GA 394 | Practicing Kind Leadership with Karyn Ross

Leaders have a huge amount of influence on people and they have a huge amount of influence on the system. So we need to be thoughtful, we need to be kind, we need to think about what's happening to others and practice, practice, practice, practice.

Today, I'm excited to welcome Karen Ross back to the show. Now, regular listeners know that Karen's been on the show a number of times, and today we're going to be talking about her newest book, which is called the Kind Leader. And as the name implies, it's all about leadership and how kindness plays a role in leadership and getting the things like how to basically kind of eliminate fear, create trust in an organization, that sort of thing. And then I will say that. And I, and I had sort of warned Karen ahead of time that I was going to dig in on this one. And we had some questions that we sort of like, had prepared a little bit before the episode, but I definitely went way off script and we really dove into it. Like, I, you know, I really wanted to almost really dig into the whole. There's some tough topics as it relates to leadership, like accountability in an organization when someone is doing something incorrectly, or later in the show, I asked her, what if you find someone stealing? And, you know, how does, how does justice and kindness and how do they, how do they interplay? And so it's a, it's a pretty real and authentic episode, I feel. I tried to ask questions as, as if I was a listener. Right. And so I hope you're going to enjoy that. Now, Karen is offering a 20% discount for the book and she, she talks about it towards the end of the podcast, but it's nearly an hour long, so in case you don't get all the way to the end, which I think you should, because it's a really good, fantastic episode and lots of stories in there, but we're going to have everything in the show notes, so all the links to, to her previous books, as well as this book, and information on how to get this 20% coupon. So go to GembaPodcast.com, look for episode 394. Again, GembaPodcast.com, look for episode 394 and all the links will be there. And yeah, that's all I got. I hope you enjoy the show. Talk to you next week. Karen, welcome back to the show. How are you?

Oh, I'm totally fabulous, Ron. Thank you for, for having me back.

Oh, you're welcome. You're welcome. I just had Adam Lawrence on. You know, he's trying to make a run at you as far as number of times on the. On the podcast. But I told him every time he comes on, you come on twice. So, you know, he's got a lot. Yeah. A long way to go, Adam, if you're listening. But he's trying. He's doing a great job. So he had a lot of nice things to say about you in the last episode. It just came out, so.

Well, I have a lot of nice things to say about him, so I'm super happy that you're having him on as a guest.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. All right, well, Karen, you're not new to the show, so you know how we like to get started. So do you have a quote that you want to open up with?

I do have a quote, and that quote, and it's a quote of mine, actually, today. And it's. Kind leadership is a practice that takes practice. And I actually chose it specifically because I think. Ron, in all the times that I've been on Gemba Academy podcast, I don't think there's a. A single time we haven't discussed the idea of practice and deliberate practice theme that runs through all of our conversations. So kind leadership is a practice that takes practice.

Yeah, I love it. Good, Good, Karen. And just in case folks aren't familiar with you, who you are, I'm sure they are, because we got a lot of regular listeners, but just give us a quick rundown on Karen Ross.

Oh, thank you. I'm Karen Ross. I'm coming to you today from 35 miles west of Chicago in lovely Naperville, Illinois. And I've actually started thinking about, really how to describe myself. And I'm an activator. And what that means is I'm activating people to create kinder, better ways to work, and whether that's working on kind leadership and practicing kindness. So I have a foundation called the Love and Kindness Project foundation, and I have a new school for kindness leaders. Or whether it's in the lean world, helping people create better, more effective, efficient ways to work. I really am focused on getting people to do something, practicing. Because thinking about doing something doesn't change the world for the better and kinder. Actually doing something. That's.

Yep, exactly. Good. So, Karen, you. Well, we're recording this in early October, and I understand that your newest book has just been released. Is that right?

Yes, I'm super, super, super happy. It's called the Kind A Practical Guide to Eliminating Fear, Creating Trust, and Leading With Kindness. And I can't believe it, Ron. But it's actually my sixth book.

You read my mind. Because I was just about to say listen, but we'll talk all about this book but give us a rundown on your previous books that you've written. You've written some really, really good ones.

