On Wednesday, February 17, Washingtonian hosted a conversation that focused on how kindness can be an integral piece to creating a sustainable and more efficient workplace. Sponsored by Deloitte, the event took place on “National Random Acts of Kindness” Day as a way to reinforce Deloitte’s Business of Kindness initiative. By featuring leaders who are focused on highlighting well-being internally at their organizations and externally with the variety of clients they work with, the panel presented insights to the audience on ways that everyone – especially managers – can cultivate a culture of kindness in their own organizations.
Some key highlights from the conversation included:
- “I think a really important question is differentiating between being nice and being kind. We talk about that a lot, and there is a big difference. You can deliver difficult messages in a very kind way, and as a leader, that’s required. It’s not always about being nice, and you can’t always be nice. As a leader, as a colleague, a spouse, a partner– part of being kind is being honest and being real with people, and giving them difficult feedback or having the difficult conversations.”- Jen Fisher, Chief Well-Being Office, Deloitte
- “All of these issues are inter-related in terms of what we do with our members and our supports. The things we talk about around creating equality of opportunity and creating inclusion and identifying biases so that more people can take part in prosperity- those are many of the same actions, skills and dispositions that we want to see in play so that our LGBT friends and colleagues don’t feel excluded in any way and that we’re recruiting to wider networks.” Carolyn Cawley, President, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation & Senior Vice President, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
- “I think people are being very reflective now in thinking about ways in which they can make a difference, and ways in which they can make an impact. I think that making sure that’s getting out in the community is pretty essential and that’s something we’ve done fairly naturally.” Tamika Tremaglio, Greater Washington Managing Principal, Deloitte LLP
Thank you to Deloitte for supporting this conversation! Missed it? You can watch the full conversation below:
