In June, Values-in-Action Foundation had its annual Values Matter Awards Dinner, recognizing a slate of deserving winners — especially my great friend and civic leader Brent Ballard — during an evening that celebrated the power of kindness. I’m proud to serve on the advisory board to Values-In-Action and deeply believe in its mission of empowering people to build better communities through educational opportunities that ultimately generate positive decisions and outcomes through values.
Given the political and economic environment, even paying heed to the importance of kindness — let alone recognizing its strength — might feel counterintuitive. But the current coarse and too often cruel rhetoric from leaders in dialogue with each other demonstrates that values are profoundly important right now.
Kindness — especially in business settings — is often mistaken for weakness when the reverse is true. Cruelty and selfishness often produce short-term results while kindness and values take character and extra effort. Even so, I’ve learned over the years that values pay off in spades.
At Riverside, we have found that kindness begets kindness, and values really move the needle on business outcomes. It turns out that acting ethically inspires great people to want to work with you. Attracting and retaining top talent becomes easier. Finding and building exceptional partnerships becomes a smoother process. And the path to pleasing and impressing stakeholders becomes smoother. In other words, kindness invites kindness and tends to bring out the best in all of us. And there is a lot of good in most of us.
Those who act ruthless are often convinced it’s more pragmatic, or they see kindness as an act of self-sacrifice and values as a throwaway platitude. But kindness and values are foundational to strong relationships, and they don’t preclude setting clear expectations, having distinct goals and even demanding performance.
Too often, our free enterprise system is seen as a dog-eat-dog world where only profit matters. And too often, values are seen as a speed bump along the way instead of a catalyst for results.
These are not abstract thoughts. Beyond the concrete upsides I already cited, practicing great values can be a true motivator. And in a time of growing income inequality, I firmly believe that adding values to business practices is a great prescription for protecting the long-term viability of a free enterprise democratic capitalist system that has done so much good for billions across the globe.
At Riverside, we recently started implementing Ownership Works at some of the companies that we’ve invested in. This is a voluntary commitment made by a number of leading private equity firms designed to spread more broadly the benefits of ownership. The impacts can be profound, as seen on CBS News when a KKR investment delivered to the employees a potentially life-changing payout based on longevity with the company.
The upside for all stakeholders with Ownership Works is not just sharing pieces of the pie. When it works well, it can create a bigger pie. That’s because employees with an ownership stake are less likely to drive costly turnover, more likely to share ideas that drive efficiency and tend to work harder given their direct connection to the upside of results.
All of us work for bosses or customers who demand results. Let kindness be a force for good in your enterprise because you just may be surprised how much you gain. ●
Stewart Kohl is Co-CEO of The Riverside Company
