Hit-and-Run Kindness Game

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A dimly-lit, labyrinth of a workplace taught me that being riskily ridiculous may not be such a bad thing, especially if it involves countercultural hit-and-run kindness.

Inside along the building’s walls, single-colored stripes are painted about chest high. The stripes serve as a guide to finding the right hallway, the right office, and if you’re directionally astute, to outside air.

As a newbie to the building, I look expectantly at people’s faces in the halls, hoping against hope that someone will offer an unsolicited tip about when the blue stripe actually hits the fuchsia stripe, leading to the cafeteria. Invariably, folks I pass would look down and quicken their pace away.

Early on in my required (and luckily short) stint in the building, I discover the colors that eventually lead to the organization’s gift shop. There, one can purchase lots of products heralding how the work in the building is special, superior, and unique. (I still have a couple of coffee mugs to prove it.)

Clearly not “engaged”

When Gallup releases its annual report on employee engagement, proclaiming that the vast majority of workers worldwide are “disengaged,” I self-absorbedly see a picture of me in that building beside the definition of “disengaged.”

According to Gallup, 63% of the world’s working population “lack motivation” and are “less likely to invest in organizational goals or outcomes.” And, there’s no doubt in my mind that in that building, I was borderline “actively disengaged,” meaning “unhappy, unproductive, and liable to spread negativity.”

Getting my game on

Each day I’d race through the mundane tasks asked of me, volunteer to do “anything else” and when nothing came, I’d wander the hallways (usually trying to retrace steps to the gift shop). But one day, everything changed: I began playing the hit-and-run kindness game .

The game’s point system worked something like this:

• One point for each person I could get to look at me when I smiled and said hello.
• Two points if I could get the person to make some sound in response to my greeting (a grunt, something sounding almost like a hello back).
• Three points if they kept looking up long enough for me to follow-up with something like, “that’s a great tie,” and, they gifted me with a thank you.
• Four points if I could get them to stop and have a brief exchange—even something simple like telling me how to get back to the gift shop.

I know, this sounds ridiculous—the culture in that building drove me to it. Here’s the kicker:  one time I scored a game-breaking, record-setting amount of points in one swoop.

Spotting a man struggling to get a couple of boxes into an office, I offered to help. The points racked up as together, we chatted and lugged the boxes inside where many busy, important people averted their eyes and kept their heads down at their desks.

The boxes were cases of champagne.

Walking me out of the office the man said, “Wow, you’re the first kind person I’ve met in this building—thank you.” He proceeded to invite me to an invitation-only event where he was being honored later that evening. There, I got to hobnob with famous folks I’d only seen on television. Oh yes, and drink my fill of champagne.

Risk ridiculous: find a way to uplift

Maybe my hit-and-run kindness game wasn’t very noble. Certainly I did little to change the culture in that organzation. Perhaps I never fully engaged at that job. (It wasn’t for me. I left that organization.) But I did learn a few things about myself and others, chief of which is this: sometimes you need to muster up the courage and risk being a little ridiculous .

This life is short. Do whatever it takes to lift spirits—your spirits and others. Engagement will surely follow or you’ll figure out fast that the environment isn’t for you. Hey, if nothing else you might just gain a too-funny-to-be-fake story like this one.

Try a little hit-and-run kindness and let me know how it goes!

#inCourageLeading, Jone

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