Kind - The Quiet Power of Kindness at Work with Graham Allcott, Productivity Ninja - OrgDev Episode 46

What’s the secret ingredient that strengthens trust, fosters psychological safety, and drives better decision-making in organizations? How can it boost staff loyalty, adaptability, engagement, and ultimately lead to greater productivity and profitability? According to leading author Graham Allcott, the answer lies in a simple yet powerful quality: kindness.

In this episode of the OrgDev Podcast, we dive into the insights from Graham’s latest book, KIND: The Quiet Power of Kindness at Work. Together, we unpack how kindness—when approached thoughtfully and strategically—can break myths, reshape workplace culture, and transform teams, leaders, and organizations. Discover the 8 key principles that make kindness a game-changing force for better business outcomes. Don’t miss this inspiring conversation!

Graham’s LinkedIn:
  / grahamallcott 

Graham Allcott is a bestselling author, best known for How to Be a Productivity Ninja, a global success. His latest book, KIND: The Quiet Power of Kindness at Work, explores how kinder, more human-focused workplace cultures lead to greater organisational success.

As the founder of Think Productive, a leading training and consultancy firm with offices in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, and the Netherlands, Graham has helped individuals and organisations transform the way they work.

Renowned for his engaging and motivational talks, Graham blends practical insights with humor, offering actionable strategies that inspire audiences worldwide.

Thanks for listening!

Distinction is an evidence-based Organisation Development & Design Consultancy designed to support modern, progressive organisations to bring out the best in their people and their teams through training, consulting, and coaching.

Our professional and highly skilled consultants focus on delivering engaging, results-focused and flexible solutions that help our clients achieve their business objectives.

Find out more at https://distinction.live/how-we-can-help/

💡 Stay Connected:
Looking for a consistent source of leadership & OD tips? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter by clicking the link below and receive valuable leadership tips directly in your inbox:
https://distinction.live/keep-in-touch

We'd love to connect with you on Linked In:
linkedin.com/in/danibacon478
https://www.linkedin.com/in/garinrouch/

Transcript

0:00) hi and welcome to the org Dev podcast so what is the secret ingredient in organizations that builds trust and psychological safety leading to better decision making increased staff loyalty flexibility and engagement and ultimately higher productivity and profitability as well the answer is simple but it takes skill thought slowing down busting quite a few myths along the way and applying eight key principles we're absolutely delighted to be joined by Leading author gra o today and he has dedicated his latest book
(00:32) kind to uncovering the transformative power of kindness in the workplace join us as we explore how this often Overlook quality can reshape teams leaders and organizations for the better and gra also introduces the concept of a dirty s which we think is quite possibly the best new terminology we've heard in ages um if you haven't heard of grman we don't know how you couldn't have done because we're huge fans of gr he is an author speaker and entrepreneur he's the author of multiple books including the
(01:00) Global bestseller how to be a productivity ninja which we talk about every single week how to have energy and how to fix meetings his latest book kind focused on why organizations with Kinder more human- centered cultures are ultimately more successful he's also the founder of think productive which since 2009 has been a professional development goto for organizations like Amazon British Airways Disney and eBay and many more and they have offices in the UK USA Canada Australia New Zealand UAE and Netherlands in his spare time and
(01:31) somehow he has spare time graem is a DJ with a leaning towards Jazz rare Groove and electronic music and despite an intolerance of failure elsewhere in his life he's an Aston Villa season ticket holder and an aid follow of the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team uh no stranger to podcast having hosted a very successful Beyond busy podcast and he also has a brilliant newsletter called rev up for the week that comes out at 4M every Sunday with an upbeat idea to set us up the week so thank you so much for joining us G and thanks so much for
(01:59) making time the really busy schedule that you have pleasure to be here and um that very comprehensive intro doesn't sound like me it sounds so impressive this is [Music] earned well thank you for joining us it's really really lovely to have you with us so just to say we loved kind we've devoured it just I love the way it makes the compelling case for kindness at work it's really pragmatic it's kind of really Hands-On so we're just going to explore that a bit with you so just tell us a bit more about the book what
(02:33) inspired you to write it yes okay so um there's there's a couple of origin stories for uh where I intersect my work with kindness and also where the book came about um so for many years my company think productive has had as one of our corporate values trust and kindness are our Rocket Fuel and it's just something that we've always really believed in particularly the the trust element you know being honest really open open with everybody that we work with and just really encouraging people to share the stuff that that helps
(03:07) unstick the work that we're doing and the collaboration that we're doing together so that's kind of always been how we've worked at think productive and I really think that kindness has been a really crucial part actually in in building that business over over many years and then with the book itself I found myself in Rome doing a keynote and I was talking to uh this huge conference room about how to be a productivity ninja which is my best selling book and someone asked me this question at the end of the
(03:37) keynote I'd spoken for about an hour and then in the Q&A someone said so okay you've just talked about productivity you've just talked about all the stuff that's in your book what else have you come across or what else have you used personally to build up your own business and it was like really weirdly a question I'd never really been asked before you know everyone just takes it a face value that like I'm here to talk about productivity here's the producct ity stuff and then generally not that
