3 Reasons Mandating Kindness at work doesn't work

Mandating kindness and empathy doesn’t work. I’ve seen a dozen companies try it and fail miserably.

It doesn’t fail because people don’t agree.

Everyone agrees that it’s a good idea to be kind and to consider other people with our words and actions.

It fails for three reasons:

1. Because one persons kindness is another persons cruelty. ie we don’t universally agree on what it looks like. In the same way that giving someone “help” uninvited is rarely helpful.

2. Because the diagnosis for unkind and unempathetic words or actions in most cases is determined by someone FEELING triggered by someone else’s words or actions and being triggered doesn’t necessarily make you right.

3. As soon as you tell people to look out for something (or lack of something) they will see it everywhere and the thing you are trying to remove start growing.

What’s the answer?

Start doing the work of removing your own triggers and wounds. You can’t be triggered if you’re not loaded to begin with.

Heal the wounds and criticisms become feedback to consider. Anger becomes a display of their insecurity, politics becomes a display of their fear.

The bonus is that empathy and kindness are a side effect of having nothing to hide and nothing to fear.

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