Can You Be Kind AND Successful? Claudia Hammond and Mo Gawdat on The Psychology of Kindness

0:01I am so glad you could join us. I'm your host, Mo Gaudet This podcast is nothing more than a conversation between two good friends sharing inspiring life stories and perhaps some nuggets of wisdom along the way This is your invitation to slow down with us Welcome to Slow Mo

0:34Welcome back. My guest today, despite the cruelty we see in the world today, believes that kindness is more prevalent than brutal cruelty. And that really caught my attention. It really got me thinking. Because in an interesting way, I think she's right. In her approach, Claudia Hammond is a professor of psychology, but also a broadcaster, a podcaster, prolific author, five books, incredibly interesting and engaging. I personally loved Time Warped. I love Mind Over Money. I love the recent one, The Keys to Kindness. There was one about rest, which I would love to talk about. I think it was The Art of Rest.

1:22and the first one was emotional roller coaster. I didn't have a chance to look at that, but I find that her approach is highly scientific, but very approachable. And I think this is something that is highly needed in the topic. She truly is an inspiration in her work and her commitment and dedication to try and help people out. In her broadcast responsibility, she reaches 100 million people over the waves of the BBC radio everywhere in the world. And today I have my time with her to talk about topics that are really, really, really interesting and intriguing for me. Claudia, thank you so much.

2:05You're truly an inspiration. I told you before we started recording that I normally don't prepare very much for the podcast. I'd like to get to know a person on the podcast, but I have to say I got stuck in a wormhole with you. I really did. I mean, I had one link to one video you did with my wonderful friend, Rangan Chatterjee. And I kept saying enough, enough, enough. And then I kept going from video to video. I love your writing very, very much. But to me, it is your very sort of matter of fact when it comes to your research. But you're talking about a very soft topic most of the time. You choose topics that are sort of like hidden in our psyche somewhere.

2:55And I always want to start by understanding how do you become who you are? Like, were you always in that line of thought and study? Have you always wanted to do this stuff? When did you start? How did you become you? Yeah, in a way, I had sort of twin things going on in my career for a long time because I had two things that were really grabbing my interest and didn't know which to do. So I kind of did both. So I was very interested in – I knew for a long time I wanted to work in radio. So when I was 14, I started volunteering at my local hospital for where they used to have then, and still do actually, hospital radio.

3:36Oh, what's that? Where you – a long time ago, the patients had headphones by their beds and, of course, before the internet, they couldn't have other stuff on apart from radios. But we did, we had a little radio station in a porter cabin in the hospital car park. No way. And there were programs broadcast all day. And we had a, you know, our own, you know, record library with thousands of records there that people would donate. And then we'd volunteer. And on Sunday evenings, I would do Claudia's Sunday requests. And I'm no DJ. So trust me, it was not very good. But what I got really interested in was going to see the patients first to ask for their requests.

4:13So I used to go around the wards beforehand and talk to patients. ask them what record they'd like played and then they would listen out later on for me to play their request but I got really really interested in talking to the patients and that was what got me interested in psychology in a way I was really interested in what they said and how I'm sure lots of them weren't listening to the program to be honest but they liked well I think they liked more having this teenage girl come and talk to them for a while and particularly like the older ladies I used to talk to them a lot and they would have their request already written down often a hymn I mean it was often the old rugged cross and things like that and amazing grace they would have their request written down as with the the men who'd had motorbike accidents there were lots of men in traction you know with their their broken bones all up on uh stirrups and stuff um and they were very bored um and so they would write and often very into music and they would write down their requests as well and have them all ready for me and I used to chat to all these people and the older people in particular the older ladies they they fascinated me because they would tell me all sorts of things really personal things about their illness and they'd say things like you know I've got blood coming out of my mouth but I'm not going to tell the doctor and I'd say I think I think maybe you should tell the doctor I you know I don't know but that might be important and no no I don't want to bother them I don't want to bother them oh wow and I say why don't you tell one of the nurses oh no no they're really busy the nurses are lovely and they're really busy and I said do you want me to tell them on my way out I always chatted to the nurses at the nurse's station I'll tell them on my way out if you like no no no no you've got to promise me you won't tell them and I used to wrestle with should I should I tell them or not tell them because they'd ask me not to on the other hand this seemed like it was important and that just got me really interested in why were they telling the wrong person this in a way you know they wanted to tell somebody and they weren't actually choosing the person who was who who could do something about it really and that got me really interested and I at school I really liked arts and sciences and I wanted to do a new subject that I hadn't done before at university and I thought psychology looked interesting because I knew there was lots of statistics in it.

