you often get into this mindset of business being all about dog eat dog competition. And there's a whole archetype actually around what I talk about in the, in the book as the business bastards. Right. Which is the kind of ego led leaders who have a very strong concern for themselves but aren't necessarily the team players. They're not necessarily someone who is going to be humble enough to bring other people forward. And you know, the greatest leaders create more leaders, right? Not more followers. And so I think having a concern for yourself, I think is important when it comes to kindness because you want to have a concern for yourself, but you also want to have a concern for others and the endeavor and what else is going on. And so kindness, I think when it's done well, comes from a position of strength, not weakness. It comes from a position of saying, I know I'm strong and I'm going to use the power that I have to elevate other people, to meet other people's needs or problems, to tell people the difficult truths, but to do it in that graceful way. And so you kind of have to start from a place of having confidence and having a sense that you have something to bring to the table. So you've got to have that concern for yourself and that self confidence. But it's where it kind of tips over into having that confidence, but only promoting yourself and not being a team player that I think we get to something that's a bit more toxic or not that helpful. Whereas nice ends up being often a thing where you're the classic people pleasing where you're putting other people forward, but you're doing that at the expense of the own, your own skills or the things that you have to bring to the table. So, yeah, I think it's really important to marry those two things up. Have the confidence in what you bring to something, but also have the humility to elevate other people at the same time.

Dave Stachowiak (8:28)

And this does come very quickly to other people and leadership, of course. And Brene Brown has a beautiful three words that you highlight in the book. Clear is kind. And you expand upon that and say, being clear is an act of kindness in itself because it drives psychological safety. When you think about this from a standpoint of team and psychological safety, how does it connect?

Graham Alcott (8:55)

How does it connect? So, okay, so I did loads of research in the book. I was the starting point for the book, really. And the first half of the book is not actually aimed at someone who I think is already on side and on teamkind, as I like to call it. But what I thought was going to happen was a bit like what happened with Susan Cain's book Quiet, which is a book about introverts. But who bought that book? Introverts. It wasn't extroverts buying it to learn how to become introverted. It was introverts buying it to give it to their manager and say, hey, see me, this is how I like to work. The world is set up for extroverts, but I want you to just recognize me and I want. I want to feel seen. And I thought the same thing would happen with this book. And I. And I think that has happened. People who are already on teamkind buy the book and they give it to the people who they, in a sense, want to convert or they want to just feel seen. So they tend to give it to their bosses, they tend to give it to their colleagues. Not necessarily that they're giving it to colleagues who are known, unkind people, but they're giving it to colleagues to start a conversation and say, we want to bring more kindness to work. So I think that's an important thing to say because the first half of the book really is really set up with the cynics in mind. It's kind of set up to say, you might be reading this because someone's given it to you and your starting point might be there's no such place for kindness at work. And I wanted to appeal to those people. So I did a load of research around the different strengths that kindness brings to the table, the ways that kindness drives performance and what I found was that there are some very intrinsically linked, sort of different aspects to this. So the first is kindness and empathy. So when you set people the challenge of doing kind acts, so you say to someone, hey, we're doing a kindness challenge and we want you to do three kind things today and journal about them. When you do that, what you drive in someone is an increase in empathy. So empathy being a neuroplastic trait, you can learn to be more empathetic. And the way you do that is by putting yourself in other people's shoes. So when you set up the idea of kindness as a challenge, then suddenly, hey, I've got to find ways to meet people's needs. I'm going to be generally thinking in a more empathetic way because of that. Similarly, if you are naturally more empathetic, you are going to be more kind. So there's this lovely kind of virtuous circle between kindness and empathy. The next thing it drives is trust. So kindness and empathy drive trust. Trust is a one to one transaction. So I trust you, you trust me. I don't trust that person. I do trust that person. It's a one to one relationship. But here's the most important part, is that when you can get into a place where you're able to build trust, you're then in a position to develop in an organization psychological safety, which is a one to many experience. It's about saying, I'm going to show up in this room and I'm going to feel able to take the interpersonal risk that psychological safety allows me to do. So I'm going to say the thing that's difficult to say. I'm going to contribute the idea that feels risky. I'm going to talk to that person about the thing where I think maybe they've let me down. I'm going to, you know, raise the alarm where there might be something that is physically unsafe and so on and so forth. So there's something really important about those, those, those connections between kindness and empathy, trust and psychological safety. And once you're in a place of psychological safety, it's really interesting that the direct link, you know, when they look at what measures psychological safety, all of the behaviors are actually things that you would just describe as kind acts, right? So it's things like looking out for somebody is making someone feel welcome in that environment. There's the whole list of them. But all the science is really clear that when you have psychological safety in a room, in a workplace, in a culture, then what starts to happen is you drive high levels of performance, you have high performing teams, you have high levels of innovation and creativity because people are contributing ideas that feel a bit more risky, higher levels of engagement, happiness goes up. There's just this whole bunch of stuff. So I call it the gift of psychological safety because it's the gift that keeps on giving. And if you want to drive psychological safety, there's a lot of talk about it. These days, people talk about this terminology of psychological safety. Actually one of the key drivers of psychological safety is kindness and empathy. So if you can start with kindness, build up to this idea of psychological safety amongst your team, amongst the wider culture in which you're working, just the results are just off the charts when you can start to do that.