(04:02) interested in my own backstory or you know the kind of secret to my success kind of question so I didn't really know what to say and then just what just came out of me was just kindness feels everything when you kind when you're kind you win it's as simple as that and I just remember saying these words and just thinking man I've just said that on a stage and I didn't really intend to it was a bit of a surprise and it just sort of came out and what happened in the room was really interesting so I talked
(04:27) about kindness and the the room quickly sort of divided uh along these uh sort of lines of there was a whole bunch of people in teamind who really understood it really got it you know kindness can really help to to build team moral it can build this communication uh and people were on my side and then there was a whole bunch of people in the room who were on team screw them all and and and be evil you know and these people who were saying things to me like but what about Donald Trump and Elon Musk and you know isn't it all Dogg eat dog
(04:57) and people had this really strong aversion to the idea of kindness having any place at work and so I just thought how interesting is that that something as simple as kindness can have this really polarizing effect you know as I'm standing on stage and uh then I was in Rome I'm walking around Rome for the weekend and just you know you walk around Rome and it's just like you're just walking between like all these different human achievements aren't you like it's just such an incredible City
(05:23) for that and it just really got me thinking about like human beings and What Makes Us tick and you know and just this polarization around kindness and before I got on the plane I just had this revelation of like this is a book I just need to really capture like my Approach around kindness and what we've done with think productive over the years but also really dig into and address that that sort of cynical team screw them all and be evil kind of approach and you know even in that room which was a room of inv investment
(05:54) bankers by the way um there were more people on teamind than on team screw the all and be evil but it strikes me that the the stories that we tell around these archetypes of the business bastard you know these kind of you know right back to and ebena Scrooge um this idea that we have around the business bastard is one that really gets in the way of what's really happening which is this quiet power of kindness as as we sort of go through the world so I just figured that there was a lot of people who would resonate with that
(06:25) message because they were already on team kind and they would want to buy the book for the people that they thought were on team screw them all and be evil or just to up the level of kindness we think kindness is great let's do more of it let's you know really think about how we can more value the people that we have around us and and and sort of create that really collaborative culture so um yeah that was the origin story of the book really and that was about um yeah probably coming out five years ago
(06:50) now and so it's been a lot of um you know a lot of Blood Sweat and Tears a labor of love really to uh put the research in um around it and I've been teaching kindful leadership in that time as well so sort of taking you a lot from the practicalities of teaching stuff I think you know the more you teach stuff the more you learn stuff often especially with a topic like this and so um yeah that's really been the the origin story of it and I think often people think of it as being uh very far away from How To Be A productivity ninja
(07:21) um I actually think you know kindness really fuels productivity and actually productivity requires a lot of kindness I think there's actually quite a lot of crossover actually between um what I'm most known for and then and then this new book and I think one of the things you talk about one of the kind of eight pillars of kindness you talk about is kindness to self which I guess is linked to the productivity yeah for sure kind of side of things can you say a bit more about that for us the importance of
(07:44) kindness to self well I think when I first started teaching productivity in about 2008 2009 I thought productivity was all about apps and systems and lists and whatever most productivity especially when you're coaching it and teaching it is about people's fear and guilt you know and I think so often we are unkind to ourselves we are much more willing to go out of our way to help someone else than we are to get out of our way to help ourselves and so for me there's something really important about
(08:17) like when we think about kindness really starting it from what do we need you know and and like and that sort of role modeling in our own heads around having an abundance mentality and not scar mentality I think when we when we think about kindness the first thought is how can we pay it forward how can we help someone else who needs our help and we think really externally and actually we really need to challenge our own thinking and really make sure that what's in our head is a whole lot of framing around abundance and not
(08:47) scarcity and what I mean by that like that scarcity mentality is you know people think about how can they be more productive or how can they you know be kinder often the little scarcity mentality in your head is uh there isn't enough time or there isn't enough or I am not enough and when we flip that into an abundance mentality what we come up with is there is enough I am enough and those are really difficult things to tell ourselves there's an awful lot of you know sort of guilt and self- judgment self-sabotage self-sabotage
(09:21) that gets in the way of that but when we can really flip that script in our own heads towards abundance it makes it much easier to be kinder to everybody else so we've got to start with ourselves that uh self-kindness is not self-indulgent it's actually like hugely generous when we start kindness from ourselves just going back to what you said about the again you've got team kind and team team kind of screw everybody else just going to get on and look after myself what gets in the way of people moving from