6:14Lots of people hate the stats in psychology. I like that sort of thing. I know. But it was about people. So it was what a brilliant combination. You've got maths and you've got people and you've got a subject that's trying to pin down something as complicated as human beings and trying to find ways to scientifically, you know, study how they think and how they feel and why they do the things that they do all these mysteries so I thought that would be interesting but before that I wanted to have a year out before university and I applied to wrote to radio stations all around the world in Hong Kong and all sorts of places in the states trying to get a job for a year in a radio station and I actually also wrote my mum persuaded me at the last moment she said oh why don't you just write one to the local BBC radio station as well and I'd already done work experience there a couple of times and it was where I lived which is a place called Beverchere about 50 miles north of London so it was a place I'd always lived so you know I wanted to go somewhere that I thought might be more interesting at that point really but I wrote to them and they they happened to have a job going that I then applied for in the newsroom as an assistant and I did work there and I absolutely loved it it was amazing I met my future husband there as well so it was even better but I loved that it was live radio and I would be we had tapes then I'd be running up and down with tapes from the newsroom to the studio.

7:33And it was just really, really interesting seeing all this happen. So then I knew I was really interested in radio, went to university, carried on working for a different local radio station. I went to Sussex University on the South Coast, worked for a local radio station there as well. So that by the time I left, I'd done a lot of radio, but then I got really into psychology. So then I carried on with that, did a master's, but also working in radio. And then I started working. the first BBC all speech rolling news station BBC Radio 5 Live had just started and I applied for freelance shifts there so I was freelancing there but also doing some lecturing and psychology and then I started reporting but also doing lecturing and psychology and for a long time I couldn't see how these things would match up and then I was a reporter for about 10 years and then started doing more and more pieces about science or health or psychology and then started specializing in that and actually it's much more straightforward now because everything i do is about the same subject now so i'm often for my radio shows i'll be interviewing people about their brand new research that's just literally come out in a scientific journal that week and then the following week i can tell my students about that so it's all it all it all fits in all together you know so it's it's it's it's lovely now i specialize it's much easier in a way it's So inspiring, Claudia, honestly.

8:52I mean, you come at a time where I'm constantly revisiting my choices because there are things that I absolutely freaking love doing. I love to write. I totally love to write, but publishing is such a grueling job, right? And I keep going back and forth between, you know, if my mission is to reach more people, maybe podcasting, maybe speaking, maybe content generation but I love to write I just love it right and the passion that you put in this little bit about you that I didn't know is so inspiring because honestly you just were so almost I don't know if you can call it clarity but it was drive like you you found something that that energizes you and you just jump in most of us I mean I I'm I'm very much that but I I because I have so many things I'm excited about.

9:45I struggle to prioritize them. But most people don't have that, that they don't trust their intuition that they're doing the right thing because, you know, psychology and radio are almost on opposite ends of the world, especially when you started. Right? Yeah. But you still followed through with that. That's a very unusual character, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, in a way, I didn't know that they would link up as neatly as they did in the end. So sometimes I I think these stories, they sound like they make more sense when you make sense because you look back at your own life and make sense of it afterwards.

10:20You know, we form our own narratives and make it make sense. But what I did know was that I definitely wanted to do radio and I wanted to study this subject. I didn't know they'd link up so well in the end. But I think there is a massive advantage in knowing what you want to do really young. Because all through university, I was getting paid more than I would have got working in a bar. but to do the thing I really wanted to do, which then was A, really fun, and B, got me the work experience to then get, you know, to then start on that path. And so by the time I'd left university, I'd already done so much, all because I knew what I wanted to do.