Dave Stachowiak (13:43)

And of course, the leader doing this sets the tone for the entire organization, or not. Right. Of being able to take that first step. And I'm thinking as you were talking about just this truth that clear is kind. And one of the things that I thought was really lovely in the book is the invitation you make to us, especially from a leadership standpoint of setting clear expectations. And that is a big help on getting down that road of being clear. And there are you highlight three V's. And I think anyone who's listened to the show for any amount of time would not be surprised at all by the first two. Especially the first one is vision. You know, what are we trying to achieve? We've talked about that a ton on the show over the years. Values. The second one, how we'll work together. We've talked about that a ton. The one that I think we've not talked about as much and that people I don't know in practice think as much about is the third one, which is value without the S. And that's the one I'm more curious about of what is different about value from vision and values. And what, what is so important about leaning in there as well.

Graham Alcott (15:05)

Yeah, for sure. So I mean, as you say, so the first two V's, vision and values, you know, there's probably not a leader in the world who's read any kind of leadership book and not heard vision and values, right? Yeah. But the third one, value without the S on the end, it's really about measurement. So Brenny Brown's quote, clear is kind. There's a second part to it which is unclear, is unkind. And I think we have a lot. What I see a lot in organizations when I'm going in and doing keynotes and workshops and talking to people is we are Often quite clear on what the bigger vision is. And we can be clear on our personal values. We might have a sense of what the values are that are written on the website or on the wall, but are we clear with the measurable, measurable value that we are bringing to that team as the leader of that team or as one of the contributors to that team? And as a leader, the closer that you can get with people to really pinning down what is the measurable value that you want that person to contribute, I think the clearer you become and the more motivating that becomes, I think. So often we get into issues at work where there's a lack of alignment or there's a lack of communication or there's confusion. It comes down to often the measurement around value. And have we really established, like, what do we mean by this? What do we mean by this particular measurement at the end of this particular year, like, to get those things really sort of pinned down and clear? It can sometimes be a thing that I'm thinking particularly of a colleague in my own organization who's kind of known as Mr. Question, right? And he often asks really good questions, and he often really digs into questions like, what did you really mean by that? Or can you just be more specific around that? And just almost like, nags people into just pinning down and being more specific. And I think it's such a gift to have the confidence to bring that to the table. It can sometimes be awkward, it can sometimes be a little bit icky to do that. But I think good leaders really do focus down onto what is the measurable value that we need to provide. And the more you can do that and just get in the habit of that being part of your leadership style, I think the easier it becomes over time.

Dave Stachowiak (17:33)

Thinking about what you said earlier about being on teamkind, and I like to think of myself on teamkind, and I think most people listen to the show think of themselves that way, too. But when I think about what you just described, of the value of the specifics of what people are doing or need to do and metrics, that's where I'm likely to get nice. And I think that a lot of the folks that I work with, that's also where folks start trending into nice thinking that they're being kind and we're really good, often with, like, the vision and the values and all of that sounds really lovely. But then when we get into the specifics, that's where I think we think we're being kind and clear. But a lot of Times we're sidestepping. And I think it's interesting, that colleague you mentioned who really does take the extra time to ask questions and get clear, to figure out where exactly are we and what does this really mean as far as clarity.