(09:46) team evil to team kind what what the things that get in the way well I think it's the brainwashing that we receive every day right we we are taught a whole bunch of stuff competition is the highest form of society everything's Dog Eat Dog everything's competitive actually what is happening in in most organizations if not all organizations is collaboration and codependence and interdependence are you know really more important than than Independence and competition and so we are just taught that like competition is the highest
(10:22) form always if you scroll Instagram and you look at motivational business content you will see lots of motivational quotes and the background image is Leonardo DiCaprio with his arms out in Wolf of Wall Street right as if that film was supposed to be some kind of user manual for how we build teams like it's nuts it's AB nuts and I think we really need to um you know just remember that actually a lot of that is uh it's making the headlines because it's really interesting Don there's Donald Trump whatever you think of him
(10:56) politically is a far more interesting character than camela Harris or than a CEO that you've never heard of because we all have that little part of ourselves which is curious as to what's going on in that man's head and what would it be like if I just didn't play by all the rules Elon Musk is a fascinating figure for the same reason we are very invested in the idea of the business baddy and often in in movies and in literature the baddy is often a more complex and more interesting character than the goodies right so we
(11:27) are just I think naturally wired set up to be curious about some of those darker elements of human behavior and a lot of the people who are going around and clearing up the mess behind an Elon Musk or Donald Trump those people are doing that often very quietly they're not doing it in a flashy way they are building teams they are like picking up the pieces and motivating people and it's totally unremarkable but that is the norm right we are just taught that the Donald Trumps and the Elon musks are the norm actually actually what's the
(12:00) real Norm is quite you know often unremarkable Behavior by remarkable people who are kind and who are are building that trust and empathy uh with the people around them but we don't see that and it doesn't make great Telly um so I interviewed um Nick Jenkins uh for the book he's the CEO of moonpig founder of moonpig um was one of the dragons on Dragon's Den and when he was on Dragon's Den his approach to me seemed to be to be as helpful as possible and as practical as possible he gave loads of
(12:31) advice to the people that he didn't even want to invest with um he would always pick out the kind thing to say and I remember saying to him when you were on Dragon's Den was that your strategy for for the show like you were trying to mix it up and be a bit different to the often quite abrasive uh approaches of some of the other dragons and he just looked at me really funny I was like well no that's just how I do business you know how I've built moonpig to be super successful was by being reasonable
(12:59) and being kind and actually what I find is that when you do that people respond better um so I just did that on the show he only lasted I think one series or two series they kicked him off and got someone else and I think you know I think that speaks volumes is that ultimately when we watch Dragon's Den or when we watch watch The Apprentice we are so indulged by these you know especially The Apprentice characters were're indulged by this whole thing of I'm going to stamp all over all of you to get where I need to get to and you
(13:25) know all of that stuff is the for me that's the propaganda of unkindness it's it's actually often the propaganda of of a certain form of capitalism and it's just not it's it doesn't in any way relate to how most of us are building businesses so I just think we have to reject all that you know so that was for me a really big motivation behind this book was to uh was to really start a very different conversation and to start a conversation that is that about kindness that is not fluffy but a conversation about kindness
(14:00) which is about performance it's about how people build teams and it's about the benefits that come from uh working in a way that transparent and open and empathetic and ultimately kind so you talked about the fluffy bit there and one of the things you do really nicely in the book is you kind of make you really articulate the difference between being nice and being kind and the fact that people get that muddled up and that's part of the reason kindness perhaps doesn't get the support that it should do if we got the difference
(14:25) between nice and kind then it would it would help make the business even more cuz I think nice can be quite weak and you know obviously fluffy feels quite weak but kind is something very different I think for me kind is actually quite badass because kind is about being in equal measure being committed to truth and Grace that's really my definition of kindness is about truth and Grace so I think about kindness in the same way I think about salted caramel now we you know we can all agree that salted caramel is the
(14:57) best food in the world there's absolutely no doubt about that and when we think about what makes salted caramel so good is that you've got these two things working you've got the salt and then you've got the Carl so you've got like the saltness and the sweetness and so if you think about the salt as being like truth we need a certain amount of Truth in order to cut through right in order to make things happen or make changes or or for people to be able to grow you need th almost sometimes those
(15:22) kind of bitter moments um in order to really push you to the edge of your comfort zone and then that's where you grow from and that's where things change and you also when when it comes to salted caramel you need the sweetness as well right so you need that Grace you need that ability to be able to put the salt in a format that really makes it work if you have even the slightest bit too much salt in your food your entire meal is ruined so too much truth just people can't take it and we you know it
(15:50) it's it's just a really dangerous thing if all of your food is the sweetness of caramel it gets sickly very quickly and it doesn't become you know it's not something you can eat a whole meal out of so it's having those two elements together the truth and the grace is you know for me what really makes and differentiates between being kind and being nice often neness is it's all about the sickly sweet it's actually trying to deny the truth or Sherk the truth um so just a little example in
