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The Kindness Economy

E-BookEPUBePub WasserzeichenE-Book
188 Seiten
Englisch
GABAL Verlagerschienen am26.09.20231. Auflage
The Kindness Economy is a powerful new force for change in business and a growing trend that will improve everything from how we work to how we live in our homes, communities, and cities. In an age of much unkindness, burnout, and notoriously monstrous management, we need a new, positive vision for the future. In this book, futurist and trend researcher Oona Horx Strathern offers an optimistic look at how we can create a healthy economy in which we are kinder to people and the planet while still making a profit. Through examples and anecdotes as well as personal and professional insights, The Kindness Economy explores how we can combine values with value and think differently about how we want to spend, work, and live.

Oona Horx Strathern, geboren in Dublin, aufgewachsen in London, ist seit 30 Jahren Trend- und Zukunftsforscherin, als Autorin und Beraterin tätig. Auf internationalen Bühnen sowie in Print und TV ist sie eine gefragte Expertin. Horx Strathern versteht sich als eine Erforscherin des Neuen, aber vor allem des Besseren. Es geht ihr um einen frischen (weiblichen) Optimismus hinsichtlich unserer Wohn- und Lebensräume der Zukunft. Sie ist Verfasserin des Wohnreports für das Zukunftsinstitut. Zu ihren Kunden gehören BMW, Audi, Axor, L'Oreal, Avanade, Strabag und A1.mehr
Verfügbare Formate
BuchKartoniert, Paperback
EUR34,90
E-BookEPUBePub WasserzeichenE-Book
EUR32,99
E-BookPDF1 - PDF WatermarkE-Book
EUR32,99

Produkt

KlappentextThe Kindness Economy is a powerful new force for change in business and a growing trend that will improve everything from how we work to how we live in our homes, communities, and cities. In an age of much unkindness, burnout, and notoriously monstrous management, we need a new, positive vision for the future. In this book, futurist and trend researcher Oona Horx Strathern offers an optimistic look at how we can create a healthy economy in which we are kinder to people and the planet while still making a profit. Through examples and anecdotes as well as personal and professional insights, The Kindness Economy explores how we can combine values with value and think differently about how we want to spend, work, and live.

Oona Horx Strathern, geboren in Dublin, aufgewachsen in London, ist seit 30 Jahren Trend- und Zukunftsforscherin, als Autorin und Beraterin tätig. Auf internationalen Bühnen sowie in Print und TV ist sie eine gefragte Expertin. Horx Strathern versteht sich als eine Erforscherin des Neuen, aber vor allem des Besseren. Es geht ihr um einen frischen (weiblichen) Optimismus hinsichtlich unserer Wohn- und Lebensräume der Zukunft. Sie ist Verfasserin des Wohnreports für das Zukunftsinstitut. Zu ihren Kunden gehören BMW, Audi, Axor, L'Oreal, Avanade, Strabag und A1.
Details
Weitere ISBN/GTIN9783967403466
ProduktartE-Book
EinbandartE-Book
FormatEPUB
Format HinweisePub Wasserzeichen
FormatE101
Erscheinungsjahr2023
Erscheinungsdatum26.09.2023
Auflage1. Auflage
ReiheDein Business
Seiten188 Seiten
SpracheEnglisch
Dateigrösse2019 Kbytes
Artikel-Nr.12480201
Rubriken
Genre9201

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe

1
DEGREES OF KINDNESS

The Good, the Bad, and the Random

If you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature, Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.

-RICHARD DAWKINS1

Kindness is much more complex and tricky than it sounds. Strangely, kind is not always sweet. It is one of those devilish qualities or acts that at first sounds perfectly harmless, but when looked at more closely can be not only controversial but also complex and surprising. We should all strive toward a kinder society and economy, but we should also beware of the pitfalls and the problems. Leaving biblical definitions aside, even the dictionary hides a multitude of sins. Officially, the Cambridge Dictionary defines kindness as the quality of being generous, helpful, and caring about other people, or an act showing this quality. Interestingly, definitions generally exclude any kind of profitable activity, which is where the idea for this book came in.

But first let´s think about the essence, the nuts and bolts, of kindness. If we take a closer look at the evolutionary purpose of kindness, inspect our own preconceptions and motivations, other facets and questions emerge. Instinctively, we feel more comfortable with the idea of kindness as generous, nice, sweet, innocent, and empathetic. But many stories of kindness are tainted with pathos, considered corny, a bit naff, or-worse still-something reserved for slightly demented old people or women. This might sound a bit harsh, but it does serve to illustrate that there is not just one cuddly approach to kindness. On closer inspection, we find not just the good, but the bad and even the ugly side. It can, as we shall see, be boring, cruel, laughable, and, counterintuitively, selfish. When I first started to think about the meaning of the words kind and kindness, I noticed not only that the economic element was absent but that there are many different contradictory interpretations and uses that may have something to do with age, personality, upbringing, or (as we shall see) hormones!
Kind of Ambiguous