Graham Alcott (18:34)

Yeah. And I interviewed a few people for the book where the idea of, of. And it comes back to our truth and grace idea again. Right. So the idea of shirking the truth became a really stark piece of unkindness. Right. So avoiding truth being unclear is deeply unkind. One of the people I interviewed was General Stanley McChrystal, and he was the former head of the US military. And he got into some, some controversy and he was called to go and meet the president, which was Barack Obama at the time, and President Obama fired him. And his story about that was just absolutely remarkable because he said, look, I arrived in this room, I pretty much knew what was going to happen. It was going to be the worst professional day of my career. And President Obama could have made it 10 times worse. And he went out of his way to not do that. And he made it as dignified as possible. And we had a really good chat around things. And he was just really appreciative of the way he'd been fired. Now he's just been fired. There's nothing worse in your, in your career than that.

Jonathan Raymond (19:45)

Yeah.

Graham Alcott (19:46)

And so I think there's something in that. Just that when we really play to that truth and we bring the grace to it, then I think we just, we just land in a better place and we treat each other as adults and we come out of it with more dignity than if we do the opposite. There was another one in the book which was a guy who'd. He'd not been meeting his sales numbers for two consecutive quarters. And the story was basically his boss took him aside, you know, as part of this off site that they were having, and he said, look, you haven't met Target for the last two quarters. You know that if you don't meet it for a third one, we're going to have to have a really, really difficult conversation. I'm just giving you the heads up about that. And he went away really appreciative. He's like, yeah, I've got to turn this around. And that created the motivation because he knew what the measurement was to really make those sales figures for Q3, and everything was okay. And I think sometimes we can let poor performance slip because we're being too nice. Sometimes we can shy away from wanting to push people or really quantify the results that we need from them. And I think often when we do that, we just create tension that's really unnecessary. And being brave enough to have those more quantifiable conversations, I think really often as a leader, it's one of those things that can really set you apart.

Dave Stachowiak (21:10)

I think there are some really beautiful invitations in your work of how to do this a little better, a little more consistently, a little more practically. And one of the invitations that you make is that you may consider a personal mantra. And you talk about some of the best leaders have a bit of a personal mantra. What is it and why does it help?

Graham Alcott (21:34)

Yeah, so when we think about our role as a leader, particularly in larger organizations, you know, you find this often this kind of strategy, word salad stuff where there's these very high faluting mission statements and taglines and all the rest of it. But maybe your team, even though you want your team to be aligned to the way the organization thinks, the kind of values that the organization has, maybe your team needs to do something slightly different. And maybe your team has to have a slight difference in culture from the main culture or some kind of subculture of the culture. So I often think that a good leader is also thinking about setting that expectation. I had a leader that I worked for for a couple of years, and her. Her mantra was, and she actually said it with more of a swear word than this one, but I'll leave the swear word out. She said, I don't care if you screw up, as long as you own up and clear up. And it was such a powerful mantra because what she was giving you in that mantra was permission to try, permission to innovate, permission to take the initiative and play around with things and experiment. And what she developed just really from that mantra and a few other things and not much more like it was very simple, her way of leading, but the thing that she really developed from that was just such a culture of ownership. People really understood that they were empowered to try things out and to get things done. So people felt a huge sense of ownership. People were innovating. It was a small tech startup. And yeah, like the innovation levels were through the roof. But the other thing about it was that this idea that you need to own up and clear up, it's difficult owning up, right? Like, if you've done something wrong, like you want to kind of sweep it under the carpet, you don't want to mention it. So the idea that it was really encouraged to actually just put your hand up and say, hey, I got this wrong and now I'm going to learn from. It was just absolutely huge. I worked with someone as well who had just basically they were just working on like far too many things and never really getting to the place of finishing stuff properly, but just spinning too many plates, doing too many things. And the sort of mantra that we developed was try and bake a few less cakes, but put the cherries on them. So this just became his way of working and he really started to respond to this idea that, okay, cool. Like, it's actually about me trying to be a completer finisher and, and finish stuff well and leave things in a good place rather than feeling the expectation or the weight of pressure to do too many things. So I think often these mantras kind of develop out of a reaction to something or needing to be really clear about what is inside the line versus what's outside the line. But I think it's a useful thing, actually, just as a leader to just think about if you were to sum up your approach to the job that you're doing and the people that are around you and your approach to leadership, if you were to sum that up in a few words or a phrase that set an expectation, what would that look like? And often that's probably as good a place as any to start in terms of trying to set a personal mantra.

Dave Stachowiak (24:58)

Yeah. And I think what's really cool about it is it makes a really vague corporate mission statement accessible. Right. So it's, it's. And it, it may not even need to be that your team has to have. Do something slightly different than the organization. It's taking what the organization needs and wants and just making it so simple and concise and powerful and also uniquely yours so that people really know it and appreciate it. And like the examples you just mentioned years later, you still remember and recall them and you could still. Whereas, like the corporate mission statement, you may not. Those are just like, it's a, it's such a lovely way to really be practical in this way.

