Hi Reader,
So I’ve been doing a few interviews over the last week: a few podcasts and even a national newspaper (get me!) to promote the book.
Lots of the interviewers have focussed on my distinction between being nice and being kind. Some people think of them as one and the same, whereas I actually think they’re often closer to being opposites.
I think this is an important distinction, because people fear being ‘too nice’ and worry that weakness means stuff doesn’t get done. I talked to a client last week who said they were nervous about making kindness a bigger part of their culture. They told me that the feedback from some of their team and senior leaders had been that “we have to have the hard conversations, like if someone isn’t performing or needs to get some difficult feedback, and that’s not possible if we’re all trying to be kind all the time”. I said that’s precisely why it’s important to make the distinction between ‘nice’ and ‘kind’.
Put simply,
‘Nice’ is about telling people what they want to hear.
‘Kind’ is about telling people what they need to hear.
Nice is for you.
Kind is for them.
A ‘nice’ culture typically shies away from the hard conversations, and lets poor performance or bad behaviour slide, all for the sake of short-term harmony.
Let me give you an example. Imagine you're in a meeting, and a colleague delivers a presentation that goes particularly badly. Afterwards, as you're leaving the meeting, your colleague asks you "so, how did I do? How do you think it went?". You have a choice in that moment, to choose 'nice' or 'kind'. The nice option is something along the lines of "yeah. it was... er... great.". The kind option is much harder. It's more like "I'd love to give you some proper feedback. I have a few pointers that I think can help. Shall we set up a time to go through it tomorrow?". Notice how much less convenient that kind option is for you? Notice how you're bravely putting yourself in an awkward conversation, but in service of improving that person's skillset and improving the work in a way that limits the damage?
A KIND culture is one that doesn’t shirk the difficult stuff and maintains high standards – but does so through a people-first, empathetic and skilful approach to having these hard conversations. Kindness requires a lot of hard skills and difficult traits – trust, empathy, grace, tact, deep listening, coaching and care. Kindness requires flexibility and giving someone the benefit of the doubt, but also a commitment to truth and clarity. It takes skill and often bravery too. Far from being weak, kindness is often pretty badass.
I talked to Alison Jones this week about the difference between nice and kind. You can hear our conversation here. Alison is a great interviewer and one of the smartest people in publishing. Her company Practical Inspiration Publishing is behind some incredible books by the likes of David McQueen, Grace Marshall and my friend and longtime collaborator Martin Farrell, whose new book “Good Leaders in Turbulent Times” launched this week.
So I hope you'll give the episode a listen, and in the meantime, I have some questions for you:
- When was the last time you chose 'nice' over 'kind' - where you chose convenient and safe instead of awkward and brave?
- What's the negative consequence of being too nice?
- Is there such a thing as being 'too kind'?
- Who around you needs your kindness this week?
Before I go, I want to remind you that the pre-order campaign for 'KIND' is well underway. If you haven't bought your copy (or copies!) yet, then you have until Wednesday at midnight to pre-order and get some great rewards. For example...
- Buy 1 book and get a free ticket to come to my digital launch event this coming Wednesday evening.
- Buy 5 copies to give to your friends and you'll get some exclusive kindness merch, as well as an accompanying kindness course and a ticket to the launch
- Buy 10 copies and you'll get a free place (worth £600) on next year's 6 Weeks to Ninja programme or my Kindful Leadership programme
- And if you buy 200 copies, you'll get a tailored keynote talk delivered to your team, by me, anytime in the next year.
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Click here to watch the video about how to get your rewards.
Have a great week,
Graham
Ps. I will be sending a few more emails than usual over the next couple of weeks as part of my book launch and I hope you're keen to hear more. But if you don't want them, then you can opt out here, and I'll make sure I only send you the usual Sunday Rev Up ones.