Invest 5 minutes a day to create a better workplace
Welcome to Week 2 of your Kindness Experiment. This week focuses on monitoring and controlling your tone of voice and body language to express kindness.
Overview of your Kindness Experiment
The Kindness Experiment introduces simple changes you can try at work to create more kindness and improve your working life.
Every week for six weeks, the Kindness Experiment will suggest a new set of kindness actions for you to try.
You might already do many of these things. Or you might intend to, but they get lost in everyday chaos.
This experience provides a chance to slow down, be intentional, flex your kindness muscles and notice the impact of your actions.
For six weeks, practice these easy kindness actions and see how they change your relationships, performance and personal mood.
Report back in the comments or on Twitter (@drannhowell), Linked In or email me directly at ann@howlead.com to share your findings.
Principles of your Kindness Experiment
Everyone has their own definition of kindness. I define it as an act that benefits others as an end to itself. One awesome thing about kindness is that it usually multiplies and benefits you as well.
Kindness in the workplace:
- Is not a weakness
- Can co-exist with running a profitable business
- Can be balanced with holding people accountable
- Does not mean you need to stop enforcing rules
- Means giving constructive, and sometimes challenging, feedback to allow employee growth
- Supports you in building a network
Actions for your Kindness Experiment Week 2: Tone and Body Language
In Week 2, we will focus on tone of voice and body language.
In her article, ‘5 Ways Body Language Impacts Leadership Results‘, Dr. Carol Kinsey Goman discusses the importance of body language and how to leverage it.
She emphasizes that you make an impression in the first 7 seconds of meeting someone. Controlling your body language helps create your intended impression.
Dr. Goman shares how to control body language to express confidence, warmth, empathy and engagement.
These principles can also extend to expressing kindness.
Week 2 Kindness Actions: Tone of Voice and Body Language
For this week, spend 5 minutes a day monitoring your tone of voice and body language and adjusting it to express kindness.
Be intentional as you do the actions (your experiment) and notice reactions of others and yourself (your data collection).
You can choose kindness actions from the tone of voice section or the body language section or both. Build these actions into your daily routine.
Kindness actions for Week 2: Tone of Voice
- Continue your common courtesy kindness actions from Week 1. Actions like smiling and making eye contact project kindness through body language.
- Monitor your voice during a debate or difficult conversation. Notice if you talk louder or seem angry. Watch how co-workers respond. Softer voices tend to indicate kindness.
- Practice using a calm and professional tone of voice during difficult conversations such as giving tough feedback. Providing tough feedback is a kindness in that it helps others grow. Find the balance of confidence and kindness.
Kindness actions for Week 2: Body Language
- In stressful situations, do a quick body scan. Determine where you hold your stress and how it changes your body language. For instance, your face might turn red, your shoulders might hunch, your jaw could clench. All of those reactions change your body language and could intimidate others.
- Consciously consider your use of physical space. If you are very tall, a hallway conversation might be uncomfortable for a short colleague. Consider sitting down to talk. If you stand with military precision, you could send a threatening message via your body language. Try relaxing.
- Use positive body language such as tilting your head or opening your hands to show that you are listening and open to discussion. This creates a platform for other people to share their opinions.
- Make eye contact – especially as you smile – to communicate warmth and human connection.
Data Analysis & Conclusion
To analyze the success of your Week 2 experiment consider these questions.
- Did you consciously work on your tone of voice or body language every day?
- What new things did you try?
- Did you find one of them – tone of voice or body language – more important for how you communicate?
- Did you engage in more kindness by monitoring your behavior and making changes?
- How did people react?
- Were there any negative reactions or down sides to your changes in voice or body language?
- Did your kindness actions extend beyond work?
- Did your kindness actions seem to positively spark kindness actions in others?
- Did you see a positive reaction that will encourage you to continue?
Share your results
Please share your conclusions and experience in the comments or email me and let me know how it went! You can reach me at ann@howlead.com.
Weekly themes for your Kindness Experiments
Week 1: Common courtesy
Week 2: Tone and body language
Week 3: Stop complaining (coming soon)
Week 4: Be inclusive (coming soon)
Week 5: Life outside hierarchy (coming soon)
Week 6: Curb judgmental thinking (coming soon)
Link to Kindness resources
Some terrific research and writing have been done regarding kindness – work-related and also more broadly focused.
I provide a deeper look at kindness on this blog in my article On Kindness at Work
The Bedari Kindness Institute at UCLA recently launched to research various elements of kindness. #UCLAKindness
The VIA Institute on Character has a discussion of kindness and includes it in their character assessment.
The Positive Psychology area of psychology does research and interventions related to kindness and similar topics. Find one positive psychology program at the University of Pennsylvania.
