Bringing Systems of Kindness To Work with James Rhee | #BossTalks | Salesforce

I got a feeling that you got a feeling that this is gonna be good.

Say hello.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Boss Talks, a series featuring candid career advice from some of the best in the business. Today we're going to focus on a topic that is quickly becoming front and center at all companies around the world, and that's the value of kindness at work. While traditional leadership tells us to lead with strength and logic, this next generation of leaders are rewriting the rules and challenging all of us to lead with our hearts. These leaders are embracing the qualities that allow us to thrive at home, qualities like love, empathy, and compassion to help their teams thrive at work. But the goodness doesn't stop at employees. Incorporating kindness at work really delivers real financial benefit as as well. So my very special guest today knows a thing or two about that, and I can't wait for you all to meet him. James Ree is an investor, a CEO, a goodwill strategist, an educator. He also empowers people, brands, and organizations by marrying capital with purpose. And he recently gave a really inspiring TED Talk on the value of kindness at work, which has seen nearly 2 million views and has been shared by people all over the world. James, my friend, welcome to Boss Talks. I know that you've been talking about the value of kindness at work long before it became top of mind for folks, and one of the most prominent examples is your experience as CEO of Ashley Stewart, which was back in 2013. So tell us more about that.

The company was in very tough straits. It couldn't have been in worse. It was five, six weeks away from liquidation. And for those of you who haven't seen the ted, I'd never run a company before. I was a private equity investor, and you can see my face, and I'm not particularly fashionable. And the business was serving predominantly a certain segment of black women in this country. And so the odds of any of this happening working were very small. And so these days, I say to people, you know, as much as you think things are difficult, that situation on surface would have seemed difficult. And during my first town hall, it sort of came from my soul somewhere where I gave a pretty unorthodox speech about what I thought we could do together. And I mentioned the word kindness, and it wasn't particularly planned. It just, like a lot of good things, it just kind of came out of my chest somewhere. And I said, yeah, kindness. We were very successful in making that a central component to the entire strategy, which required us to use the right math, the right ops, the right policies, the right Tech to enhance kindness and to amplify it. And it worked quite well.

So let's double click into that because right now I think we're experiencing a really exciting time where everything about work is being totally reimagined. Where we work, how we work, how we lead. Everything right now is just on the table. But let's start off really tactical for folks. So what does kindness operationalized at work look like?

Sure, I think I'm going to break that down. So what's kindness first? And I think I wanted to really clarify that because definitions are really important and we're spending a lot of time in our society right now talking about life, work, capital, what does it all mean? So kindness. For those who snickered, I think they had the wrong definition. They equated it with some sort of saccharine niceness. That's not really what kindness is. Kindness to me and a lot of philosophies, it's really what it is, is that you are ultimate fiduciary without any ask of getting anything from it. You are helping someone achieve and be their best version of their self. It's not yourself, it's their self. And that's what kindness is. Ultimately, you're helping someone become accountable to themselves. And if you put it in that context, that to me is what real servant leadership is. Right. It allows leadership to last long after the leader leaves because the culture is not dependent on the leader. Everyone is actually the leader. Everyone's leading themselves first. And then once you can lead yourself, you are more capable of contributing to a collective social community. To be part of a collective.

It's really common, I think, for people to think of love and compassion as qualities that only work at home. But we do need to, and we get to now bring our full selves where we go, whether it's home or work. So what are your tips for folks out there for doing just that?

Some of us are not in a position early on to dictate the culture.

Right.

And that's a fair comment. But go find someone that creates that micro environment for you where you really can be yourself and they that they do care for you. And in some ways too, you want to find people that you trust enough that will give you incredibly tough criticism. It's the stuff that you don't want to hear. And if it comes from a person that you trust, you know that it's not particularly comfortable for them to say it to you, but they care enough about you. Just say it. Kindness is a lot. You know it. You, when you see it when you feel it, you know what it is. And that visceral instinct of trusting someone, that's highly intuitive. I wouldn't untrust your instincts about it. Like you know, when people have your best interests at heart and part of.

Part of kindness is making room for mistakes. You know, making mistakes yourself, excusing yourself, forgiving yourself. And then as leaders, you know, being a leader who is tolerant of that. Right. And understanding that mistakes are going to happen. How do you ask for space and grace from your team?

I don't take myself particularly serious. I take issues very seriously. But for me it's a very fine balance.

It is.

And so that's what I do is like if, and I say if I can make fun of myself and tell you that I don't know the answer, like can't you? That culture where you can start taking these risks and you're not going to get yelled at, but you've also designed a system that allows people to take that risk. That's what creates innovation. And that's what I meant in my ted, where kindness unleashes real innovation. That's not selfish, it's not self aggrandizing innovation.

So James, how do you bounce back when you make a mistake though?

Yeah, I apologize and own up to it immediately. Yeah, I screwed up. I'm sorry. I really am. Like I, I made a mistake. I, I, I do that and the cultures that I'm a part of, people do that. It's like I was wrong.

Yeah.

And that's okay. There's a real equivalent. I like using words. So in your personal life, grace is very important to yourself and to others. But I think at work, rather than using the word grace, the word slack is also very important. So slack in time, slack in operations that you're not demanding perfection. It's important and it could lead to longer term productivity that people don't burn out.

You teach at MIT and you're the Johnson Chair of Entrepreneurship at Howard University. And I know that college students in particular are very passionate about seeing their values reflected in the workplace and then they become productive workers and give us returns. And so what tips do you have for companies or employers to help prepare this next generation for entering into the workforce with that lens of kindness?

I think that the current employers, they better know that this generation, they're not going to tolerate the policies that maybe you and I grew up with in the when we just not going to employers who don't understand this, they're going to be subject to high attrition higher acquisition costs, like the whole lying flat movement in Asia. The great resignation, like loyalty can't be bought as an employer. And companies, they just have to focus on less. On the big review, the big bonus. It's the other 364 days. Like are you investing in your people?

And I think that's so critical now, especially in light of the great resignation. It's really top of mind for employees and leaders right now. So how can we use some of what we talked about today with regard to kindness to avoid that burnout and to engage our employees?

It requires a perspective change that sort of to breathe. And do you agree with the premise that maybe work is a very important part of someone's personal life, that it's an important part of your identity and you learn instead of we all miss school. But maybe work can be a place where you keep learning and you're sharing knowledge with colleagues. I think the people who can be incredibly collaborative and build these cooperative ecosystems and realize that they want to have a bigger pie and share in the pie. I think those companies and leaders and individuals, they will quote, they'll win. It's a real sharing economy, knowledge sharing. And you all have done that, right? Salesforce has done that with the whole ecosystem and you've done that effectively.

He took the words right out of my mouth. It's a sharing ecosystem and that's ecosystem for a reason. Community. Right. And it's. And I think one that's based on kindness. Intentional kindness is great. So my friend, we have come to my favorite but my final question for you and that is James, what is your superpower?

I think that during very difficult times and chaos and massive inflection point at a company or in society, which is what I believe we are in now, I can see a lot of things with through different lenses at the same time. And so in calm, I bring people together and we're able to forge like a common solution and so people don't panic.

And I think we're, we're all very grateful to have learned from your experience today. So thank you for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

I really hope you enjoyed today's conversation. And if you want to watch more episodes of Boss Talks, check out the new Salesforce Plus. To continue boss building, head on over to trailblazer.salesforce.com to join millions of trailblazers who are learning relevant skills, connecting to fellow trailblazers and giving back with the trailblazer community. With that, I'd like to thank you all for tuning in to boss talks and I'll see you all next time, Love.