There is a word that frequently gets used when people don´t like something (usually experimental food) but don´t want to offend anyone. They say it is interesting, hoping to get away with a white lie. Similarly, I remember the ambiguous use of the word kind when I was young. It was in that horrible hormonal phase of starting to like boys, and I recall it all being a bit confusing and contradictory as to which characteristics were attractive. In the schoolyard a gaggle of us giggling girls would pick apart potential suitors and their qualities. He seems really kind was never considered a great compliment, or if you thought so, you kept it to yourself. There was also a consensual fatal attraction to the bad boys, who just seemed inherently more exciting and enticing. I put it down to hormones. Likewise, the boys were clearly not interested in nice quiet girls like me. They wanted someone and something a little more fun. Again, I put it down to pesky teenage hormones. An admittedly non-scientific survey of my now grown-up friends (both male and female) has revealed this was a thankfully short, rather ugly phase in the evolution of all our desires and relationships, and many, if not all, have subsequently found wonderfully kind and loving partners. I too have since married a lovely kind man, but raise my eyebrows whenever anyone uses the word kind in a slightly ironic, oblique, or cynical fashion.
Ugly Kindness

We would in our hearts like to believe that acts of kindness are always well intentioned. But interestingly this is not always the case. Kindness can be driven by selfishness or non-altruistic behaviour even when we are trying to impress upon our friends, customers, employees, or the recipient that our intentions are pure and good. Take this innocent-looking scenario: An older white-haired lady is sitting quietly at a table in a shopping centre. Clearly tired from shopping and taking time to rest and have a cup of coffee, she is approached by a smooth-faced young man awkwardly clutching a small bunch of rather ordinary-looking flowers. Bending down, he asks her if she wouldn´t mind holding them for a moment while he then proceeds to take a jacket out of his rucksack. Once he has very demonstratively put it on, he turns to her, says, Have a lovely day, and walks off, leaving her awkwardly holding the flowers. He has a smug little smile on his face. This scene was posted on TikTok by the perpetrator, Harrison Pawluk, with the caption I hope this made her day better.

How sweet, you think. But then you look closer at her face. Not only does she look bemused (understandable), but she appears to sigh, looks irritated, and most significantly seems spectacularly devoid of any facial expression that would shout gratefulness or joy. She even tried to give the flowers to Pawluk´s team when she spotted them filming the scene. Some might say that was an unkind, ungrateful reaction of a typical grumpy old woman. It turns out that Maree, as she is called, was not happy. And for good reason. When tracked down by reporters for Australian TV ABC, she told them quite resolutely that she felt like clickbait: He interrupted my quiet time, filmed and uploaded a video without my consent, turning it into something it wasn´t ... I feel he is making quite a lot of money through it. 2 She didn´t want pity, she didn´t want the flowers, and she certainly didn´t appear to need her day to be made better, as Pawluk had taken the liberty to assume. Indeed, he might not have made these assumptions or even approached her had she been a bored-looking middle-aged man. But then he might not have got 50 million views for the video.

Such videos are part of the trend of so-called random acts of kindness, thousands of which get promoted, are reposted, and go viral on social media. There is even a foundation and website devoted to random acts of kindness (RandomActsOfKindness.org). The acts listed, such as giving someone a seat on a crowded bus, are what I would call regular good manners that in an ideal world would be considered normal behaviour. Perhaps the clue is in the word perform. One of the oft-quoted and well-intentioned ideas behind these acts is that that if you receive an act of kindness, then you should in turn do something kind for someone else. And so on. If it was really working, by the law of cumulative mathematics, I would expect the next generation to be inundated with hundreds of random acts of kindness every day.

Many of these actions simply reduce kindness to a meme, a cultural gene that is only really valued when filmed and posted. Quiet acts of kindness get bad press, or rather no press. Leaving aside some cringeworthy, selfish TikTok stars who are giving kindness a bad rap, the intentions of most of the random acts of kindness activists-or RAKtivists as they call themselves-are for the most part good and all very well meaning. Yet I suspect that many of these acts are an unwelcome hindrance or diversion to working toward a real, effective kindness economy for everyone.
Cruel to Be Kind

The phrase cruel to be kind is one of those horrible bits of wisdom that is used far too casually and often in the strangest situations. Among the more banal examples, it could be used to stop someone from eating another bar of chocolate or a big fat sugary doughnut under the premise that it is for their own good. Or trickier, as some argue, it might be used to justify not giving money to drug-addicted or alcoholic beggars on the street in the misdirected belief that it will help them get over their dependency. Even my own attempts at being cruel to be kind have backfired. I grew up with chain-smoking parents and on my odd trips abroad with friends or school, I was duly asked to return with cheap cartons of duty-free ciggies. As a young teenager I hated them smoking and rather pompously took the moral high ground and refused to smuggle the cigarettes back, citing not that it was illegal (which it clearly was), but that they should smoke less. This arguably ended up harming me more than them. Not only were they very grumpy for a few days, but they also smoked just as much as before-perhaps even more on account of being grumpy-and it curtailed any increase in my pocket money.

For a more classic example of the use of the phrase, look no further than Sparta, where malformed babies were supposedly left to die out of kindness. In his biography Life of Lycurgus, Greek philosopher Plutarch recounted how the ancient Spartans submitted newborns to a council of elders for inspection. The babies that were deemed fit and strong survived, but those deemed to be lowborn or deformed were left outside to die. Plutarch claimed that this was on the grounds that it is neither better for themselves nor for the city to live [their] natural life poorly equipped. 3 Not only did the supposed events take place around 600 BCE, several hundred years before the author was born, but recent evidence shows that they never actually happened. Archaeologists have found much evidence showing that in fact many newborn babies with health problems were well cared for. The...
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Autor

Oona Horx Strathern is as a writer, futurist, trend researcher, and speaker for over thirty years. She has worked with international firms such as BMW, Audi, Axor, L'Oreal, Avanade, and A1, and is the managing director of the Zukunftsinstitut Horx.
She and her family live in Vienna and Donegal.
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