(16:20) terms of like a business example for that so if you're in if you're in a meeting and your colleague is you know making a pitch or making a presentation in that meeting and they've done it really badly and you can sense there's like a tension in the room or like it hasn't gone well and then at the end of that meeting your colleague comes up to you and they say something like so how did I do was it good then you have a choice in that moment and you can either take the kind approach or the nice approach and the
(16:48) nice approach is they say how did it go did I do okay and you go yeah it was fine and you just you Sher the truth in that moment that's the nice response it's like we keep the peace you know we just just pretend that it was all okay but we're ultimately lying we're ultimately sh shering that truth what's more difficult why what what makes kindness a badass approach is that that's going to be inconvenient for you you're going to have to probably put some time in your diary tomorrow to sit
(17:18) down with that person and give them that feedback it's Brave you're going to have to tell them stuff that they perhaps aren't going to like you're going to have to tell them stuff that perhaps truths about themselves that are difficult and you have to do that with a level of skill and a level of empathy that's actually quite difficult to do so it really is a very skillful thing to pick kindness in that moment a lot of people will will just pick nice and probably anyone listening to this you know me
(17:45) included we can all think of those moments where we've picked nice where we could have picked kind um and so that for me is why there's a big difference between those two ideas but also I think because they get so confused that's why you get people saying things like there's no place place for kindness in business or kindness is weakness I think niess can be weakness but kindness I think is something very very different yeah it's a really interesting point isn't it because I think if you're going
(18:09) to lean into those types of conversations so because when you're giving someone feedback you've actually putting your relationship in jeopardy yeah because ra because if you're going for nice it's like I just want our relationship to be okay that's the highest context here so no actually I want you to be the best version of whatever it is that you want to be so I'm actually going to place this above it and that's that's real risk isn't it as well it is you know when I talk about
(18:31) truth and Grace which um that phrase truth and Grace came from my colleague Christina kisley and she describes the grace part as the real Grace is when you're acting from a place where you're for the other person so you're making this almost like emot i s think about it as almost like this emotional connection like you're reaching out to them it's like I'm so for you and I so believe in you that like I'm willing to put myself on the line a little bit I'm willing to say the thing that's uncomfortable I'm
(18:57) willing to take that little risk um and that's why as well I talk a lot in the book about the role that psychological safety plays because when you have the confidence to take those interpersonal risks that's where you get to much better places and um a lot of the research in the book talks to the idea that kindness and empathy drives trust and Trust drives psychological safety and when you have that psychological safety it's it's much easier to to make those kind of calls you mentioned empathy there so you talk about kindness
(19:24) and empathy as kind of reinforcing Loop and you say that empathy isn't innate so yes some people are more empathetic than others but it's not something that we we either are or we aren't and we can cultivate it and develop it what advice would you give to people who are working with maybe leaders who are lacking empathy how do they start to develop it how do you start to deel well I mean I think yeah so the first thing to say is that um we can develop it and so it's a neuroplasticity thing you know you can
(19:50) actually there are things that you can do that can alter your you know your your your brain uh chemistry and neural networks around empathy one of the tools that I do talk about in the book is the idea of meta meditation which I think can be really helpful so this is basically a short meditation where you kind of go you mentally go through uh the people and things in your life uh and you wish those people to be well uh you wish those people to have peace to have ease and you start with you know your kids or your partner or you know
(20:21) close family and then you work your way all the way through to at the end wishing peace and ease to your enemies or to the people who've hurt you and I think there's something quite interesting about that uh and I've found it over the years I've I've sort of done that meditation on and off over many years and um there's something very interesting about the sort of physicality and what sort of happens in your body where you start trying to wish uh ease and peace to people who've wronged you you know it's a really I
(20:47) think it's a really Brave and really difficult thing to contemplate so I think that's something that can really help and there's a whole process for that in the book I think the other thing though is and this is a thing I've done for many years with think productive is um just bringing a little bit of that humanity and personality into meetings and just doing that regularly and and if you're doing that as the chair of a meeting the most empathetic people in the room are going to be picking up on
(21:14) those signals massively but even the people who are less empathetic it's kind of really encouraging them to kind of walk a mile in the shoes of of of the person who's talking so it's just really simple little things like um at the start of a meeting if let's say you've got five people in a meeting just having a few moments at the beginning where everybody checks in and says you know how they're feeling and one thing that's going well for example is like really kind of standard one that I use um and
