Professional ‘Kindishness’: The Perils of Pseudo-Kindness
The thing that really stood out in contrast to the complaints as I read those reviews are the sprinkled reports of “kindness”—at least, that’s what grabbed my attention and partially inspired this article and these questions (especially since I and friends encountered him on more than one occasion):
—How can ratings be so divergent, if “kindness” is a core trait, rather than some passing psychological state?
—Is real professional kindness being confused in these ratings with “kindishness”, as a pseudo-kindness that fails to pass whatever test of genuine kindness we may define and set?
—What are or should be the criteria and tests of professional and personal kindness to employ in personnel assessment and hiring, especially in “caring” professions and fields, such as medicine (including, of course, nursing, pediatrics, and other medical specialties), where kindness can play a vital role in treatment and recovery outcomes, rather than merely provide a simple courtesy and comfort?
Picking up where I left off in my article about “friendish” work relationships, which mimic friendships, but only up to a point, I feel that a comparably legitimate distinction can be made between “kind” and “kindish”, or “kindness” and “kindishness”, the latter-mentioned in each pair being a bogus version of the real thing.
To make the case for this assertion, it’s necessary to explicate a clear and useful concept of genuine kindness. In this connection, it seems that a very good place to start is a concept at the core of Buddhism: compassion.
Buddha Barometers of Real Kindness
Intuitively, it is reasonable to suggest that kindness should not be tactical, strategic, unfairly discriminatory (while allowing that it can and probably should be “discriminating” in the sense of being discerning, informed and wisely selective), manipulative, motivationally self-serving or a matter of whim—instead being a matter of principle as consistent “policy”.
With these constraints and features in mind, compassion seems to deserve inclusion in our conceptualization and practice of kindness.
But there is another equally kindhearted variety of kindness rooted in a second trait or at least in a passing state: delight—the delight experienced in being helpful, welcoming, supportive, comforting and/or facilitating.
The scale of this kind of kindness can be quite small or large, e.g., the delight in helping someone master and use chopsticks, or the delight of an eye surgeon observing a patient’s reaction to having sight restored.
What these two forms of pure kindness have in common is their utter dependency and focus on making the life of another not only better, but also the primary focus and motivation of the kindness.
Neither form of genuine kindness—compassionate or delightful—precludes selectivity, e.g., the exclusion of kindness towards what is perceived as an incorrigibly evil will (although the most committed to being kind may recommend or attempt kindness even in the face of innate vileness).
However, both preclude kindishness palmed off as genuine kindness, e.g., a “kind” gynecologist who somehow gives only young, attractive women his closest and most caring attention.
The reason that kindishness is very likely to be perceived as kindness is that the positive reputation for it will, virtually by definition, be based exclusively on the exclusively positive reports from its beneficiaries, narrowly targeted as a favored class by the kindish practitioner.
Not being discriminated against, those targeted beneficiaries will naturally assume they are dealing with a general, altruistic trait, rather than a tactic, bias or maneuver, and propagate the impression that the professional is “kind”. In effect, they will succumb to the fallacy of “hasty generalization”.
Those at risk of making that mistake include recruiters and HR managers who may end up recommending a candidate based on the very appealing and compelling narrow slices of kindness that kindishness calls attention to—especially in the testimonials provided by referees exposed to the candidate’s undiagnosed, misleading kindishness.
Separating the Non-Kind, Unkind and Kindish Candidates from the Truly Kind Ones
Sorting kind professionals from kindish ones can be difficult—especially if the latter is aware of and concealing his divergence from the former. But there are a few commonsensical steps that can be taken:
—Ask the candidate about his or her concepts, attitudes and experiences regarding professional kindness, especially about his or her position regarding “tough love”, no-nonsense, detached, non-“pampering” approaches to client care and other service.
This can separate the non-kind and unkind from the kind and kindish candidates. Distinguishing the latter from each other in vetting them will require additional steps.
A kind of interview “sting” operation can be conducted in which it is made to appear that detachment is a core or tolerated value in the corporate culture, or is at least one that is not actively discouraged.
However, since deception is generally not advisable, flushing out the unkind and non-kind candidates may be limited to refraining from explicitly or implicitly trumpeting kindness as a job prerequisite. Sticking to questions rather than making declarations about such matters may suffice for this purpose.
—Enquire about specific instances of compassionate or rewarding care given clientele. Try to get demographic and other details about the beneficiaries and note any pattern, e.g., a clearly demographic non-randomness relative to the diversity of the client base—as would be evident in the case of a very biased gynecologist.
—If it is acceptable, ask about any unfavorable reviews that have appeared online or in other forms. Note any related to a lack of care, consideration, compassion, etc., and have the candidate discuss these.
—Have the candidate discuss the inspiration and motivation for becoming a practitioner, e.g., helplessly watching a younger sibling succumb to a disease and wishing more could have been done.
This may be a marker of a benevolent bias—the inclination and motivation to especially help anyone similar to that sibling and to provide anyone else standard or substandard care.
—Try to distinguish, in your understanding and observations, non-kind from unkind, and neglectfulfrommalevolent tendencies. A kindish practitioner may treat less favored clientele “non-kindly”, e.g., with complete detachment, or unkindly, e.g., with rude condescension and bad temper, non-kindness being the lesser of the two disqualifications.
As for negligent and malevolent job performance, these two may be regarded as variants of sins of omission and sins of commission, respectively.
Alternatively, they may be compared to passive-aggressive and active-aggressive treatment of disfavored clientele.
As a fitting segue into these lines of questioning, there is a very natural opening gambit to use as an interviewer.
Simply ask, “Could you be so kind as to tell me something about….”