Invest 5 minutes a day to create a better workplace
Welcome to Week 1 of your Kindness Experiment. This week focuses on practicing common courtesy to benefit you and your colleagues.
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 1: Common Courtesy
In Week 1, we will focus on common courtesy. You probably do some of these things already. You might also find that they get lost in the chaos of everyday life, and you don’t do them as much as you think.
For this week, spend 5 minutes a day extending common courtesy to those around you.
Be intentional as you do the actions (your experiment) and notice reactions of others and yourself (your data collection).
Kindness actions for Week 1: Common Courtesy
- Smile and say ‘hello’ to everyone you meet in the hallway
- Say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to everyone as appropriate – including service workers and strangers
- Greet everyone in the room during small or medium sized meetings
- Introduce yourself to someone new (maybe in the cafeteria line or on another team)
- Stay patient on your commute – allow other cars into your lane, greet fellow riders on the train, stay controlled with your own driving
Data Analysis & Conclusion
To analyze the success of your experiment consider these questions.
- Did you successfully extend common courtesy every day?
- What new things did you try?
- Did you engage in more kindness by being intentional?
- How did people react?
- Were there any negative reactions or down sides to common courtesy?
- 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 (coming soon)
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.