(21:38) then at the end of the meeting to just check out with one thing you valued and one thing you're looking forward to and just doing that just gives everybody the chance to listen to what's going on in everyone else's head which is something that if you just go straight into focusing on the business you don't often really get those sort of slightly more emotional um or sort of personal ref C it's just you know data about task kind of thing um so that's something that I've I've just found really useful over
(22:06) many years I think productive and um yeah there's a whole bunch of other stuff you could do obviously but yeah just as a couple of little tips those are those are definitely ones to follow I think I love that checking out here because you can do that even if you're hybrid or you know it's not a impediment to doing that is it really powerful so I had a question about one of the eight pillars of kindness is you talk about is people first work second always and from reading what you talked about and here
(22:29) hearing you talk before you really live that thing productive don't you it's not a it's not just something you've put on the wall and said you know people first work second and then that's not the first because a lot of organizations we work with they say yeah people first work second the minute there's any pressure that's the the people thing is the first thing to go so what does it really take to to live that as an organization and a as a a leader stubbornness so the most important word
(22:53) in that phrase is the word always people first work second always and it came about because we went through this period at think productive where we had a relatively young relatively healthy fit active staff team and people were just dropping like flies all around us people needed surgery there was illnesses there was bereavements you know there was just this period where it just felt like we just had we just couldn't catch a break you know as a team and it it was sort of coincided with a period where I was thinking a lot
(23:25) about kindness and the values of of the company and stuff I did this experiment for a month um called radical kindness quite a few years ago um and the phrase kind of came out of that where whenever somebody was in that situation and they'd sort of come to you with the call you know as a manager you know when you get the call right which is sometimes there a phone call sometimes it's a WhatsApp voice note sometimes it's an email whatever it looks like but it's that thing of hey like problem back at the ranch some kind
(23:52) of issue I might need a day out I might need a week out you know that you know something's Gone Gone on so whenever you get get that call um you know for me that is one of the biggest opportunities you have to demonstrate kindness because you're facing people at the the very moment where they need it the most right and in my experience when you really dig into the kindness then even when it's the most inconvenient then people don't forget that stuff you know like people will be loyal to you because of that
(24:26) they'll they'll remember it they will step up help somebody else who who needs it further down the line it really kind of it gets you and you know sort of gets you in the heart and and it and it really is something that uh becomes cultural but I started using that so whenever I'd get the call I would send the text back that said okay let's remember people first work second always now what you need and I and I put that very deliberately with that word always in there and the word always is is
(24:54) really a a sort of public declaration and commitment that no matter whether it's the biggest client the biggest day of the year like whatever's going on what is happening in your life matters more um than the stuff that we're doing right here you know I did a thing a couple of weeks ago with um where I literally was talking about kindness to a whole bunch of Surgeons people doing brain surgery whatever it's like there it might be life or death but most of the time when I'm talking to organizations I can use the phrase okay
(25:24) well no one's going to die so let's start with that and then it's like if someone really needs you and what I realized was like we had this really young fit team and all these things were happening but what I realized was oh actually I was I had the framing all wrong is that the idea that all of that was bad luck is wrong like life is suffering you know there is a lot of suffering in in in our lives in and and in you know as we go through life in different phases of life and so we have to like start with that just being a
(25:55) given you know that's and so always is a really important word because it holds our feet to the fire but it also reminds us that it's always somebody's always you know there's always going to be one member of the team that really needs uh like needs that needs us to step up needs needs to take some time out whatever and if you don't know who that is right now um as a manager you probably need to be paying more attention and if it's not you then what a privilege and so your job is to step
(26:21) up for the people who it is that situation and so we've kind of run it like that like for years at think productive um and often that has meant you know as a business owner that has meant paying you know regular wages for many weeks often months out of my own pocket for people who are not there um and that costs you know and that hurts when it's a small business but like I've never regretted it it's always been worth it because what you gain back from that is a whole bunch of people who are committed to that as being the
(26:53) philosophy and the way that we work and they all are now the people who Step Up When someone else needs it and it just you know it carries on and Carries On so yeah I think that's just a really important principle for me when I was reading the book one of the things that because we read a lot of books so we read a lot I'm looking forward to getting back to that by the way I've just finishing the writing of this book and then and all that feel like my own reading has been neglected so yeah well there was there was one because you have
(27:20) sort of eight fundamental principles that underpin the kindness and there was one thing that kind of really sort of stood out and maybe put the book down and really think about it and you look at it from a number of ways it's really impactful is the fact that busyness is The Accidental source of unkindness and then if you start to think about it on so many different levels the impact that has in in organizations isn't it because so often when you when you see that there's conflict or whatever and you wind the
