Kindness In Business

“Kill ‘em with kindness”

I hated that term growing up. There were times I just didn’t want to be nice. I wanted to be the headstrong, bitch of a girl that didn’t play fair at all.

But that stupid saying would come up, “kill ‘em with kindness.”

Ugh!

I sincerely hate it.

Early in my career I resisted it as much as I could. If something wasn’t right I said it, if something felt off I expressed my concern, if I was called a bitch for it, then so be it. I knew what I wanted and I went after it.

And then one day I got put in my place by the owner of the company I worked for. I learned a tough but valuable lesson that day. I can still remember him sitting across from me in the conference room of a branch office and saying “you can come or you can go but this company and this team will move on with or without you.”

I was like, “okay, noted, lesson learned. Thank you!”

I learned that day that how I expressed my opinion mattered much more than what my opinion actually was. I had, of course, spouted my opinion off, in email may I add (rookie mistake) and that email got passed up the chain. By the time the president got it, I had made an entire chain of people mad. My ego was bruised that day but I learned that I needed to go about getting things done differently moving forward.

I remembered the old saying “kill ‘em with kindness” or as the women of the south like to say “bless her heart.”

I use that saying a lot even to this day in business and even had to use it just last week. I offered a solution on a project and the manager for that project came back probably pretty snotty if I had to guess his tone. The owner of the company I work with immediately sent me a text saying “that guy is a dick.” I just said “lol!”

But when I replied back the next morning, another lesson learned: don't reply right away, my tone was absolutely that “bless his heart” attitude. He may have acted condescending to me and I just threw it right back at him but in a very kind way.

Afterwards I sat back and thought “it is so funny that women are supposed to be kind in business.” We are supposed to be these gently flowers that don’t get mad and bow down to a man and my immediate instincts are always “fuck that!”

I don’t bow down to anyone, ever. But I will play the game to get what I want. You see in this most recent situation it’s not about that guys ego versus my ego. It’s about the client and at the end of the day when you are building a multi-million dollar home and the company I am with is just a piece of that, your damn straight I am going to do what I have to do to make sure your experience with me exceeds expectations. Regardless of the project manager.

Could I crush that project manager like a bug?

Absolutely!

Could I fall victim to his condescending tone and get worked up about it, sure?

But why?

All that does is puff up his ego even more!

(I have also learned that the hard way and got tired of inflating the male ego.)

So as much as I hate games, I learned to play them and “kill ‘em with kindness!”

Because “Bless their heart” for getting in my way of building my dreams and making my clients happy.

(I hope you sensed the sarcasm there….)

Don’t let them get to you, male or female!

Don’t let them get a rise out of you and make you look stupid.

Remember some people live for that shit.

Their ego wouldn’t survive without poking you.

And the truth is they have no idea who they are without their ego and they would crumble.

So “kill ‘em with kindness” but always be the first to call a checkmate.

Stay well friends

• jessica