Graham Alcott (25:42)

Yeah. And they also, they often bring with them a certain feeling as well. Right. So that first one I said, I don't care if you own up as long, I don't care if you screw up as long as you own up and clear up. There's like a feeling in that which is trust. And there's a feeling in there which is like being empowered. And that's why I think those things, they cut really deep. They really, they stay with you. And yeah, you're right. I mean, both of those experiences were probably 15 years ago. And not only can I remember the words of those mantras, but I can remember how I felt when they were being said to me as well. And so I think as, as leaders, I think one of the most remarkable things about a good leader is that they're so memorable and that, you know, particularly the kind leaders like you remember someone who's been kind to you and it stays with you for a really, really long time. So I think creating mantras that are memorable is something that actually is part of your legacy as well.

Dave Stachowiak (26:42)

Well, speaking of past managers, you had one that had a really helpful line and the line was, give me the last 20%. Tell me about that and what was powerful about it.

Graham Alcott (26:54)

Yeah, so this comes back actually to what we were just talking about, psychological safety. And one of the things that you really want to feel like you have permission to do is when you've got a list of what your feedback is or you've got a list of your concerns, you want to be able to give not just the first 80%, but that last 20% as well. You want to really feel empowered to share the stuff that is most uncomfortable. And yeah, the manager that I had that would say that was really just creating psychological safety. It was being done with clarity, it was definitely kind, but it just created this trust between us where particularly when I was in a one to one meeting, I could be like, well, I think it's this and this and this. And he'd go, yeah, but just give me the last 20%. And it's like almost like cut to the chase. Like, give me the bit that's most uncomfortable. Give me the bit that feels like you might want to protect it or hold onto it. And yeah, I think it's just, it's one of those things, isn't it, where often we want to shy. Like we, it everybody finds it difficult to receive feedback or to, to receive opinions that feel uncomfortable and to actually invite that I just thought was like, it was something that really stayed with me, that you wouldn't just let someone finish the points that they want to make and then just be as quick to shut them down as possible. That you're actually saying, okay, that was the 80%, give me the other 20, give me the other bit. Give me the bit that's uncomfortable. Give me the bit that I want to hear. Because it's going to be difficult for me to hear. And yeah, I mean, what a remarkable shortcut to just creating trust and creating that sense of psychological safety.

Dave Stachowiak (28:42)

I loved reading this book so much. Because as someone who thinks of myself on the Team Kindness team, it really challenged some of my assumptions and my good intentions with the real practical things that we can do that actually bring kindness into the workplace and practice. So, Graham, I'm so appreciative of you having written this. And we are sidestepping a ton that's in the book. And one of the things I think is also really helpful is you talk about giving feedback in kind ways using some of the models we've talked about in the show before, but there's also several in there, the Biff model that we haven't talked about. And I hope folks will get the book and really dive in on this because I think there's so much that we can all do to just really move into this place of kindness. And you write a regular newsletter too that we could link to as an invitation to help people who want to do this better get into it, right?

Graham Alcott (29:39)

Yeah, absolutely. So it's called Rev up for the Week and the idea is it's one practical or productive idea for the week ahead. So, you know, I've been so in the trenches of practicality over the last 15 years that like I. I just couldn't write a leadership book about kindness that is just about high minded ideals that didn't have that practicality to it. So I bring all of that to the email that I write every Sunday if you want to jump on board there. It's just if you go to Graham Alco, you'll find out a whole bunch of stuff that I'm doing. And there's also the link there to sign up to RevUp for the week.

Dave Stachowiak (30:19)

We will have it linked up in the episode notes and the weekly guide, of course. Graeme, I've got one final question for you. I often ask people at the end of conversations what they've changed their minds on as they've done their work. I've got a different question for you though. You talk about your son extensively in the book and you mentioned in your writing that he's been a wonderful teacher to you. And I'm wondering, what has he taught you about kindness?

Graham Alcott (30:45)

Yeah. Okay. All right, let's get into this one. So my son is 12 years old. His name is Roscoe. He's a unique little character and most parents say that, but I can prove it. So my son is unique because he has a unique chromosomal disorder as it is. He's 12 years old. He's just done seven spinal surgeries in three and a half years. He has developmental delay. He has autism, he has a site processing condition. So he's got a lot of challenges.