(27:44) clock back it is often done on good intention isn't it people don't set out to be unkind but it's just it happens just that what was it that drove you to make it one of the eight principles uh so the principle is called slow down and yeah the um the start of that says the biggest source of accidental unkindness is busyness that came about because when I was teaching kindful leadership it always became this thing that on about week three or week four people would go oh if I'm going to start to develop
(28:14) empathy if I'm going to if going if I'm going to really increase my levels of kindness then I have to slow down and um I definitely feel that personally you know when I'm um 100 miles an hour as I have been a lot over the last um few weeks with the book you know you don't necessarily just stop and have those slightly more intentional um interactions so you know it's like when you walk into a shop and it's like if you're not super busy you'll you'll start with oh how are you or whatever
(28:40) but like if you're super busy it's like get me the thing now I've got my train or whatever and so you're just you are just entering that interaction being slightly less kind and I think we have the same um you know mentality at work as well um so it's often one of those light bulb moments when I teach kindful leadership is um hang on if I'm going to really connect with people on a more empathetic level I've just got to slow down and take a step back and you know it it really is a big light bulb for
(29:07) people so yeah um one of the challenges in that chapter is the idea of just um sitting on a bench and doing nothing and not having your phone but just sitting there and I think if you're if you're listening to this just ask yourself when was the last time you sat anywhere and just did nothing and just I think one of the most important parts of that is when you do nothing you start to recognize your own lizard brain thoughts right you start to really listen to what's kind of buzzing around in your own head and
(29:37) often we fill all those gaps with scrolling or you know um Media or whatever um you know podcasts as we're walking around the house or whatever and you know actually just um sitting and doing nothing or sitting in silence can just be such a great indicator of like what's really going on in your own head and your own psychology yeah and and you he also introduced and a scientific element to it because it's not as as simple as yes we have an intent to do it but there's there's a lot of chemicals
(30:05) involved here oxytocin serotonin dopamine as well yeah what were some of your findings from the research there an awful lot changes when one person commits one kind act right so uh if you think about one person being kind to one other person um you have uh that person increases their levels of of ser tonin so the happiness hormones oxytocin they feel more connected to the person they're being kind to uh and dopamine which is you know that sense of having a reward or uh you know feeling satisfied um all that's happening in the person of
(30:42) of the person who's being kind um you're also getting the oxytocin and serotonin from the person who is having that kind act done to them um and you've also got a whole bunch of of um brain chemicals uh happening for people who are WI missing that effect that effect as well there's a big study that uh coined the term the Mother Teresa effect which is the idea of um they they gave people um this video that was like half an hour long where you watch Mother Theresa doing these kind things and then they me
(31:14) they measured uh levels of a chemical in your in your mouth uh in your saliva called salivary immunoglobin which is a very important chemical to uh well-being it's part of the thing that uh you know fights off toxin you know in our food and you know and in the world around us and so basically the more you have of that chemical um the better your levels of well-being and it found that people had this this you know sense of a High um just from having watched someone else be kind you don't even have to be kind
(31:43) to to get these effects um so when you when you look at it like that there's an awful lot that we're leaving on the table if we in a moment just choose to do the convenient thing and not the kind thing and so we can think of an act of kindness as you know costing us five minutes of our day or whatever but actually choosing not to be kind is costing a lot more in terms of that sense of well-being that's sort of going on around us and particularly the sense of you know we think about the person who is the beneficiary of kindness but
(32:13) actually so the other bit of terminology I I I learned through the research was um the idea of the help is High um so that sense of the sort of dopamine increase and oxytocin increase um you know really shows us that we get healthier when we we are the person helping when we are the person being kind um so even just on that level you know um there's also 23% less cortisol um in your blood when you are kind so um cortisol being the stress hormone um you're 23% less stressed just by being kind so there is a lot going on when one
(32:47) person is kind um and kindness has a ripple effect so the more you know when when you commit that act of kindness you're also thinking you should also be thinking about the ripple effect of someone else being inspired by that them doing something kind so when you leave that on the table it's like just a massive impact when when when you don't take that kindness R yeah and I was just thinking about the business thing against I made lots of notes when I was reading your book when these are these are the bacon bookmarks that I think
(33:14) that is actually a new record for the most bookmarks so one of the questions is there a book under there or not there is just about yeah one of the questions that really pulled me up you you one of the questions for reflection at the end of the business chapter was about the business pillar was what stories am I telling myself about why I'm so busy and the brackets if your first thought is no I'm special I've got reasons why I'm so busy then you need to spend longer comp contemplating this question and I