Well, thank you. So from the sort of lean in process improvement perspective, there's Toyota Way to Service Excellence co authored with my fabulous friend Jeffrey Leiker and that one won the Shingo Award. There's how to Coach for Creativity and Service Excellence and that's a lean coaching workbook. And I love it because it's super practical and it combines my art background and creativity background with the whole service excellence. I have a book called I'll keep you posted that is a compilation of 102 posts that I did a couple of years ago. And it's all to help you with practicing reflection. And then for our Love and Kindness Project foundation, we have Big Karma and Little Cosmo Help each Other, which might seem to be a children's book, but actually it's really a message for adults because if Big Karma and Little Cosmo, my actual pets, can help each other, then we adults can too. Then think kindly, speak kindly and act kindly and that's 366 easy and free ideas that anyone can use to start creating a kinder world right now. And a book I didn't author but that the foundation actually has published is authored by Isabel Alexandra and it is stories from the Fox Continuous Improvement Team. Everyone can improve their work and it's a comic book that teaches managers how to teach continuous improvement with people of all varying abilities. So people with autism, people with anxiety. And when you purchase any of these books, all of the royalties that I receive actually go directly to fund the Love and Kindness Project Foundation. So thank you to anyone who's purchased any book you're supporting the work that the foundation does. And I really appreciate your kindness.

Nice. Very good. And we're gonna, I'll get you to send links to all those and we'll put them in the show notes for this episode. So folks, just, you can't remember everything that Karen just said, but just go to GembaPodcast.com look for episode 394. That's what today's episode is. And we'll link to everything there in the in the show notes. So again, gembapodcast.com 394 awesome. All right, Karen, let's jump right in. I guess my opening question is, you know, obviously for people that know you, you know, you're Passionate about kindness and being kind and helping others and whatnot. But I'm curious, when we're tying it in with leadership, like, what's up with that? Like, why are you so passionate about, let's call it kind leadership?

That's a fabulous question. And as I was, you know, I traveled extensively before the pandemic. I went somewhere different in the world every week probably for about five years. And as soon as the pandemic happened, I found myself in a whole different routine, as we all did in lockdown. I had a lot of time to reflect, honestly, as I was reflecting about all of the things that I was seeing, not only that had to do with how people were acting in the pandemic, but a variety of social justice things, inequity problems, climate crisis, all of those things. And of course, I had time and I was really reflecting on what were commonalities between this and using our good lean thinking, what were some of the potential root causes? As I looked and thought about more of them, I really just thought over and over failures of leadership and failures of kindness. When you put failures of leadership and failures of kindness together, it really creates some disastrous results. When you think about it, people in leadership roles, their words tend to, as today's post I had on LinkedIn was, their words tend to travel fast, travel far, and carry a lot of weight, especially in our social media age. We hear those words over and over again and we see actions repeated over and over again. I don't normally watch tv, but my husband loves tv. So the thing is, while being at home, I just saw all different kinds of things on TV over and over again. It really made me think. People in leadership roles have an unbelievable influence on others and their actions and their words. And when we see unkind acts and we hear unkind words from leaders, whether it be political leaders, whether it be the leaders in our organization, whether it be our leaders in our families, when we hear and see those things over and over and over again, they really cause all kinds of disastrous results that become systemic. So I wasn't planning to write a book on leadership. I wasn't planning to write a book on kind leadership. But, you know, when I see a problem, Ron, I think someone should do something about that problem. And so I wrote a book about it because that. And it's a very practical book filled with exercises and activities for people to do to practice kind leadership so that we don't have to continue along in this same systemic problems.

So I'm going to ask some tough questions. We're going to dig into this. So when I think about leadership and let's say being kind, sometimes there is a dichotomy. I almost sense that you can take any, any leader and I don't even care. Let's say it's politics. It could be a left leaning leader. A right leaning leader doesn't really matter. Right. And there's going to be situations where bad things are happening. Right. And we need to, we need to act that in ways that aren't pleasant or it's a tough situation. And being kind may not always even be the appropriate emotion. In fact, I was just on a Gemba Academy internal meeting the other day with some, I won't name the name the folks, but you know, we had some disagreements and all the rest of it, but it all ended up great. But you know, there was no one was being ugly or let's say unkind, but there was intention to the words. Do you know what I'm saying? So like how do we balance something like kind, like just be nice, be nice. Well, sometimes nice is not going to work in a situation. If the house is burning down, I'm not going to be kind, I'm going to say get out. You know what I mean? So like how do we balance that as leaders?

Okay, so I think that you brought up a couple of really good things. First of all, nice and kind I think are two different things.

Okay, talk about that. That's a great distinction. So talked about the difference between kindness and, and niceness or being nice.

And as people will read in the book, the definition of kindness I created is that kindness is the action we take that actually does something to make something better for someone else based on our feelings of empathy and compassion. So empathy is our ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes and see things from their perspective, not from our perspective. Right. But the way they might be seeing them. Compassion is the ability to feel. It's that feeling that now we feel someone's suffering and we want to do something to alleviate that suffering. Those are internal. Empathy and compassion are internal to us. Kindness is the action that we take based on those feelings to do something better for someone else. So in the meeting that you're having, we can disagree, we can state our opinion, we can have a discussion, and we can do it in a way that actually allows us to better understand what others are thinking and feeling and their perspectives because they may not be the same as ours. Right. We don't have to have that kind of discussion in a way that tears down Someone else that says terrible things about them, that hurts them as a person. So we can actually disagree, discuss, and come to an idea about what to do based on, oh, actually what would be best for other people in this situation. So I think that people mistake niceness for kindness and say, oh, well, I just have to be nice to the person. And that would mean that I don't shout at the person or I don't, I just swallow my own feelings about that. I don't think that that is the case at all. I don't think that's kind. Right. That's disingenuous.

Yeah. Well, even like, and I know you have, so, I mean, they're, they're grown now, but when they were little and they did something wrong, you corrected them out of love and kindness. Right. But making them not. Or, you know, I don't know if they had cell phones back there, but if I take my kid's cell phone away today, you would think that their life's ending right by their reaction and that. But I'm, I, I would, I'm doing it out of act of love. Right. And kindness. But it's not, I guess, very nice, probably, I don't know. Right.

They might not feel it's very nice, but it actually might be very, very kind. That might be the kindest thing to do. Maybe they're on their cell phones, you know, and when I was growing up and you walked home from school with your friend and you had an argument with them, then, you know, I was allowed to use the phone 20 minutes a night. We had one phone, you had to share it and then you thought better of it, you know, and then the next morning, you really didn't want to be upset with your friends, so you both went walk to school. You ap. Now kids go home, they get on Facebook, they get on Instagram, Snapchat, they complain to everybody.

Right.

And it makes a huge bigger problem. So actually the kind thing to do as a parent for a child who is having this kind of problem and who can't control themselves, the kind thing, when you think about that, when you think about it from their perspective, from their point of view, from the fact that they're a young person, they don't have the self control. The kind thing could be to take their cell phone away so that you actually help them with that self control.

Yeah. Some of my kids have, you know, regular traditional smartphones, but the youngest ones who are entering into the cell phone world, they have, we have these, I don't know if you've ever heard of it. It's called Gab Wireless and it's basically a phone that calls. You can text. That's it. No Internet, no apps, no social media. Nothing. And yeah. So it's. Yeah. So just entering into that. That whole world. But we're not here to talk about smartphones. But all the parents are out there. Like, what? Gab Wireless? What is that? They're. No, I just made a lot of teenage kids mad. Sorry. Kids. Yeah.

Well, I think that's okay. And I think the truth is that we have to think about again. When we think about as leaders, our words.

Yeah.

Are going to be. I post something on the Internet.

Yeah.

I'm extremely conscious.

Yeah.

Of the fact that those words are going to travel.

Oh, yeah.

To place that I may not know about.

Oh, yeah.

Right.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. You can't even delete it because somebody will screenshot it, you know, so. Yeah. So, Yeah. I agree 100%. I. I'm so absent on social media these days, it's not even funny. I have a Twitter account, I think, but I can't remember the last time I posted on it. I actually have a fake Facebook account, like, under a different name, and I follow like Keller Soccer, which is the Little Soccer association over here, you know, because they. They do everything on Facebook, you know, so I have to have it, but it's not in my own name. So that keeps me. Keeps me out of trouble.

But. And so many people feel this way. And I think when you think about it, this really has to do with kind leadership, because on its own social media, I mean, Gemba Academy is going out to thousands and thousands and thousands of people and creating a positive effect. It's a kind of kind leadership.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Are taking an influence. They're doing things. I know because sometimes people call me.

Yeah.

I listen to you on Gamba Academy.

Yeah.

And. But we have be very conscious and practice. This is why kind leadership is a practice. I need to be very conscious that whatever I say on the Internet has that potential to go out and create something kinder and better and helpful for someone. Or it has the potential to go out there and go places that I don't know.

Right.

And hurt people and harm people.

Yep.

So I very, very, very, very conscious of that practice. And I think that actually it is possible to use social media for good, to send those messages. Because leaders. Leaders voices travel far and they travel fast and they carry a lot of weight. So even within an organization, you can think about it. Think about the grapevine. Right. Somehow the CEO says something in home office in one part of the country and in 12 seconds everybody else knows.

Yeah, exactly. Right, Exactly. So the subtitle of your book is A Practical Guide to Eliminating Fear, Creating Trust and Leading with Kindness. Those are some big words, some big phrases. What's behind that?

