E87: Exercise the Kindess Code with Cindy Smarsh

Thank you.

I want to start with something that came up in the introduction there.

It talked about the research that you've done.

And I know a lot of times business leaders will say kindness, kindness in the workplace, that just seems too soft.

It seems too fluffy.

So

what came out of that research that can tell us how kindness is such a valid business strategy?

Yeah, thanks for asking.

You're right.

Kindness is one of these soft, soft words in the world, right? And business, we're serious, right? We're serious in business.

So yeah, kindness has this reputation of being soft and of just being nice and I say fluffy, right? But as a business strategy, it's proven that when people are treated as people, When people are, their wellness at work is the top priority, they are more productive, they're more focused, they're happy to be there, they're loyal, they're driven, and everything improves for the whole company and organization, for the customers too.

So, uh, kindness can look like a lot of things that are not fluffy at all.

For example, and we'll talk more about this later, probably, you know, kindness can mean if I'm, if I'm a leader and I see one of my team members struggling in a role, kindness can mean shifting them out of that role or giving them a more intense training experience.

having some difficult conversations, or perhaps terminating them.

And that is actually kind.

It may seem like, what? That's not kind.

It's not kind to terminate someone.

Well, it is if they are not aligned and if they're not doing what they're meant to be doing.

And that's just one example of where, you know, we can look at business approaches and see that there's nothing fluffy about this at all.

Give me a little more on it.

Can you think of any specifics in the research that showed the hard dollar impact of what you taught? And I love how you put that of having wellness at work, a priority.

Yeah, well, there's all kinds of it.

And I, I wish I would have put it all right in front of me to give you specifics.

But one that I've seen over and over is that losing employees the time lost and the money lost can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for one company.

You know, losing just one person, one key personnel member can cost upwards of six figures for some companies because of the time it takes to then find another person, then get them on board, then train them properly, then get them really in their own flow.

Thank you.

I want to start with something that came up in the introduction there.

It talked about the research that you've done.

And I know a lot of times business leaders will say kindness, kindness in the workplace, that just seems too soft.

It seems too fluffy.

So

what came out of that research that can tell us how kindness is such a valid business strategy?

Yeah, thanks for asking.

You're right.

Kindness is one of these soft, soft words in the world, right? And business, we're serious, right? We're serious in business.

So yeah, kindness has this reputation of being soft and of just being nice and I say fluffy, right? But as a business strategy, it's proven that when people are treated as people, When people are, their wellness at work is the top priority, they are more productive, they're more focused, they're happy to be there, they're loyal, they're driven, and everything improves for the whole company and organization, for the customers too.

So, uh, kindness can look like a lot of things that are not fluffy at all.

For example, and we'll talk more about this later, probably, you know, kindness can mean if I'm, if I'm a leader and I see one of my team members struggling in a role, kindness can mean shifting them out of that role or giving them a more intense training experience.

having some difficult conversations, or perhaps terminating them.

And that is actually kind.

It may seem like, what? That's not kind.

It's not kind to terminate someone.

Well, it is if they are not aligned and if they're not doing what they're meant to be doing.

And that's just one example of where, you know, we can look at business approaches and see that there's nothing fluffy about this at all.

Give me a little more on it.

Can you think of any specifics in the research that showed the hard dollar impact of what you taught? And I love how you put that of having wellness at work, a priority.

Yeah, well, there's all kinds of it.

And I, I wish I would have put it all right in front of me to give you specifics.

But one that I've seen over and over is that losing employees the time lost and the money lost can be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for one company.

You know, losing just one person, one key personnel member can cost upwards of six figures for some companies because of the time it takes to then find another person, then get them on board, then train them properly, then get them really in their own flow.