Leading with Kindness

Q: Your company applies a humanized growth model in your business. During our partner event, you inspired us all with the kindness strategy that you are establishing in Fellowmind. Please share your thoughts behind this strategy? What are the key building blocks of the business philosophy of kindness?

A: We put people at the heart of everything we do, including our fellows (employees), customers, and partners. There are humans everywhere around us. In these times of uncertainty—with the pandemic, mass layoffs, global political tensions, the new digital era where no one knows what will happen tomorrow—creating stability is crucial. For us at Fellowmind, kindness is key to this stability. It’s not just a corporate value but a core strategy.

When I started on this journey, kindness was often seen as a weakness in leadership. In my perception, it’s the total opposite. Kindness is a strength. You have to be brave to extend kindness. It benefits both the giver and the receiver, leading to happier, more productive people as happy people perform better.

“Kindness is a strength. You have to be brave to extend kindness.”

The beautiful thing about kindness also is that it’s cost-free.

We’ve learned it has positive business outcomes, lowering people churn and sick leave, boosting growth, and attracting more female talent.

Q: How do you move from a nice strategy to making people live it? What was your path in terms of building the operational plan? How have you engaged leadership and their teams in making this strategy a reality?

A: We started with a decision to embed kindness into our leadership principles. But, to make this part of our culture and to be able to transparently explain to employees what they can expect from it, we also needed to define what kindness means for our organization.

Kindness can translate into many different things – saying hi to a colleague, giving positive feedback, being respectful, and other small acts of kindness like offering to get a coffee for your fellow when you get one for yourself.

It’s important to involve people in defining what kindness means in our culture, so everyone understands what is expected. We communicate these expectations clearly to all employees and leaders.

To measure our progress, we measure a pulse of kindness. We use a tool that sends out five questions every Friday to check whether we are still perceived as a kind organization. I personally answer these questions, as do all our employees. This helps us track our kindness temperature internally.

“We use a tool that sends out five questions every Friday to check whether we are still perceived as a kind organization. I personally answer these questions, as do all our employees.”

In addition, we support a lot of other defined actions connected to kindness, like transparency, which is one of the pillars of this strategy. Feedback is also critical, setting expectations and letting employees know when they have done a good job. We train people to give not only positive feedback, but also constructive feedback, because focusing solely on the positive can result in missing opportunities for improvement.

There are more connected initiatives that we support, such as stress training, access to psychologists, monthly development talks, etc. We also have mood managers dedicated to maintaining a positive atmosphere in the company. This ensures our kindness strategy is lived out daily by everyone in the organization.

Q: You said happy people perform better. Let’s address the productivity topic. The industry we both represent delivers amazing innovations to increase people’s productivity through technology. But would you agree with the statement that productivity is another side of employee engagement where company culture plays an important role too?

A: Absolutely, I believe that when people feel safe in their environment, they become more engaged and willing to challenge themselves. In our complex industry, feeling secure and engaged is crucial for innovation and stepping out of comfort zones. There are so many things happening in our industry every day – new technologies, new solutions. It’s not even possible to keep up with all of this information. A safe environment encourages employees to ask questions when they don’t understand something, preventing wasted time and mistakes.

Q: Also, safe environments let people make mistakes which are crucial to be able to learn from them?

A: Definitely. Many people say you learn the most from your own mistakes, and I agree. Making mistakes is critical for growth. I make mistakes too and I’m very transparent about this – sometimes I need to reverse my decisions. But I’m proud to know that in our organization, that’s acceptable. It’s a gift to work in an environment where making mistakes is seen as part of the learning process.

Q: Another thing your company does well is utilizing the element of engaging employees in a higher purpose. In your vision statements you talk a lot about connected companies, enabling digital readiness for your customers, and helping people enjoy the technology. From my perspective, it’s a very nice purpose that should unite your employees, create a sense of being part of something bigger, and bring meaning to their work. So, is it intentional? Is it also part of your kindness strategy?

A: Yes, absolutely. I see this as an extension of the kindness strategy. Creating connected companies is a key part of our vision, and yes, it serves a higher purpose which unites our employees and gives deeper meaning to their work. In today’s world, people seek more than just a paycheck—they want to work towards a greater purpose. This approach also includes sustainability and social responsibility aspects, further connecting and motivating our team.

Q: Let’s talk about the link between employee happiness and business results. In your session at Companial Global Connect, you brought very solid evidence of how improving employee satisfaction also helped you succeed in delivering outstanding business outcomes. How are those things interconnected?

A: When employees are happy, we see lower sick-leave and churn, which is crucial for profitability and growth within our company. High turnover disrupts projects and impacts overall performance, so we monitor sick-leave and churn regularly through stress and workload checks. This helps to maintain a healthy work-life balance for our people. We value and respect people’s time and track these metrics weekly or monthly to ensure no team has too heavy of a workload. Team leaders also monitor this and have a regular dialog about this with their people.

What is wonderful is that by having happy people working together, you attract new people that want to work for your company. All of this makes our brand stronger. And, with more talented and engaged people we can take on more projects.

In my experience, people like to work. From what I observe, people in consultancy roles enjoy high utilization. They like having a lot to do and knowing their work is valued. We are careful with this and seek to utilize our people’s time in the best way possible, while helping them grow in their assignments.

In addition to our employees, our clients also appreciate our kindness philosophy as this creates trust that we will treat our customers and partners the same way as we treat our people. The beauty is that when employees are happy and feel supported, they are willing to go the extra mile for the company and for the customer. This translates into better business outcomes, which are reflected in our bottom line and growth.

“Our clients also appreciate our kindness philosophy as this creates trust that we will treat our customers and partners the same way as we treat our people.”

Transparency is also a key part of our strategy. We are open about how the business is performing, and people appreciate this transparency. They want to be part of a successful company. Understanding the company’s performance also helps them see the impact of their efforts

We don’t just define kindness and hope it sorts itself out; we live it each and every day.