Yes. Well, thank you. And first of all, it's a practical guide because throughout the book, it's not just a book of theory. It's not just a book of research. There is a lot of theory and research in it, but it's not just a book of theory and research. Throughout each chapter, there are practical exercises for you to do right then and there, just in time, so that you are turning the theory into practice of kind leadership. Because kind leadership is a practice that takes practice. Thinking about speaking more kindly, thinking about acting more kindly, thinking about being more empathetic, actually aren't going to change the world for the kinder and the better doing those things are. Lots of times when I've read a book, the theory has been great, but by the time I finish the book, I don't really know how to apply this to my life.

What do I do?

Yeah, what do I do? So throughout the book, there are practical exercises, and you can do them right in the book. At the end of each chapter, there's also a fill in the ending story. So I've written half of the story about two kind leaders, Kayla Jansen and Kevin Landrell, who are at different levels of an organization in which they're practicing kind leadership, and they run into some tough situations, as we all do. And I'm writing the beginning of the story, and then it's your job to fill in the ending of the story based on what you have learned in the chapter so you'll be prepared when you go into your organization and have the same experiences. Because what I've written about are very common experiences. The problem with unkind leadership is that it creates fear. I want you to think about this. If you go to work and you just have that gnawing little worry, that feeling in the pit of your stomach, it's the day you have to hand in an assignment and maybe, well, it's not 100% quite done, or you're a little bit uncertain about whether it's really what your boss wanted and why are you worried about that? You're worried about that because you're worried if you hand it in, maybe somebody is going to be unkind to you in some way. Maybe they're going to roll their eyes at the Most or give you some unpleasant feedback, maybe actually you won't get that next promotion. Fear comes from the worry that we're going to be treated unkindly in some way. If you go into your organization and you weren't worried about some unkind thing happening to you, you wouldn't be afraid. Practicing kind leadership eliminates fear. And on the opposite side, it creates trust. Because think about that definition of kindness. The definition of kindness is that your leader is thinking about what's going to make things better for you, what's going to make things better for the other person that creates trust. Wouldn't you rather go to work in an organization in which there's trust and that you don't feel fear? Actually, leading with kindness eliminates fear and creates trust. And, Ron, we spend most of our adult life at work. What we learn at work, we take home. When we go home, we're going to act the way our leaders act. We're going to either create fear at home or we're going to create trust at home. When we go in and we coach our child's soccer team, we're going to act the way our leader has modeled for us to act. This is what's going to change the system. Leading with kindness is what's going to change the system that we have, not just at work, but actually in the whole world.

So let's dig into that one a little bit more. I like the example of the employee who, you know, had to turn in the project or whatever it might be. And maybe, as you said, maybe it's, you know, it's not done 100% correctly. Or maybe they. I ran out of time or for whatever reason, and they have to turn it in. Right? And let's say it's not. It's not acceptable. The, the boss in this case is like, I can't. This isn't going to work. Right? Because we need it. If I send that to the customer, it'll be a defect or it'll come back or something like that, right? So how do you balance something like accountability within an organization with kindness? Because you're right. I mean, we can't have a fearful organization. It's got to be a trusting organization. But that doesn't always mean that everything's going to be like, oh, it's okay, you know, you know, but if. Because if it's not right, you're going to go back to the employee and say, hopefully in a kind way, right? You don't need to be a jerk about it, obviously. Say, hey, this Isn't right. And we've got to correct A, B and C. Does that mean. Is that clear? Do you understand? Maybe we got to get more training or find the root cause of the issue, you know, whatever it might be. So how do you balance the need to perform with kindness?

Right? And I think again, it's that whole. It's that whole difference between being kind and being nice. So we have to create things in organizations, right. Our customers need things. So if I'm the manager and my person who works for me brings me something that's not quite right instead of oftentimes people who are leaders react out of fear too, right? Oh, my goodness. Now.

Yeah. They're accountable also to someone, right? A stakeholder shareholder. Wall Street.

I'm not going to get the next promotion. The problem is in organizations, leaders tend to be focused on the ends results. And those results are normally things. They're not people, but people produce those results. If I was the leader, first of all, I think I should know before it's the deadline if the person who's actually doing the work is having difficulty. Actually, if I really practiced the kind leader key behaviors. So one of the act kindly key behaviors is check in with people, not on them. Right. And if we actually went to see them frequently and we asked how they were doing and what kind of help they need, first of all, we could prevent that. That would be a lot kinder. Now we're in this situation. Sit down. And I would say, okay, can you tell me about this? You know, this maybe isn't exactly the way it should be. Could you tell me how it got to be this way? You don't again have to scream at the person. You don't have to actually berate them, belittle them. I actually once handed in a presentation a long time ago. I worked in corporate America, and one of the bullet points was not the same size.

Oh, boy.

As the.

That could be bad depending on what corporate world you're in.

Right? It could be bad.