Jonathan Raymond (31:16)

But.

Graham Alcott (31:17)

And here's the biggest but there is. He is such a gift when it comes to kindness, because what I see every day as I. As I parent Roscoe, as I move through the world with him, as I take him to school, is just so many people are drawn to him and they want to make him smile, they want to make his day, they want to make sure that he's happy and able to participate in things. And he is just this vessel for kindness. Right. So for the last 12 years, the biggest privilege of being his dad has been just witnessing all of this kindness that comes his way and is attracted to him. And it's taught me so much. I think it's also taught me particularly a lot around my own privileges. And so, you know, if you've kind of done okay in life and you live in a nice house and you have a decent job and those kind of things, you can get to a place where you don't need much help in your own life day to day. And the thing with Roscoe is because of his education challenges and his health challenges, you know, we have. We're very blessed with the. The National Health Service here in the uk. So all of the treatment that he's had through that system has been free for me at the point of use. And I probably, you know, I just. I know I wouldn't have been able to afford the kind of complex ongoing surgery and education and all these services that he has had access to. And so I found that deeply humbling because I think you can kind of go through life in a complete sense of independence. And what I've really learned with Roscoe is that there's a level of living and a level of society which is actually higher than thinking about independence and competition. And when we play to everybody's strengths and we allow somebody to give as well as take, I think we set up just a much better society than one that's purely based on, you know, independence being the highest sort of life goal that there is. And so that's been, honestly one of those things I don't think I'd have learned without Roscoe. And, yeah, there's huge challenges, but I just feel so grateful for what he's taught me about kindness as much as anything else.

Dave Stachowiak (33:36)

Graham Olcott is the author of the Quiet Power of Kindness at Work. Graham, thank you so much for your work.

Graham Alcott (33:43)

Pleasure. Thank you.

Jonathan Raymond (33:50)

If this conversation was helpful for you three episodes, I'd also recommend one of them is episode 306 five steps to hold People Accountable. Jonathan Raymond was my guest on that episode. Jonathan has been on the show a number of times over the years. The creator of the Accountability Dial and the best model I know to take some real tactical steps on what we talked about today. Jonathan in his work helps us to get better at making regular mentions in conversation. So we are having kind and clear conversations every single day. So many organizations are in the pattern of having regular performance reviews or sit down formal conversations. Yes, those are important and the daily interactions are probably even more important. Jonathan gives us a great framework for doing that well, having accountability in a really healthy way. Episode 306 if you've not come across it before, I think it's absolutely worth your time. Also recommended episode four 404 how to build psychological safety we talked about Amy Edmondson's work, the importance of Psychological Safety in this conversation. She is always at the top of my list when that topic comes up. In episode 404 we talked about what are some steps to build that in your organization. The good news is there's so much you can do as an individual leader that influences some great dynamics in your team. And then finally, I'd recommend episode 583 with Russ Laraway how to Give Feedback One of the realities of being kind is there are times that you do need to give feedback that isn't always easy to give. In that conversation, Russ and I outline a structured process. Very simple, straightforward. When you do need to have that tough conversation, how do you have it in a way that helps honor the other person's dignity and also is very kind and clear? Episode 583 for the Step by step process for exactly how to do that. All of these episodes you can find on the Coaching for Leadership website and I'm inviting you today to set up your free membership over@coaching4leaders.com Once you do, you'll have access to the entire library of episodes that I've aired since 2011. Searchable by topics. You can find exactly what you're looking for. One of the topic areas that this episode is filed under is feedback, but we've had many other conversations about feedback over the years, including the ones I just mentioned. All of that's inside of the library and plus access to tons of other free resources, including my book and interview notes. I have shared the notes from this conversation with Graham up on the page. It's accessible to all of our free members and many, many others from past conversations are there as well too. You can get in. See what I've highlighted some of the quotes from his book, some of the things we didn't talk about in this conversation. Downloadable as a PDF for almost every episode that I've aired in recent years. All part of your free membership. Go to coaching4leaders.com to set that up. Coaching for Leaders is edited by Andrew Andrew Kroger Next Monday, I'm glad to welcome J.P. elliott to the show. J.P. and I are going to be talking about leadership, specifically for leaders who are leading support functions in organizations like hr, it, Marketing, finance. If you're a leader, that's leading one of those functions, heads up. You're going to want to check out next week's conversation because we're going to be talking about how do you evolve from being a business partner to a value creator. Join me for that conversation with jp. Have a great week and see you back on Monday.