Just kind
In a business that is under disruption, sometimes the best decision you can make is to be kind.
At the IPA conference for International Women’s Day one of the key note speakers Pinky Lilani CBE, Founder, Women of the Future, talked about the importance of kindness in modern leadership. She said that her business had been built on the kindness of others. She’s created the Kindness and Leadership 50 leading lights, and points out that kindness is seldom celebrated.
The phenomenal early success of one icon of British TV represented a prominent example of the power of kindness in popular culture. Sandy and Noel are mischievously anarchic. But they are not as kind as Mel and Sue.
Remember this season? Watching diffident Rahul win Bake Off was a great pleasure, finally an introvert in the spotlight for success. It was one of the highlights of archetypal British TV. Ratings were strong (if not quite BBC level), the bottoms are no longer soggy, but everyone had a lot of fun with Veganism.
One missing ingredient though is the kindness of Mel and Sue, both to each other – after all there’s a genuine relationship there not a manufactured one – and to the candidates.
Sue revealed that she and Mel walked off the set during Bake Off‘s first season because the producers were trying to coax human-interest drama—and the inevitable tears—out of contestants. “We felt uncomfortable with it, and we said ‘We don’t think you’ve got the right presenters,'” Sue told the Telegraph. “I’m proud that we did that, because what we were saying was ‘Let’s try and do this a different way’—and no one ever cried again. Maybe they cry because their soufflé collapsed, but nobody’s crying because someone’s going ‘Does this mean a lot about your grandmother?'” Bringing up dead relatives at stressful times is a time-honored technique for introducing tension into a television show, but it’s no way to treat your family.
Further than that when contestants did cry—out of frustration or disappointment, generally—Mel and Sue would stand near them and use un-airable language so the embarrassing footage couldn’t make it into the final edit. ” Sue was reported as saying: “If we see them crying or something, Mel and I will go over there and put our coats over them, or swear a lot because we know then that the film won’t be able to be used.”
Kindness is perhaps the polar opposite of traditional patriarchal business values of ruthlessness and power politics. Just as we wrote in The Glass Wall, success strategies for women at work and businesses that mean business, the toxic masculinity that pervades many organisations excludes all kinds of talented people from developing their full potential at work. Pinky said: “With kindness comes a feeling that is not easily forgotten. Think about customer service that has delighted you; think about a boss who inspired you to be where you are today; think about a brand or business you are loyal to because they seem to genuinely care. Kindness enhances the best qualities in people; it disarms a disagreement and it brings about collaborations which you may never have dreamed possible.”
Think about your own career path. It’s absolutely true that you will never forget the kindness of others. As Pinky added on IWD you also never forget an unkindness.
Being unkind is often unthinking and casual. But never to the recipient.
Kindness depends on there being nothing immediately in it for you. #Payitforward.
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on Tuesday, April 16th, 2019 at 4:29 pm and is filed under MediaComment.
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Kind
In a business that is under disruption, sometimes the best decision you can make is to be kind.
At the IPA conference for International Women’s Day one of the key note speakers Pinky Lilani CBE, Founder, Women of the Future, talked about the importance of kindness in modern leadership. She said that her business had been built on the kindness of others. She’s created the Kindness and Leadership 50 leading lights, and points out that kindness is seldom celebrated.
The phenomenal early success of one icon of British TV represented a prominent example of the power of kindness in popular culture. Sandy and Noel are mischievously anarchic. But they are not as kind as Mel and Sue.
Remember this season? Watching diffident Rahul win Bake Off was a great pleasure, finally an introvert in the spotlight for success. It was one of the highlights of archetypal British TV. Ratings were strong (if not quite BBC level), the bottoms are no longer soggy, but everyone had a lot of fun with Veganism.
One missing ingredient though is the kindness of Mel and Sue, both to each other – after all there’s a genuine relationship there not a manufactured one – and to the candidates.
Sue revealed that she and Mel walked off the set during Bake Off‘s first season because the producers were trying to coax human-interest drama—and the inevitable tears—out of contestants. “We felt uncomfortable with it, and we said ‘We don’t think you’ve got the right presenters,'” Sue told the Telegraph. “I’m proud that we did that, because what we were saying was ‘Let’s try and do this a different way’—and no one ever cried again. Maybe they cry because their soufflé collapsed, but nobody’s crying because someone’s going ‘Does this mean a lot about your grandmother?'” Bringing up dead relatives at stressful times is a time-honored technique for introducing tension into a television show, but it’s no way to treat your family.
Further than that when contestants did cry—out of frustration or disappointment, generally—Mel and Sue would stand near them and use un-airable language so the embarrassing footage couldn’t make it into the final edit. ” Sue was reported as saying: “If we see them crying or something, Mel and I will go over there and put our coats over them, or swear a lot because we know then that the film won’t be able to be used.”
Kindness is perhaps the polar opposite of traditional patriarchal business values of ruthlessness and power politics. Just as we wrote in The Glass Wall, success strategies for women at work and businesses that mean business, the toxic masculinity that pervades many organisations excludes all kinds of talented people from developing their full potential at work. Pinky said: “With kindness comes a feeling that is not easily forgotten. Think about customer service that has delighted you; think about a boss who inspired you to be where you are today; think about a brand or business you are loyal to because they seem to genuinely care. Kindness enhances the best qualities in people; it disarms a disagreement and it brings about collaborations which you may never have dreamed possible.”
Think about your own career path. It’s absolutely true that you will never forget the kindness of others. As Pinky added on IWD you also never forget an unkindness.
Being unkind is often unthinking and casual. But never to the recipient.
Kindness depends on there being nothing immediately in it for you. #Payitforward.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 16th, 2019 at 4:29 pm and is filed under MediaComment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.