PowerPoint police coming for you.

The PowerPoint police coming. And the thing is, somebody could have been kind to me, but they actually weren't unkind to me. They berated me for not being careful, for not proofreading. Well, you know, we don't know someone's situation. Maybe their child was ill the night before. Maybe their relative passed away from COVID Let's treat people as people and ask what happened first before we judge. So it doesn't mean we don't ask the person why something happened, but we don't have to ask them in an accusatory way. We could ask them in a curious way.

Right.

It doesn't mean we don't necessarily have to redo the work.

Yeah. I think you nailed it though, when you said, you know, if you get to the point as a leader and someone does submit subpar work, for lack of a better word, it really is on the leader because the system failed. Right. You know, I mean, I suppose there could just be an employee who doesn't care. And that's a different, that's an HR issue at that point. Right. But, but yeah, I mean, I feel like checking in and that's, that's being kind. That's being, that's actually being a good leader. Right. You're building in quality. Ever heard of that? Toyota people? Right. You know what I mean? And so, so we shouldn't, shouldn't, shouldn't even have a situation to where it even happens. I would say it's a failure of leadership when that does happen.

Exactly. And it's actually quite unkind because we haven't thought about what would happen to the person if, when they get to the end, what they've handed in is wrong. So one of our favorite quotes, be hard on the process, be soft on people. Right?

Yep.

But here's what I think. I think that as lean practitioners, maybe we forget the second part. We often say, focus on the process. Focus on the process. Right. Be hard on the process. But that quote actually has the second part, be soft on the people, which you can say is kind to the people, is that we should never forget that all processes are done by people. And when people make a mistake, they feel bad. When people don't think that their work is going to make their leader happy, they feel fearful, they are worried. So I think, I worry myself that sometimes we're too focused on the process and we're not actually focused on being kind and treating people as people, getting to know them as human beings, understanding that people are not machines. And most people that I've met in all organizations I've worked for actually have wanted to do a good job. We should be kind to them when something. We should acknowledge that they probably actually feel terrible about making a mistake. And how can we help them feel better about making the mistake? Right. How do we treat whole human, whole kind human beings? Because that's what they're going to take home to their family and that's what they're going to take out into the rest of the world.

I got an interesting question for you, Karen. I'VE known you a long time, and every time I talk to you, you have a smile on your face. Every time I see you interacting on social media, LinkedIn in particular, it's the one that I see you on the most. You know, it's always positive and upbeat. But when's the last time someone really hurt you or wronged you or, you know, just like, did something awful, said something awful to you or acted awful to you? Like, does that ever happen? And if so, like, how do you respond?

Of course I'm a human being.

Yeah.

I've been married 37 years and I have two children. And I can guarantee you nothing goes perfectly. And I work in corporate environments for many, many years. And I think that one of the reasons, and I've been treated unkindly in many, many, many ways. I was the child, Ron, growing up that was totally ostracized. Right. I was a little bit different from the others. I didn't look like other people. I was this creative, artsy type. And I had almost no friends growing up. And I was always the person who was sticking up for the underdog things my way. And I think it's really helped focus me on kindness because what I really have come to understand is that everybody wants to do well. Everybody wants to make a contribution. Everybody, in many circumstances, they are just doing the best that they can with what they've got. And I have a choice every single day. I could be mean and grumpy and angry and that is going to just exacerbate the problems that we have in this world. Or I could be positive and cheerful and look for the good and look to understand other people and understand that people actually, you know, we take a lot of things personally that don't need to be taken personally.

Yeah.

And I can be this way. It doesn't mean I have less hurt. It doesn't mean people are not unkind to me. Though the truth is, oftentimes, if you're kind to people, they respond that way. Yesterday I went to the post office and I go to a satellite post office for in a local business that I really, really love. And I had all kinds of copies of the Kind Leader that I was mailing out to the wonderful people who gave their stories for it and some people who won books during Kind Leadership Week. And I probably had 18 packages to mail and there was one person there in the satellite post office. And normally there's two people on the weekend, but anyways, they're having the same kind of staffing problem every other business and the person was new. And after she probably put in 12 of my 10 or 12 of the books, I could see a line was forming. And I said to her, I said, I have an idea. Why don't. Is there someone else you could call to help? Because I know there's two stations. And she said, well, let me see. And finally, actually, the owner came, but he doesn't really know how to do the. So finally I said. I said, you know what? I have an idea. Why don't I just pay for these? And then you help all the other people in the line, and when they're done, we can go back to doing my things. And she said, you would do that? There's like five more things to do. I said, yes, but look, the lineup is getting longer, and it's. I mean, the people who came to the post office with the one item to mail, they didn't know that there was going to be someone wanting to mail 15 things in some international. So I said, why don't I just pay and then I'll wait. And she was like, really? You would do that? And then I had a lovely conversation with all the other people who were so happy that somebody moved along in line. And then we got to. It was maybe 15 minutes later. And then the person said to me, she said, these ones are international. And the truth is, she said, I'm going to tell you right now, I've never done an international package before, and I don't know how to do it. You know what? I said, thank you for telling me. Because to me, the thing that matters the most is that these books just get to where they're going. So I'm just going to take the books home and I'll just come back tomorrow. It's not a problem. And she was so relieved and so thankful. And the owner who was there, he was so relieved and so thankful. And so I went home. And you know what? Was it the end of the world that the books didn't get mailed? Did it make me feel better that this poor person. And she was in fear the whole time that she was going to have to do an international mailing. I came back. So I went back today with my three books, and the person who normally does the mailing was there, and they all got mailed, and it wasn't a problem. And then I went to buy something else at the front checkout, and it was the person who yesterday had been there for the mailing. She looked at me and she said, you came back? I said, yes, I Just came and got the other ones mailed. It's all okay. She said, you don't know how what you did yesterday made my day and affected me. She said, I've been thinking about it ever since. She said, I was so scared to mail your packages. I didn't want to do something wrong. She said, and I was afraid to tell you that I didn't know how to do it because my boss was standing there and I thought you were going to be angry because so many of our customers are angry and they yell at us. And she said, you just let other people go first and you came back today. She said, I just want you to know how much that. She said, you just thought it was mailing stuff, but how much just seeing that meant to me. And every day I think about those things. We can be mean and grumpy and angry and self centered and upset and hurt other people or we can take our package again tomorrow. What is more important, that the package went out or that a person felt better? Yeah.

Parallel story to that. In a similar way, I recently watched this video of Russell Wilson, you know that I don't know if you've watched football or not. He's a Seattle Seahawks quarterback, NFL quarterback. And you know, he's really good, really good quarterback, right. I don't know if he still is, but he was like the highest paid player at one point in the time. He might still be, I don't know. But he has this thing called state neutral thinking he calls it. And it's similar to. I coach a lot of my kids sports teams and we talk about playing in the middle, you know, so after you make a big play, you know, you're all happy. It's okay to cheer a little bit with your teammates, but then get back to the middle. And then when you make an awful play, you know, it's, you know, you're feeling horrible, but you gotta get, it's got, you gotta let it go, you know, and you got to get it back to the middle. And Russell Wilson calls it playing and staying neutral. Right? The same, same idea. But I feel like there's, it's. And I'm, I'm a big guy. I like stoicism, right. Like as far as like controlling your emotions and, and you know, if you don't feel harmed, you haven't been. Right? If you do feel harmed, you have been, you know, And I feel like there's parallels here, you know, because you, the only thing that you can control as a human being is how you react to a Stimulus, Right. That's it. It's the only control you have. You can't control the stimulus that's coming at you. So I feel like there's parallels there, you know, between what that story you just shared and playing in the middle, so to speak, and just maintaining control of what you can control. Which is your reaction. What do you think?

Yes. And it goes back to the quote, kind leadership is a practice that takes practice. Right. So I'm looking at the situation in the post office as a way for me to deliberately practice my kindness to others. Because you know, standing there, there was the momentary thing of looking at that line of people and thinking, hey, why should I have to move over for them? I was here first.

Right.

I have to keep practicing. And then I have to tell that little voice that came, you know, that's a little bit self centered and I'd rather be kind than first because here's an opportunity that I now have to practice and look out and see what's happening in other for other people and say, oh, well, I just turned up with the one piece of mail, a stamp that's more than a regular price stamp and I just need to buy a stamp. Right. Oh, so how am I going to feel? Oh, I'm a little irritated over there that I'm going to have to wait 20 minutes for this. Oh, I can see that the clerk is visibly scared to do this and that it's got, I can practice. There's opportunities to practice all around us. If we open up our eyes and we open up our hearts and we open up our minds, we're going to see those opportunities. And when we actually practice, we're going to say to ourselves, I don't know how to be kind in this situation. I'm so irritated. I discussed with this person 12 times already what this report was supposed to look like and it still doesn't look like that. What am I going to do now? Right now we have an opportunity to practice kind leadership and deliberately practice it too. Actually practice, you know, use one of our think kindly behaviors to check our thoughts frequently, then to change our unkind ones to kind thoughts.

Yeah.

