On Kindness

Do you remember that time kindness backfired? Do you remember kindness letting you down? Me neither.

Kindness never fails.

I can hear you thinking, “Yeah, Andy? Well there was this time I was kind and…” The thing you’re going to finish that sentence with, the thing that didn’t happen? That wasn’t going to happen anyway. But here’s what did happen. Because you were kind, the person to whom you were speaking was left with nothing but your request to think about as they later reflected on the conversation.

What if you’d been unkind? Then, upon reflection, the person to whom you were speaking will reflect on your unkindness. How do I know? I’ve been unkind. I’ve experienced unkindness from others. Kindness may improve the odds that your request will be granted. Kindness always improves the odds of you being heard. Unkindness produces the opposite in effect and in being heard.

Some will misinterpret your kindness as weakness. That’s simply inaccurate. Many kind people are meek, but meekness is not the same as weakness (even though they rhyme). One trait of the people I consider wisest is: they are meek. In Receptive Human Virtues (2011), E. A. Cochran writes, “Meekness has been contrasted with humility as referring to behaviour towards others, where humbleness refers to an attitude towards oneself.”

Meek in Action

Have you ever looked at the work of someone else and said, “They did this wrong.”? Or, “They didn’t know what they were doing”? or “Who wrote this crap!”? I say that last one a lot… when reviewing my older code, but I digress… When speaking to an authority or client who doesn’t understand our craft, it’s easy to make ourselves look and sound knowledgeable and important by denigrating the work of others.

There’s risk here, though.

If you’re operating in this fashion – especially as a consultant – you’re conditioning your client to accept the latest word from the latest “expert” when that word is critical. Are you the only person who operates in this way? Nope, you are not. If you want to grab the money and run, poo-pooing the work of others is effective.

“But what if the work is crappy, Andy?” Find a better way to say it. “I would not have designed this solution this way.” “There are updated patterns for solving this issue.” “I found an error.” Are any of those statements derogatory towards the original developer? Nope. Does the client walk away thinking, “I have someone who knows how to solve my business problem!”? Yep. And, at no extra charge, you’ve insulated yourself from the next cut-and-run “expert” who looks at your code with the client. You’ve built a new impression in the mind of your client: Real experts are kind.

Conclusion

Why am I blogging about this? For the same reason I blog about many things: I’ve failed and learned from my mistake. My hope is that someone will learn from my mistake and not fail, and that our community will be the better for it.

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