10:54So I think that was luck in a way, knowing what I wanted to do. But it also is a lot of courage, right? So there is that element that I think most people would go like, yeah, that doesn't make sense. Let's just do what everyone else is doing, right? You know what I mean? And you also, I think in my knowing your work, you happen to have quite a few extreme skills, like your passion about statistics and mathematics and research and so on. That's not the typical, you know, DJ skill, right? You know, those who are like you and I who love numbers and math and facts and so on, you know, we'd rather speak very little, honestly.

11:34You know what? You want to understand the topic? Well, it's 42. and that's the end of the explanation right yeah so why do you think that is was that upbringing was that is that a brain superpower what is it I don't know I always liked numbers actually I mean I always found was you know lucky and found maths easy at school and really really liked that but wanted it to be for something for something useful where you could get some answers about people and I've always just been really interested in people and in fact I didn't used to when I first started doing hospital radio you know as a teenager you're very self conscious that we all are um and i didn't tell most people i was doing it you know i thought they'd really laugh if they thought i was doing it so i think you know my best friend knew and probably possibly one or two other people knew and my dad used to drive me over there every sunday night and then come out in the dark on a sunday night and pick me up again afterwards which was very kind of him but um i just knew i wanted to yeah try out doing this thing even though i wasn't going to tell anyone about it um at the time you know they don't laugh now which is now they listen yeah yeah yeah now i got you all future husband you met him at 14 no no no 14 was when i was doing the volunteering so i met him when i was 18 19 19 all right how is he doing yes he's fine he's very well yes and and still committed oh yes yes he's great we like that yes yes yeah why do you think what did you guys do right uh i think we've done we've often done our done our different things but always been interested in each other's things now we do lots of gardening together i love gardening i love and uh uh he had a kind of you know if you can't beat him join him so he loves gardening too now so that's good okay so now we understand why basically it's like if you're if you're driving so fast with your passion as always he would jump in that's a good yes which is good exactly he makes amazing compost for me you know which that's right yeah amazing compost good quality good quality um and and he's and also he's uh i mean he's a novelist and he's He's brilliant at writing.

13:29You know, he's better at writing, actually, than I am. So it's really interesting talking to him about books and writing and, you know, share that. Oh, that's a very interesting overlap of a lifestyle, actually. So he was a journalist. So I met him as a journalist in local radio. And then he was a political journalist and became a novelist. Yeah. How much of your time and effort is given to writing? Five books is a lot of work. It's a lot, but it's over quite a long period. The first one came out in 2005. so now I only have one come out every few years I mean I tend to the trouble is that the difficult bit is the deadlines for everything else are always quicker so if there's someone I want to interview for my podcast radio show they're only free the next day then instead of writing I do that and so then I postpone and it seems like the deadline is ages away for a book but of course it's not something as you all know it's not something where you can stay up all night and get it done you know you can't just do it's not an essay you can't you can't do that no I know I always avoid the deadline so I've never actually signed the book until it was fully written oh wow yeah because otherwise i would i would disappoint people for sure because because you know my my writing patterns are very unusual i i would spend almost like a like an inventor really i'd spend the first four months not writing a single word and and just just building structures and thinking of topics and concepts and how they link and writing little notes on my phone and on my notepad and everywhere and literally not a single word and and then bam eight eight weeks normally oh that's so impressive i wish i could do that it is once you get once you get the structure at least for me once it's clear in my mind yeah i'm not able to stop writing i just cannot like i basically wake up in the morning and you know my wonderful wife would go and say okay so hold on i'm gonna go make a coffee and i would just pull the laptop out and write four lines in because it's just it's bursting out sort of uh but i have to say it's uh it is uh i i all i don't know why but i always feel a little like jealous if when someone writes more than me it's like what's wrong with me why do i do i not have five books yes so well some people do them so fast i know what you mean yeah yeah they seem to have another one yes yeah yeah yeah yeah i have to say you stopped me in my tracks with your new book because it is a very cruel time in the world and you know i think all of us are i personally i'm in a lot of pain like i i'm an empath by nature and i feel the pain of everyone right my approach normally is to avoid immersing myself too much in the news uh because there's no point seeing all of the of the torture really uh but but but i do want to understand the world so i immerse myself very deeply in the analysis and and the political views and all of that uh and and i have to say the cruelty of our world today is just it's higher than we've ever felt let's say okay maybe maybe it's not the cruelest uh you know as compared to the middle ages maybe but but for our lifetime it's you you never felt the cumulative pain of so many people and yet you say but kindness is more pervasive and your your analogy is actually correct but it's it's difficult to grasp until i heard it from you so why do you believe that why do you believe that kindness is actually the baseline yeah because it's true that it doesn't often doesn't feel like that um but um but there is good evidence really that that over the centuries you know we are progressing in terms of kindness it is true now that in most places, people don't go and watch someone being killed for fun.

17:11And that did used to happen in, you know, many, many places in the world. You know, it was much, much more common. And now, you know, we don't say here, you know, go to the town square and watch someone be killed. We don't have people fight each other to death for our entertainment in most places. That although it's true that at the moment, you know, as you say, there's so many terrible horrors happening. I think there's still progress generally. So I think you can have two steps forward and one step back. But in general, there's still progress, you know, and just as there's, you know, more kindness to animals than there has been.

17:44And people did not used to often consider that very much at all. And now that's in general, it is now much more accepted that you should also be kind to animals and that they can, you know, suffer as well. And so gradually over time, if you look at the amount of violence that happens gradually over time, it is it is going down. but sometimes there will be blips in the world you know so this particular moment there are more wars than there were say 10 years ago but this is you know it's not like the second world war at the moment so um and the blips there are blips like you know the first world war the second world war various wars there'll be all these blips all the time but in general people i believe are trying to be kinder and kinder to each other and you know stephen pinker and rutger bregman have written lots about this and i know they they come from slightly different approaches with it but both So they think for slightly different reasons, but both of them that we are gradually getting kinder.

18:37And I think part of the reason is that we do want to be kind. You know, we are hardwired to be kind. And that the reason that humans have succeeded and evolved successfully for so long, so far, is through cooperation. And cooperation comes from kindness and comes from understanding other people's points of view. And that is the absolute, has been the complete key to human success. You know, humans can't, would not have survived this long if they couldn't live in groups that protected each other and then specialised and some sort of food and some sort of other things. And that allows more and more people to live safely.

19:16And transfer knowledge from one to the other. And transfer knowledge. Which is truly a big act of life. So we're not starting again each time. And now we have this extraordinary situation where most of us can't do any of the other things. You know, it's so specialist that you and I can sit in this room and we can be chatting on a podcast. We can't make the microphone. own we can't make the carpet we can't make the electricity work you know or maybe you can maybe you can do these things but you know we can't most of these things we can't possibly recreate ourselves you know so many different people have been involved in everything that's just happening in this one room that we're sitting on to make this happen and a man amazing amounts of cooperation with strangers have happened for these things to happen you know that's what trade is in a way but would you call that kindness i mean what what how do you define kindness in that case What is kindness?

19:58What's the opposite of kindness in your view? So there's lots of debates about academic definitions of kindness. And the one I like best is that kindness is trying to do, is doing something with the intention of benefiting someone else. And I say the intention there because it won't always benefit them. Because you may have meant well and it didn't go down well. And occasionally, you know, that happens. You try to help someone and you got it wrong or they didn't appreciate it in the way you hoped. But most of the time people are succeeding in being kind. And so that's the definition I like, best of kindness.

20:31And people are, in order to cooperate, people are thinking all the time of what the other person wants. And if you look at, you know, I love the studies with toddlers because we think on kindness because you think of toddlers as being, you know, they scream quite a lot and they have tantrums. And it seems like all they care about is themselves and they don't care that their parents are absolutely exhausted. They're going to have another tantrum. And that all seems very harsh. But yet, if you give them the chance, they also want to be kind. And there are these, they're lovely, the videos. You can see them online of some of these studies where they get a toddler and they say as young as an 18-month-old.

21:09And they get an adult and the adult has a pile of magazines in their hands and is trying to open a cupboard door. And they can't open the cupboard because they've got their hands full. And the majority of the time, the toddler will go and help and it will open the door for them. And then they try and make it harder by making sure the toddler is playing with a toy they really like, game they really like. And so they have to leave their toy to go and help. Will they do that? Yes, the majority of the time they still will. I mean, figures like 91 % of the time they will. You know, it's really high.

21:37And then they make it so there's a load of plastic obstacles on the floor and they've got their favorite toy. So they've got to drop their toy, climb over the stuff to go and help. And they still do. And in the videos, they're so pleased afterwards. They're sort of puffed out with pride for having helped. You know, they want to help when they've got the opportunity. And Michael Tomasello, who's at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, has done lots of studies on this. And I like this phrase. He calls toddlers indiscriminate altruists because they'll be kind to anyone. They'll be kind to other children and to adults in terms of this helping behavior, even though other children are less likely to give them something than adults.

22:14You know, adults might be the ones who might reward them with something. They might give them sweets. They might give them a toy. They might give them something they like or attention. The other children are less likely to be able to do that. Older children work that out and know that, you know, if you're nice to the adults, you get stuff. But the toddlers don't. They're indiscriminately kind. And they kind of want to do this. And so we are hardwired to do this. And our brains reward us for doing it. So the reward systems in our brains are activated when you say, if you put someone in a scanner, if you give them some wine through a straw, some chocolate, you see the reward systems.

22:49of their brain activated. And if you give them money as well, you see their reward systems activated. But also you see reward systems activated if people give away money. And in fact, you see different extra areas activated as well. And you can do these experiments where you give people money before the experiment to make sure they've got some. So you give them, say,$30. And then you say, would you like to give some of that to a charity? And on a screen, you put loads of different charities for them to choose from. And they choose, they're going to give$10 of it to a particular charity that they like.

23:17and you'll see the reward systems in their brain are activated. So our brains reward us for being kind. So we want to be kind when we can, and that's because we'll survive. Yeah, I mean, the idea of survival because of being together with others is definitely, definitely, in my view, more valuable to humanity than our intelligence advantage, for example. But what happens with the 9 % or where do we go wrong? So it seems to me that I always believe that we're born in our best form, right? Happy, calm, loving, unthreatened by anything, compassionate, kind. And then something happens and we fall out.

24:01Or are those 9 % hardwired to be selfish? Yeah, I mean, probably not. You know, even toddlers will already be being affected by the experiences going on around them. so if people are treated cruelly and neglected then they soon learn that being kind doesn't get them anywhere and that they will be cheated they might be promised something and then they're not they don't get that thing and they may be and then they will start to become very very self-defensive and you can see the development say of the i'm really interested in these people who are called extraordinary altruists who are really really kind and will do things like donate a kidney to a donor that they don't know to a stranger and be very determined that they want to do that and there's been research looking at the um amygdala this walnut shaped area deep inside the brain that is the seat of some emotions but not all emotions and that that will actually become more developed in those people who are extraordinary altruists and much smaller and less developed in the other extreme the psychopaths now it's possible we still don't know it's possible the psychopaths are born psychopaths and that there's something really extreme about them but But the – and sometimes you'll hear people say loads of people are psychopaths and all managers are psychopaths.

25:11Yeah, it's being used, overused. It's overused, yeah. But if you think of the real psychopaths as in, you know, the ones who are killing people, that is such an extreme in a way. And often that something will have also happened to them as well. But what is also interesting is that people can be, of course, very neglected, have very appalling childhoods, and still be really kind as well. You know, it's not inevitable. And some people will decide, you know, they're not going to be shaped by that. And sometimes it will make them go the other way, that they're going to be really, really kind to people because of it.

25:43So I don't think people should feel their destinies are so shaped that they can't get out of that. But it's definitely miles easier to be kind if other people have been nice to you. I find that quite interesting. It's definitely always been one of my big reflection points, the idea that you're born a psychopath. but neuroplasticity will tell you otherwise like even even if you're born in a certain way unless you're talking about a defect or a deformation or whatever you know a genetic error somehow but otherwise even if if you in your childhood are not exposed enough to emotions so your amygdala is not used that frequently and neuroplasticity shrinks it there is a possibility to change to flip to go in the other direction which basically means that in an interesting way kindness is a skill yes yeah that can be learned yeah no and i'm very i am very optimistic about our brains if you like and optimistic about the the changes that can be that can be made if um people are you know given the right support and shown some kindness themselves because one of the interesting things about kindness is you know kindness begets kindness and we know from studies that you know there is this reciprocity and there is this pass it on um and that kindness is contagious and so if people experience kindness then they will then be kinder to others and of course lots of people are learning it as you say it's like a skill and people are learning it from watching their their parents their caregivers be kind to people and be kind to them and then they see that themselves so so i don't think it's hopeless do you think the opposite is true if if you give kindness to others you would experience more kindness in your life uh yeah so what's interesting is when in i did this um it was part of this big study called the kindness test which was run by sussex university and we launched it on my bbc radio shows and podcasts and 60 000 people took part from around the world which is amazing so it's the biggest study of its kind that's been done on kindness and one of the things we asked people was uh how often they received kindness and how recently and how much kindness they saw and how much kindness they gave and the people who did the most kind acts also received the most kind acts and also saw the most kindness around them what's your explanation so they they observed it around them um so i think one is that it is contagious and so people are if people are kind to them it gives you ideas for how to be kind for a start you know if someone does something does something lovely for you you then think oh that's i hadn't thought of that what a lovely what a lovely thing to do make made me feel nice maybe i can make someone else yeah i could do that for somebody when they're in that same situation and which could be just that there's you know you've got various things all all happening at the same time and that none of which are completely disastrous but somebody notices that there's all these different things and sends you some flowers or a nice message or something like that it can be small things and that you notice those nice things that they do and then you do that for somebody else in the same way so that would be one one reason for it and then I think the noticing kindness is really interesting because I think observing kindness around you makes you feel better about the world and humanity and particularly as a counter to everything distressing that you're seeing on the news is that most people are trying their best and even in the things that you see many of those people have been pushed into really terrible situations where they don't see an alternative but to to do the things that they are having to do or feeling they have to do and that we know from loads of psychological research of course that negative things are more salient because to survive we need to notice the negative things so if a kitten is following you up the street you don't need to notice but if a lion is following you up the street obviously you need to pay attention so we notice the negative things if you show people a photograph of loads of faces and in that crowd one face is angry and one face is happy people are much faster at spotting the angry face because we need to notice those so the trouble with that is that because it means we then don't notice necessarily the positive things going on around us and one of my big tips for how to be kinder is to become a kindness twitcher you know to notice the kindness around you deliberately and i kept a diary while i was writing the book on kindness a diary of kindness kind things that i saw kind things that i experienced and kind things that i did or thought about doing sometimes i thought about doing them and then was embarrassed and didn't do them and i noticed that very much but once you start to notice it you can't stop i don't do the diary now but i notice it all the time now so i noticed i mean i was on a train yesterday and i dropped my i dropped my keys in one carriage and somebody came all the way up to the next carriage and gave them back to me that's wonderful and they come looking for the person i'd moved seats and i hadn't realized that come out they come out my bag and he came and gave that to me and i was very happy because they would have been very very inconvenient so but it was really kind really kind thing for him to do but now i notice it i notice it all the time people being kind to each other on the steps of the trains and the tubes and people think oh London's so busy no one's kind to each other I see it honestly every day people being nice to nice to strangers and that then makes you feel better about the humanity that most people are trying to be kind and that there is kindness all around us we don't necessarily notice it.

30:53There definitely is I mean one of the things I find amazing about this podcast is I met so far maybe 300, 310 people and everyone's so wonderful. Yeah, everyone's really nice. It's like, what the hell people? Like, you know, couldn't be that everyone's pretending. I have no doubt in my mind that you have any evil in you at all. And when you really get to know people at just a slightly deeper level than the stress of the day and the struggles maybe that they're going through or the rush that they have to rush through the streets with or whatever. and when people pause there's most people are so wonderful it's actually quite interesting yeah kindness is pervasive in that in that manner yeah yeah yeah do you think that kindness is an asset or a weakness i'm let me let me take a let me take a work example for example you know i was told many times by my late mother who is lovely and you know my ex-wife who is wonderful that i may not be a very good fit as a startup founder because I'm too kind, too kind, right?