How are we going to do all of those things? Take practice. Anything that we deliberately practice, we're going to get better at. If we don't start practicing, we're not going to get better and then we're just going to be stuck in this systematic unkindness that we have now. Practice. Right. I just look at it and I, I have to practice and I have to practice just as much.

Yeah, yeah. Like you said, you're human and as we all are. So. Hey, I, I know this is going longer than normal, but it's okay because I, I told you before, I, I've all. I, I have all these questions in my mind, you know, I just. And I want to ask them, so we can always edit things down later. But last question I have for you is something that just literally popped in my mind. So we're back in the. Say you're the manager in the corporate world again, or you run a restaurant, you're owner of a restaurant. I'll just use that example, Chicago style pizza. There you go. Right. So you got your own Chicago style pizza restaurant there and everything's great. And you have a very successful business. Employees are wet and wonderful customers. Customers are happy and you're successful. And then all of a sudden you discover that one of your employees has been stealing money from the cash register. Something like that. So where does the concept of, say, justice in that example? With the employee who's stealing from you? And let's say they have been for years and it's not because they don't have, maybe you're a highest paid employee, something like that, but they just, they've just been stealing from you. So how do you balance justice in that case with kindness? Or is it kind to invoke justice when it's needed? What do you think?

I think again, just like, first of all, we need to think back to our definition of kindness, right? And to think, well, put myself in that person's shoes. Do my best to understand it from their perspective, which in fact might mean talking to the person, right? Figuring out what they're thinking, what they're doing. Maybe they have a substance abuse problem, right. Maybe they have a relative who is in some, we don't know. Right. So empathy and then compassion and then we have to think, well, what would be best for the person? Well, if the person has a substance, it turns out the person has a substance abuse problem and they've been stealing and whatever action we take should help them with that problem, right? So I think, of course, maybe one of the things is that they pay back, they pay back the, you know, money. Maybe they're a good employee other than that, Right. There's all different kinds of things that we can do. Maybe in some ways, you know, if the person goes to prison, that might be a thing that would help them or it might not be.

Yeah, I know it's not even a fair question. I'm just, I'm I'm just more curious because I feel like in these real world situations, sometimes we do, we are in these very real situations to where, you know, people do things that are not correct and not right and they're hurtful to others, to, to the company. Maybe this employee just looks you in the eye and said, I just did it because I, I did it. And then there's no reason. They just, I don't know, they're just a defect in their, their heart. I don't know. You know, and those situations, these are, these are the really tough moments of a leader. Right. Like balancing empathy with, again, justice or for the, for the organ, for the company, for that person even. You know, it's like I feel like being kind to that person might be doing the hard thing. Like taking your kid's cell phone away.

Right. I was. Being kind is doing a hard thing.

Yeah.

Again, being kind is not the same as being nice. It's about figuring out what is going to, what is going to cause some. A positive outcome for the other person. Right. Allowing someone to keep stealing because they have a substance abuse problem is not going to cause a positive outcome.

Right.

So figuring out what to do that will. It's not going to be easy. The thing is, when you choose to be a leader, you're going to be put in a lot of difficult circumstances. I had a conversation with somebody who's in a leadership role that I'm coaching, and the person had someone on their team who was not, I would say, what we would think is performing up to par. And the person I was coaching had some ideas about how to restructure their organization and put the person in a different role. And so the person I was coaching told me all of these ideas and finally I said, have you had a discussion with the person in question about why you want to do this and all of the things that maybe you feel that they're not performing up to standard. And the person I was coaching said, I haven't done that. If you don't have that kind of discussion, do you think it's kind to the person?

Right.

As how will that person know what to do if they want to do different things? Maybe their behavior or there's something that's holding them back, that's a blind spot for them. Being kind isn't the same as, again, it's not nice. Yeah, right. Kindness isn't weakness. Oftentimes when you think about it, it's going to take a lot more strength.

Right. Maybe meekness is a good word. Like I'm a Christian, you know. So like I'm into Jesus. Right. Like, I wouldn't call Jesus, like, wasn't always the kindest guy around, but he was meek sometimes he was strong even. He had and he loved. Right. But it was sometimes the money, the table got tossed over, you know, when there was bad things going on in the temple. So, so it can be tough, Right. Sometimes being a leader that you got to take action. Right. And like Martin Luther King, he's, you know, famous, you know, he's. There were some very tough moments and he had some very tough things to say throughout his, his, his time. Right. So I mean, I feel like you look at any leader and there's going to be moments to where you're like, woo, boy, that person's. They're getting after it a little bit right now. Right. But I think to your point, it does, there is kindness and behind it, you know, that's coming up from behind their words and their movement and their actions.

