What’s going well right now?

Imagine your business is weeks from collapse. You sit down for a crisis meeting with your team, anxious about the future.

That’s what happened to my guest on this week’s Fearless Forward podcast, Think Productive founder Graham Allcott, when Covid wiped out most of the company’s face-to-face work.

And with one simple question his MD Elena Kerrigan changed everything:

“What’s going well right now?” she asked.

Graham’s initial inner response, he admits, was far from polite.

Yet from that small ritual came an idea that saved the business. They realised they’d all been working from home for years. They already had what people needed.

Graham calls it a tiny act of kindness. And his latest book Kind is the one he wants to be remembered for. He believes that kindness is how good work gets done.

The research he gathered for the book supports his belief. Kindness builds empathy, empathy builds trust, and trust creates psychological safety: in Amy Edmondson’s terms, the sense that “it’s safe to take an interpersonal risk”.

So why is kindness not more mainstream?

Three ideas from our conversation have stayed with me:

1. Busyness is the biggest source of accidental unkindness. When we feel there isn’t enough time, money or energy, a friend, colleague, or family member who needs a few minutes of our attention becomes an interruption. Graham calls this a scarcity mindset, and he sees it as rooted in fear.
2. There are no kind people, only kind acts. Kindness is less a character trait, and more a practice. The good thing is that practices can be learned.
3. Leaders can build vessels for kindness. At Think Productive, a bowl of toy giraffes sits on the meeting table. When someone sticks their neck out, a colleague hands them one.

And a personal reflection from me: Graham can’t remember which colleague spotted the idea that saved his business, but he does remember how the meeting began.

That’s the quiet power of kindness. It may not look like the thing that made the difference, yet it’s often what made the difference possible.

Highlights:

• [00:00:29] Introduction to Graham Allcott
• [00:01:39] Kindness as Productivity’s Rocket Fuel
• [00:03:32] The Science Behind Kindness
• [00:04:52] Google’s Study on Team Success
• [00:06:46] Defining Psychological Safety
• [00:09:33] Fostering Psychological Safety in Meetings
• [00:13:36] The Giraffe Symbol
• [00:15:54] Kindness Starts With You
• [00:18:52] Fear, Scarcity, and Abundance
• [00:22:16] Graham’s Personal Motivation
• [00:23:37] The Gift of Interdependence
• [00:26:42] Overcoming Fear with Kindness
• [00:30:42] Kindness as a Conscious Practice
• [00:34:42] Graham’s Biggest Fear
• [00:36:57] Lessons from a Crisis
• [00:40:58] The Meaning of “Fearless Forward”
• [00:43:19] Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Links:

• Think Productive (website)
• Graham Allcott (website)
• Graham on LinkedIn