Nice Is Not Enough: How Mindy Stearns Builds a Culture of Kindness

Nosotros could all use a footling extra kindness, and leaders are better placed than virtually to spread it.

Mindy Stearns is so committed to doing her part that she took on the championship of Primary Kindness Officer at mortgage lender Kind Lending.

Y'all may already be familiar with Mindy's impressively varied career, which started with doing fauna impressions on an episode of The Oprah Winfrey prove. The spot brought a lot of unexpected attention, and Mindy turned that moment into her dream career in radio and TV presenting. Nigh famously, she worked as Entertainment Tonight's ruby carpet reporter.

Kind Lending was founded by Mindy'due south married man Glenn Stearns, founder and former CEO of major mortgage lender Stearns Lending, which he stepped down from in 2012. As the name suggests, Kind Lending aims to take a more than compassionate arroyo to loans than other mortgage companies. Mindy and Glenn extend that mental attitude to their employees, too.

"At the end of the day, people just want to experience like they thing—similar their existence is important," Mindy says. "Information technology's of import for me to make sure our employees know how much they matter, because without them, this wouldn't exist."

In this episode of SUCCESS Stories, Mindy talks to SUCCESS's Madison Pieper about incorporating kindness into business, why being kind is a sign of forcefulness, and why information technology sometimes requires toughness.

The difference between being overnice and existence kind.

Existence nice and being kind audio like they should mean the same affair. However, there is a subtle difference.

Mindy defines being kind every bit making an active choice to put someone else first and make their life better in some way. In contrast, beingness nice is more superficial—it's leaning on pleasantries, rather than pushing yourself to make existent change.

For instance, if you want to break up with someone but keep putting it off because y'all don't want to hurt their feelings, you're existence dainty, but y'all're non being kind. The longer yous wait, the more hurtful it will ultimately be for the other person.

Another matter kindness is non is weak. "People sometimes misfile beingness kind with being weak," Mindy says. "[You lot hear,] 'They're too nice,' or 'They're too kind, they're weak,' when in fact, being kind is extremely powerful considering it'southward a selection, information technology'southward an activeness."

Beingness nice is easy but brusk-lived. Existence kind means going the extra mile to brand a concrete difference.

How to be a kind business.

Treating the people who make your company run with kindness is adept for business concern. It helps y'all attract higher-quality candidates and leads to less turnover. Even meliorate than that, it'due south the correct thing to practise.

Mindy and Glenn put "kind" into their company name because they wanted this attitude to be the foundation from the start. Here are a few ways they've implemented kindness at work:

• Celebrate employees: Equally Main Kindness Officer, Mindy is in accuse of making new employees feel welcome. She calls each of them personally when they start. She likewise makes sure every person gets a special birthday commemoration.
• Become to know people as individuals: Equally office of her welcome bundle, Mindy sends new hires a questionnaire, so she tin can get to know them improve. She also keeps tabs on what'due south going on in people's lives, skilful and bad, so she and the company can be as supportive every bit possible.
• Give people work-life rest: Don't only notice out more about people's lives exterior piece of work—brand it possible for them to take them! That ways no after-hours calls or weekend work. Mindy and Glenn even give abroad extra paid fourth dimension off every calendar month.
• Encourage charitable volunteering: Through its Bridge program, Kind Lending supports employees who volunteer for charity work past matching the hours they spend volunteering with a dollar amount. This not merely makes employees feel similar their values are beingness recognized, it spreads kindness beyond the visitor.
• Make kindness someone's job description: Running a business is a demanding task. If you lot're better at the entrepreneurial side—the details and the ideas—find someone who is good at the human being side. Where Glenn is the former, Mindy is the latter. Dividing the work based on their strengths helps them cover all bases.

Sometimes you lot take to be tough to be kind.

Building a company on kindness doesn't mean employees go to call all the shots. Setting boundaries is an important part of beingness kind—every bit anyone who's had to ration their kid's Halloween candy knows!

Although Mindy is pleased that Kind Lending employees know they tin can come to her and Glenn with problems, she also wants them to work with their line managers.

Establishing a clear chain of control ensures employees know that there is a procedure through which they can air ideas or grievances, without having to go direct to the executive suite.

Another hard function of running a business based on kindness is recognizing when someone is negatively affecting company civilization, and interim to protect anybody else.

"The kind thing to practise for the other employees is to let those people go, so that those who are dedicated, who contribute to the culture, can feel like they were heard and that they matter," Mindy says.

Unlike being squeamish, being kind isn't necessarily easy. But once you lot commit to it, you'll realize that it's a better way to exist.

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Source: https://www.success.com/nice-is-not-enough-how-mindy-stearns-builds-a-culture-of-kindness/

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