Yes. Because I'm sure many of the. I had a lot of alternative parenting strategies and maybe sometimes my children didn't think they were kind, but they've turned out to be fabulous, kind, wonderful people making amazing contributions to the world. Yeah, right.

And they're probably saying, mom, I know exactly what you are going through. I'm so sorry that I did all those things to you, mom, you know. Yeah, yeah.

And I think the other thing, the thing that really people should remember, nobody, no one is going to be a hundred percent kind all of the time. So we need to remember to be kind to ourselves. Practicing. If you do not act in the kindest way, if you lose your temper at your child, if you lose your temper at your partner or spouse, if you treat an employee unkindly, blame them for something that they did that you didn't think was, you know, what you could do. Apologize.

Yeah, I do that a lot. I do that a lot with my kids in particular. You know, yell at them. Oh God, gosh, I shouldn't have done that. You know, I'm sorry, you know, but yeah.

And then you take the opportunity for some introspection.

Yeah.

About what happened and say, okay, in the next situation, here's what I can do differently. Here's how I could react differently. How. Here's. I could take a few deep breaths before the stream of negative, unpleasant words come out of my mouth. Right. I could take a. I could say, let's discuss this later when we're all calmer and to be kind to ourselves and be kind to others. And really, honestly, keep practicing.

And when you're angry and when people are angry, put that email in the drafts folder and then the next day come back and reread it. And if you still want to send it. Okay. But I bet you you won't. Right?

Exactly. And think about what your actions have, what results, what influence they have on other people. Yeah, right. Am I acting out of fear so I'm doing something that's going to protect myself? Am I blaming someone else so I don't have to deal with the consequence? If it's something very difficult? Am I making a snap decision? And before I even go find out what's happening? The world is complex and complicated. Leaders have. Leaders have a huge amount of influence on people, and they have a huge amount of influence on the system. So we need to be thoughtful, we need to be kind, we need to think about what's happening to others and practice, practice, practice, practice, practice.

Yep. I love the movie Gladiator. I don't know if you're a fan, but one of the quotes, that is it. Martin. What is it? Maximus. That's his name. Losing my mind, Maximus makes. Right before this big battle, he says to his. To his men, what we do in life echoes in eternity. Right. And so I feel like what we. The way we control ourselves and the things we say, the way that we treat people, it really will echo in eternity by, you know, people are remembering, but also the. The impact that you have on those that you. That you interact with and then how they turn around and behave. So I always try to remember. I don't even know if it's a true quote, but it's a great movie quote, so I use it.

It's absolutely. It's. It's absolutely true. Because when you're a leader, you're modeling the behavior that others use when they lead.

Exactly right. Oh, my gosh. We've been talking for a while, Karen. Look at that. This might be one of the longer ones that we've done, but I think it was great. And I'm going to mention this in the intro as well, just in case people don't get all the way to the end here. But I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, that you might be doing something special for Gemba Academy listeners as it relates to the Kind Leader book.

Absolutely. I'm going to send you a coupon and coupon code that you can use, so when Gemba Academy listeners order directly from Routledge, the fabulous publisher that has published the Kind Leader, you'll be able to get a 20% off discount.

Awesome.

Our kindness and thank you.

Yes. I love it. I love it. And so this episode's going to be coming out here to towards the end of October. So I believe that this, this thing, this promotion is going to kind of work through the end of October. Is that right?

Yep, through the end of October. So please order as quickly as you can.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I love it. I love it. All right, well, Karen, if, if people aren't connected with you, which I find hard to believe that they wouldn't be, but if they aren't, what's the best way for them to, to get, to get linked up with you?

Best way is to connect with me on LinkedIn. And you can also email me at Karen K a r y narynrossconsulting.com I have a new website and it is kind. Yeah, I'm super excited. KindLeadership.org so if you want to learn more about the Kind Leader and all of the classes we have at the new School for Kind Leaders, please, please, please Visit us at www.kindleadership.org.

Love it. Thank you again for coming on, Karen. It's always so fun talking to you.

Always a pleasure, Ron. And I'm going to make sure that, you know, just please keep track. How many times Adam Lawrence is on his.

Yeah, right. He's after, he's coming after you, Karen. He told me, but I don't know if she's going to catch. Man, that's Karen. All right, you take care, Karen.

You too. Thanks, Rod.

All right, bye. Thanks for listening. Whether you've been on the continuous improvement journey for many years or perhaps you're just getting started, Gemba Academy is here to support you. And while we're best known for our more than 1500 Lean and Six Sigma teaching and virtual tour videos, we also have a team of experienced Lean and Six Sigma practitioners available for one on one coaching, as well as a variety of Lean and Six Sigma certification options. To learn more and to schedule a demo, head on over to gembaacademy.com.