Kindness at the heart of our work

Friday 13 November is World Kindness Day. It’s a good moment to say out loud something we try to live every day: at Kaleidoscope, kindness is not a nice extra. It sits at the heart of what we do and why we do it.

For me, this year it feels personal. After nearly 10 years, I leave Kaleidoscope at the end of November. Looking back, kindness is what has shaped my time here most, and it’s what I’ll take with me.

Kaleidoscope’s purpose is to work with others to build a future that is kind, connected and joyful. Kindness comes first in that sentence for a reason. Without it, connection and joy rarely follow.

Kindness is not the same as being nice

People often mistake kindness for niceness. Being nice avoids discomfort. Being kind sometimes means walking towards it.

For us, kindness means:

• telling a client the honest thing, with care, when it would be easier to say nothing
• making space for people who are usually talked about rather than listened to
• assuming good intent, and staying curious when things get difficult
• looking after ourselves and each other, so we have something left to give.

Kindness and rigour are partners. Honest challenge, offered with respect, is one of the kindest things we think a consultant can give to their work.

How kindness shows up in our work

Health and care is built on relationships. So is lasting change. Kindness shapes how we approach every part of our work with clients.

When we help shape strategy, we listen widely before anything is decided. A strategy belongs to the people who will deliver it, so we make sure they help write it.

When we support organisational development, collaboration and service design, we design with the people who use and deliver services, not for them. Partnerships run on trust, and trust grows when people feel heard and treated fairly.

When we evaluate impact or support people to collect insights, we treat the people behind the data with dignity. We take care over how we ask difficult questions. We tell people what happened to what they shared. And we report honestly, even when the findings are uncomfortable.

Kindness at its best is based in trust, is transparent and allows adult-to-adult conversation. It’s not always comfortable but it is always impactful. Our best client relationships have this kind of kindness in spades, and one executive team I worked with stands out. They invited our challenge whenever we spotted them slipping into old patterns, and they welcomed it when it came. That took courage and trust on both sides.

Kindness starts at home

It would be odd to help others build kinder organisations if we were not trying to be one ourselves. So kindness is built into how Kaleidoscope runs.

• We’re employee-owned. Everyone has a stake in the organisation and a say in where it goes.
• We’re self-managing. We work through roles rather than job titles, and authority is shared. That only works with trust: giving each other the benefit of the doubt, and being honest when something is not working.
• We check in on each other. Every month we ask how people are doing, and we act on what we hear.

I see it every day on my desk, which is littered with tiny mementos and gifts from colleagues. Some arrived at times of stress, some at times of celebration, and some just because.

Most of all, I’ve seen it in the way our team has pulled together through incredibly challenging times. Even while the toughest decisions were being made, people kept supporting and acknowledging each other. The most humbling moment for me as a leader is when the team check in on my wellbeing as I try to navigate hard situations which impact them all personally.

Sure, we do not always get it right. Kindness is a practice, not a policy. But it’s the standard we hold ourselves to, and we actively invite other people to hold us to it too.

Why it matters now

People across health and care are working under sustained pressure. Services are being reshaped, organisations are merging and budgets are tight. In those conditions, kindness can start to feel like something to come back to once the hard work is done.

We think that gets it the wrong way round. Change that ignores how people feel rarely lasts. In our experience, people who feel respected are more likely to speak up, try new things and stay with change when it gets hard.

There’s a simpler point too. Kind care for patients and communities depends on kindness towards the people who provide it. A compassionate system cannot be built on exhausted, unheard staff.

A small invitation

So this World Kindness Day, we’d like to offer a small challenge. Think of one piece of change you’re leading or part of, and ask yourself three questions:

• Who has not been heard yet?
• What honest conversation are we putting off?
• How are the people doing the work really doing?

Then do one kind thing about it. It does not need to be big.

As I start to think about handing over my roles, I’m leaving knowing that kindness at Kaleidoscope is in good hands. To my colleagues, clients and partners: thank you for teaching me so much of this.

If you’d like to talk about building kindness into how your organisation changes, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with the Kaleidoscope team.