(33:39) thought oh that's that's yeah that's got me yeah part of that I think comes from um you know working with organizations over 15 years on productivity and the amount of times an organization has said well we're really special we're really different and then they've proceeded to tell me exactly the same issues that I here everywhere else and so I do think there is we often have this exceptionalism right it's like yeah those people over there aren't doing it right but actually I'm probably making
(34:05) really great decisions and it's just a bias that we all have isn't it yeah um you know and I have it I have it too I like I'm totally not immune from any of this stuff and um yeah uh have a very over many years like an interesting relationship with the word busy like I've really tried to put uh sort of structures and habits in place that sort of slow me down and and keep me away from busy um but that's cuz my natural inclination is to be very ambitious and quite sort of aype in a lot of stuff and and so I
(34:36) kind of need those um restrictions in place really to sort of stop myself becoming the sort of busy addicted sort of you know boss from Hell or whatever in the introduction we talked about the dirty yes this has Danny picked up on this and since then i' fallen in love with the ter K can you just unpack that a little bit what it is and how it occurs in organizations yeah well this is like coming back to that definition between nice and kind so the dirty yes is what you is is where you nod along in a meeting when someone goes um is everyone
(35:07) cool with this are we agreeing with this are we and and you go yeah whatever and then you're bitching about that person behind their back right so you're not really in full support of the thing but you're you're shering the truth or for some other reason you're just not bringing your own thoughts to the table and I think that happens a lot where you don't have psychological safety where people feel like well the boss is saying this and we've done all this before but you know to be honest let's yeah we'll
(35:34) just nod and go along with it so um you know I think it's um it's really important to try and avoid some of those those dirty yeses and actually what I see a lot so I do so when I do keynote talks I'm often doing them at conferences or away dayss and I've lost track of the number of times I've had I've witnessed one of those conversations where someone will be talking in acronyms for like 10 minutes and then someone at the back of the room sheepishly puts their hand up and goes I don't know what
(36:07) ij6 is or like what that stands for whatever and you see half the room their shoulders just like relax and it's like oh thank goodness some someone actually said that so I think a really good rule of thumb which I often uh you know talk about with teams and stuff is if you are feeling like clear or if you're feeling like there's a niggle or there's something that really needs to be said often when you say it you'll see half the room go thank goodness and so you just need that little bit of Bravery at
(36:40) the beginning to be the one that stands up and says hey I'm not going to sign up to this I'm not going to subscribe to this dirty gu I'm actually going to give you some interrogation of that idea and a bit of an objection to that idea maybe even I'm going to give you an alternative uh thing that we could do instead and often when you do that yeah you'll find a lot of people say oh thank you for being the one who was brave and you know put your head above the parit so I just think it's really important to
(37:03) to know that that's happening around us and happening in everyone else's heads you know so you do loads of things see author podcaster keynot speak what aspects of your work bring you the most Joy what do you find most fulfilling you know it's often said with someone who's an author and a speaker is that you're either a a great author who does a bit of speaking or you're a great speaker who occasionally writes a book you know and so I think it's often for me like uh I think about that a lot like which
(37:30) which one do i s am I sort of most comfortable in and I think in general to be honest I'm where I'm happiest is in my shed writing researching ideas generation and all of that not that I don't enjoy the speaking I love the speaking um but the speaking takes a lot out of me just energetically so that's kind of yeah like I so I I do this um weekly uh email called rev up for the week which you me at the beginning which um
(38:02) goes out every Sunday 4:05 p.m. just picked a random time and I and I just really love the process of writing it so I write it every week it's not done with AI they're never batched up and then released you know drip feed over week it's always a piece of writing that I've done that week um they tend to be you know probably the best part of a thousand words most of them and the idea is it's just like one free thing uh one useful idea uh to just share for the week ahead and it and that's my kind of weekly newsletter thing and I just really love
(38:31) writing those and I've actually got I've been given a few ai ai tools over the last few weeks that could very easily replace me in that role and my reaction to that is no way because for me the writing process is also my thinking process it's my reflection time it's it's just a really important process and I definitely think having done that solidly for sort of four or five years now uh I look at the the quality of the writing in kind is way better than the quality of the writing in how to be a
(39:03) productivity ninja which is my first book and probably most writers say that and you know everyone's got their embarrassing early works you know like um George Michael wrote TR Club Tropic and then probably hated it when he was you know doing his serious solo career faase um but I do think it's made me a better writer by having it be the process so yeah I think probably yeah the writing and ideas generation and the creative part it but yeah obviously a big part of what I do is is the speaking and the workshops and just sharing the
(39:33) ideas you know the ideas are are great but you know when they come to life and you see people going oh yeah I'm going to take this back or I've you know this has changed how I work whatever like that's yeah that's always huge for me as well one of the things you talk about is the fact that we may have an intention to be kind but the world doesn't necessarily reciprocate that and often we'll see things at work where there isn't kindness what do we do when we're seeing behaviors that aren't kind from others
(39:58) like what what are our options really and and and even if it's potentially from our manager for example who has that reward power over us yeah so I've been asked this question a lot over the last few weeks you know what do you do when your kindness isn't reciprocated and I think the answer is it depends on who um I think if you have a toxic line manager and that person is going to be in post for a while you're probably better off finding a new place to work because I think over time uh that person
(40:28) is going to change you more than you're going to change the situation um and it won't be good so I think that's the sort of caveat but if what you're seeing is there are some people on the team and they're busy and you know maybe that busyness is is what's leading to Accidental unkindness um then I do think just role modeling it and just um not just role modeling it but really whenever you get a chance banging the drum for kindness explaining the fact that you were kind in that moment and
(40:55) what it led to you know really talking about some of the impact of of some of those kind of behaviors either from you or from someone else and also thinking about who are the other sort champions of it around you and I talk in the book about uh the old England Football manager Sven yuran Erikson and he had this terminology of the cultural architech so who are the people around you that you can build the culture around and the people who are kind the fellow Travelers that you know they're on teamind if you can get those people
(41:22) all sort of pins approach talking about it um then you can have quite a big influence I think so I think it really depends if it's if it's a toxic boss uh and you don't see them changing anytime soon um I think the uh the most likely and the best change is you changing and moving somewhere else but I think if it's just other people on the team um yeah I think you can have a lot of influence to to really start to change that culture for sure one question that we always ask in every conversation is
(41:50) what have been some of the biggest lessons that you've learned along the way wow that's a big question it's a big question you can take it any direction you want to yeah I mean maybe this is a bit of a cliche thing but I think um especially when you're in the early stages of of building a business um you can you can really sweat the wrong small stuff so I think certain things where you really need the product to be right or the the detail to be right um you want to really double down on those and be really
(42:20) committed to making that as quality as it can be or as great as it can be and like don't compromise but there are also like so many bits advice that you get or so many uh models that you try and follow and actually like business um just like building a team it's often not a perfect or a linear route and so I think you can often get really stuck into trying it trying to do it properly or trying to do it the way so and so's done it or like modeling it in a certain way um and actually you just have to
(42:49) have a slightly more open approach I think and just be okay with things falling apart or things being imperfect or it you know you PIV to something else and so you know I think like over the years there's definitely been times where I've been too uh sort of concerned or committed to like things like being structured a certain way or me developing the business in a certain way and often it just develops how it's going to develop you know s gets a life of its own and and it goes Its Own Way um so yeah sweat some of the small stuff
(43:19) but like also don't sweat all the small stuff can say we we'll link to your s to kind in the in the show notes so people can access that but if people want to take their learning further what's the best way to kind of do that to how can they follow you how how do they learn more yes uh so you can connect with me on LinkedIn um and probably the best way just to sort of start the process if you go to gr alot.
(43:41) com links there you'll find a bit of everything that I'm doing so um you know my kind for leadership program which starts in January um in the end at the end of Feb I'm doing six weeks to ninja again which is my kind of annual six week productivity thing um so those are both two live programs working directly with me um and then also on that grey.
(44:03) com links is signing up to rev for the week and just like everything else I do and all of that will all be in the show notes so whether you're listening to this on audio on video that'll all be available for you as well Grant we want to say a huge thank you um we know you've been intensely busy sort of getting the book out there writing the book uh so we really appreciate your time Danny what are you taking away from today's conversation oh lots and lots of things I've really enjoyed it so but I think the the fact you know the idea of
(44:25) kindness being around truth and Grace is going to stick with with me I love the Mother Teresa effect that ripple effect of being kind and really being aware of that and the busiest thing just just calling ourselves out on why are we so busy and why are we holding that up as a as a badge of honor sometimes and how do we step away from that yeah so so many things for me and all of those things I I love the definition of Truth and Grace and The Salted Caramel I'm in that team as well um I love the way that we just
(44:49) clarifying the definition between between nice and kind and the fact that kindness actually it takes a lot of courage and really leaning into the difficult things as well um and I also love about the um the whole culture architect as well making sure that those are the right people you support um gr I want to say huge thank you it's been brilliant we've loved it it's been great um if you've enjoyed this podcast with grae we'd love it if you hit the like button if anything that Graeme has said
(45:12) with you today that's resonated with him please put it in the comments we'd love to hear what you think about it as well and feel free to hit the like button and subscribe but thank you so much grae and really wishing you lots of luck with the rest of the book and I know you'll probably the last thing but please do let us know if you got another book coming as well cuz we always really enjoy reading that we'll do it's been yeah it's been a real pleasure thank you both thank you thank you
(45:34) [Music]