31:58It's like, you know, I'll always prefer the compensation of my teams over my own profitability. Or, you know, if my government employee is just delaying my paperwork, I'll just find a reason in my heart to understand they must be busy or, you know, which is reality for me. So sadly, you typically find examples of people who are more successful and billionaires, if you want, to be a little abusive of others. I mean, how can kindness be better than that focus and, you know, sort of self-centered approach to life? It seems to bring success to be selfish. Yeah. And so I think it seems like that. But actually, when you look at the evidence, that's not necessarily the case.

32:43And so I outline these different keys to kindness. And one of them is that kind people can be winners and i think often kindness is seen as something weak and a bit soft and kind of nice to have if you um can have that but you know not not a priority and yet in business say in workplaces one of the really important things particularly at the moment is to try to retain staff and not have not have staff leave and one of the ways of doing that is to make is to be kind to them and make them feel valued there and then people will stay longer in those jobs. There's a really interesting psychometrician in the States called Joe Falkman.

33:17And he's done a study looking at 50 ,000 leaders and the feedback that, you know, 360 feedback where their staff feedback on what the leaders were like. And he looked at how effective they were as leaders, but also how nice and kind the staff thought they were. And there was only a one in 2 000 chance of them scoring high on effectiveness but also low on um kindness and niceness basically if the staff didn't like them they were very unlikely there was only a one in 2 000 chance that they would also be effective leaders so actually part of being as per the view of the staff for the view of the staff yeah yeah and so because you want to retain your staff you also there's also evidence that there are these things in workplace they call in psychology you probably come across organizational citizenship behaviors which is things like the extra things you don't have to do but that are not part of your job but they're not in your contract but they make the world go around like you know reporting the printer when it's broken or putting some paper in the printer or washing up some mugs that aren't yours those things that make it nice or bothering to collect for somebody's leaving present when there's not somebody's job who's got to do that and people withdraw those behaviors if they don't in fact the first sign of them being possibly thinking about leaving is that they withdraw those behaviors and they stop doing those because they don't feel they're being treated fairly or being valued properly and they stop doing those little things first and then after that they start looking for jobs elsewhere but if people are treated kindly then there's evidence they carry on doing those organizational citizenship behaviors and that you bring the best out of that kind leaders bring the best out of those people now i think it's really interesting that within organizational psychology this isn't doesn't tend I think one book called kind leadership but it doesn't tend to be about kindly called kind leadership it gets called ethical leadership instead and I think and it is but if you look at the definitions it's the same thing but I think it feels more palatable exactly because kind kind leaders are seen as soft I had that in my career at a point in time which, you know, we had a very, very driven executive team at Google.

35:26And, you know, during one of the executive meeting conversations, I said something like, but, you know, these are humans that we're talking about here. You can't just rearrange the organization this way. And, you know, one of them said, oh, I wish I was working for you. You're so kind. And I looked at him and I said, how many people did you fire in the last three years? And he said, oh, I didn't fire any. I said I fired X number of people. I didn't fire them. I found them other jobs in other parts of the organization when they're thriving. Okay. Which is the kind way to do it. Because unless someone is bad, which is rarely ever someone you come across.

36:05Yeah. Right. But keeping them in a role that they're not, you know, they're not really leading in or not really thriving in. You're actually doing them a disfavor. Right. So don't talk about being soft. Kindness is not being soft at all. Yeah. kindness is to do what you rightly said is to do take an action with the intention of benefiting another yeah and and i think a leader's responsibility is to benefit the organization which basically means benefits all others right but also benefit the person that's not doing very well so so it's not about what you do rather how you do it and what the intention behind what you do it is yeah and absolutely it's not soft at all because it's really hard having those conversations absolutely so i think yeah i i completely disagree when people say oh being kind is soft i think it's tough it's hard because many bosses would just leave you know if there's one person who's you know slacking and not doing their work and everyone else is picking up their work then to do nothing about that is unkind to all those other people and really unfair on them yeah yeah and the kind thing to do for the person who's slacking as you say is to find out why you know are they why are they not they're clearly not suited to this role or don't or they're going through a tough time or they're going through a tough time something else is going on yeah what's going on there so the kind thing is to try to talk to them about that but that's a hard conversation to have and many people will not want to do that which is then unkind to the others and that's why yeah this is why i'd absolutely say kindness isn't soft it's hard it means having difficult conversations and working out how to word them and that's difficult you know this reminds me of i think the biggest example of not being kind is to tell your friend what they want to hear which which actually i you You know, I don't know if that's true, but in my small circle, I find that to be true more among women than among men.

