Hippie CEO Life #49 - Kindness is a Superpower
A behind the scenes view of building a more humanistic company.
March 17, 2023
"A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees." ~ Amelia Earhart
When i was in graduate school, i spent countless hours researching, designing, and building a prototype expert system that would diagnose diseases in plants.
This was before the era where everyone walked around with smartphones in their pockets that could do all the things, so the idea was to create a system, that would run on kiosks, in local garden centers, that would allow home gardeners to interact with a touchscreen and the system would identify problems gardeners were having with their plants and would provide advice on how to address the issues.
The work was all done for free with the promise that once we secured funding, all of my hard work would be rewarded. We secured funding. i never received a dime.
As i prepared to leave the university after graduating, my business school faculty advisor called me into his office, “You know, that whole not paying you thing is a lesson for you. The business world is a cold, hostile place, run by people who would sell out their own mothers in order to get a promotion. You are too nice, the business world is going to take advantage of you. Maybe it’s best you find a different career path.”
Wow….what a way to enter the workforce. His words angered and upset me but as i began i career, i saw evidence everywhere that maybe he was right. i saw businesses creating cultures of survivor island where it was every employee for themselves, i saw the scheming and game playing and taking advantage of others in order to progress one’s career. i was crushed.
But i pressed on, job after job, with his words echoing in my mind. Was he right? Could he be right?
Until one day i no longer cared if he was right, it didn’t matter anyway, what mattered is i would reject his theory and choose kindness instead. i didn’t care if i never climbed high on the corporate ladder, i didn’t care if i ever got the coveted corner office, i didn’t care if i ever became CEO, i just wanted to work on things that made a positive difference in people’s lives and i wanted to do it while spreading kindness.
It’s true, a lot of high-profile business leaders are psychopaths and they are the ones that often get all the headlines but that doesn’t mean that they are the ones that are having the biggest impact on the world.
The reality is, that it’s the kind, empathetic business leaders that are changing the world for the better, we just don’t see them, because they are too busy planting seeds that create forests of new leaders, rather than seeking the spotlight for themselves. They are too busy making the lives of all those around them better, rather than seeking to take credit for the success of their businesses.
Being kind in business works. It works because it creates endless ripples that we will never be able to fully quantify, ripples of the people they have had a positive influence on, ripples of the people they have inspired.
It’s these ripples that are a force of good in our world, these ripples that move societies forward in healthy and positive ways.
Be a creator of ripples of kindness, plant roots that will spring up new trees.
This is the greatest lesson i ever learned at graduate school.
✌🏼💛