37:46We men, we just like, you know, oh, you're an idiot. You're doing this. And even not in a harsh way, but, you know, we just sort of blurb it out and say, I don't think what you're doing is right. The other person doesn't care about my view anyway. So it's like if it makes sense and it opens their mind, they'll be happy. If it doesn't, they don't get wounded by it. but I find it actually very unkind to just for someone to be listening to her girlfriend talking about a bad boy really abusing her and she goes like you go girl you're doing well he will love you whatever whatever right I find that the kindness truly is to do what benefits the other person yeah not to do what makes them feel good right yes yeah yeah and I think in a way maybe that's where that where ethical leadership is quite a good title because the way the ethical thing to do is to uh you know tell the girlfriend the truth about that you know of what you think might happen so what would be your top tips like someone is listening to us now you know they're they're thinking oh interesting so there is benefit in kindness this would make me successful it would make my world and my little world more successful what would be your top tips yeah so one is to to become a kindness twitcher to look around your for kindness all the time maybe keep a diary about that um and another is to really try to see things from other people's points of view and we kind of think we see things from other people's points of view but to really try to do that to really put yourself in their shoes and to think well what could be the reason that they're they're doing that if someone says something you know maybe at work or somewhere else that's upset you to try and think would i react this badly am i quite tired are there things that mean i'm reacting worse to this you know am i really tired today would i be as upset about this on a different day is there something that's going on for them did they really mean it that way or am I just slightly taking it that way?

39:31Why are they really doing this? It's to really try to see it from their point of view, which is probably that they're not trying to deliberately be cruel, but that they've said something that's upsetting. And the other is, you know, I do a whole chapter on being kind to yourself, which really matters in terms of, you know, burnout and so on. And we do say to other, you know, we say to ourselves, our inner critic will say to ourselves things we'd never dream of saying to a friend. You know, if a friend made a mistake at work, then we wouldn't say to them, well, this proves you're an idiot and you've always been an idiot.

40:05You always will be an idiot. And I just knew it. And no one will ever forget. And this is going to be awkward and embarrassing and difficult forever. And no one's going to forgive you. If the friend told you about the thing, you'd say, oh, well, people will forget that really fast. You know, things happen. And you'd say, I'm sure you were doing your best. And, you know, you won't do it again. You know now not to make that mistake. And, you know, you tried. And I expect there were other things going on. And, you know, it'll be all right. It'll be OK. This is what you tell the friend. And you don't say that to yourself.

40:31Instead, you tell yourself that you're an idiot. And then you repeat it. And yes, exactly. And repeat it and repeat it. And you can even do things like imagine that. Imagine yourself coming towards you in the street and being upset about the thing you're worried about. And what would you say to that person? You know, what would you what would you say? How would you listen to what they're they're thinking? Once again, why do the majority of people use a tough language when they're talking to themselves? Yeah, I think we have this fear that it's a kind of slippery slope and that if we ever let ourselves off, then we'll go down the route of sort of hopeless laziness.

41:06I mean, this fits in with rest that I've written about is that I think that we fear that if we allow ourselves to rest at all, we'll then become really lazy and hopeless and never do anything again. When in fact, what we need is the balance between, say, rest and activity and to get those rhythms right in our lives. So let's talk about rest because that's, I think one of my biggest work in the last couple of years was to move from when my son left the world and I decided to take on that mission of 1 billion happy. It's just very blinding, especially when it starts to work, right? So it starts to work and then you suddenly tell yourself, you know, you can't sit your ass down when, you know, getting up and doing one more thing might reach 10 or 100 more people or a thousand more people.