Introduction
Over the last three years, people in Scotland have been taking part in the Massive Open Online Course, run by MIT in Boston, USA that introduces students to the ideas and practices of Theory U. The course builds the capacities of people interested in transforming themselves business and society in general and offers a number of perspectives and tools to assist in that goal. Over 1000 people in Scotland have registered to take part in the course and there is a nascent community of change makers forming among them.
The Kinder Scotland 2017 challenge was an initiative born of a conversation between U Lab Scotland community and Carnegie trust. As part of the online U lab course “ Leading from the emerging future” for global change makers, students were introduced to the idea of a Kindness challenge. The U lab Scotland holding team were interested in experimenting with a shared action for U lab Scotland participants at the conclusion of the online component of the course. One of the coaching circles, that form the face-to-face part of the course, was keen to act as host for a national kindness challenge. This coaching circle from Glasgow Buddhist Centre were inspired by the course talks given by Nipun Mehta and were introduced to his USA based Kind spring website.
The challenge idea
The prototype challenge was agreed to take place in January 2017 from the 5th- 26th. We decided to experiment first by using the Kind Spring website to host the challenge and do the administration of the daily emails and sharing of experience.The challenge would consist of individuals committing to undertake a different act of kindness every day. They would be encouraged to share their experiences on the Kind Spring Kinder Scotland news feed on the site.
Our idea was to see how much kindness could change our experience of the post Christmas dark and cold January. We were curious to see what effect that might have on individuals, their community or workplace and perhaps also the country. The challenge was launched at the last live session of the online course in December 2016.
A selection of the inspirations people had for undertaking the challenge were:
“I try and live my life by doing the next right thing, treading gently and sharing a little love...... ! this really clicks with me !”
“More than 35,000 people are registered as homeless in Scotland in the last year. And, that includes over 5,000 children. The number of rough sleepers continues to rise, particularly in Glasgow where council run hostels have now closed and options become increasingly limited. It feels like we often forget that these are people with real feelings, needs and aspirations. I would like to use this challenge to make a difference, in my own way, to people living on the streets of Glasgow.”
“In this crazy world.I think a little random kindness can go a long way.”
The challenge experience
370 people signed up for the Kinder Scotland 2017 challenge. Organisations such as the Global U lab, SRC, See Me Scotland, NHS groups, the island of Shapinsay, Visit Scotland endorsed and promoted the challenge. With the help of visit Scotland an article on the Kinder Scotland challenge appeared in the Scotsman on the 29th December.
Feedback on the experience of the challenge was obtained via the participant survey – which is carried out using the Kind spring system. We received 9 comments in this way. The host team met with participants who were invited to a sharing. 6 people attended this.
Participant experience
A couple of comments from the participant survey via Kind Spring
“Have noticed I feel very happy and less critical. Think it must be reading all the happy emails and doing some of the kind acts.”
“It was great although and created some really good communications with people as well making me really think about my intentions when I was preparing for the kindnesses. It was really useful to have the daily prompts.”
In the live discussion there were mixed experiences; a sense of pressure from the daily emails, and equally a sense of happiness with daily emails that were then passed onto friends. There were questions about whether the directed kindnesses were more challenging than the open random ones. Some dialogue was had round whether there was a most effective way to challenge kindness- was it better with people you know or complete strangers. There was a mix of both in the daily challenge emails.
In dialogue we felt that the biggest impact of any kindness challenge may well be on the participant and not the recipient. As participants we had been challenged and found mostly that we were opened up to more connection with others through the process, whether or not the act was random or with someone we already knew. We agreed that the focus of kindness every day does have an effect and that we were more likely to notice kindness done by others as a result.
The host team had Tested the Kind Spring site over two challenges and could compare their experience of having done their first challenge as a small group and then as the large national group. They did notice the difference that not having the face-to-face catch up during the challenge about how it was going. The face to face allows for people to share what’s not working for them and to be inspired by what might be working for others. The live relationship adds depth and sticking with it to the challenge we felt.
The host experience
Hosting on the Kind spring site brought some benefits and difficulties. It’s all set up for the work and its free, there are additional resources and international connections close to hand. In this prototype we did not alter many of the challenges or daily emails, though there is a facility to do that with a bit more work. One of the difficulties was the straight to junk mail that happened for a few people. Others were around the number of emails and the American language and cultural references. It was hard to feel the cohesiveness of a national challenge on the news feed, many of the participants posting were from outside Scotland and were regulars on the site, only a handful of local participants were posting.
Reflections on experiment
Developing kindness brings people into relationship, builds trust and social cohesion. A level of Kindness is natural in humans and this quality can be further cultivated in individuals and groups. If we think carefully, we can see that there could be a large and diverse group of stakeholders in the cultivation of a Kinder Scotland. It is worthwhile to attempt a national development of kindness. It ties into positive views that we hold about ourselves and gives us vehicle for both noticing our kindness more and amplifying it.
It was a useful exercise to use existing resources of kind spring to do a quick prototype. However if we were to develop Kinder Scotland 2018, then we might want there to be a local originating email system for challenges and local site for gathering the experiences. We would want to link to and respect the inspiration of the Kind Spring site.
370 people signing up at 3 weeks notice was a brilliant beginning. With a bit more planning, connecting with other stakeholders (faith/ business/ charity/ Government/ community/ u lab) we might be able to create a bigger and more cohesively Scottish challenge for early 2018.
Recommendations
- Create a stakeholders group for Kindness Challenge 2018 (October 2017)
- Explore hosting it on SRC website and perhaps another social media platform
- Prototype Kinder Scotland mark 3 would sign up groups of people and keep daily emails to 1 and encourage teams to talk weekly about the challenge.
- Explore creating impact evidence tools.
- Have a host team working during the whole course of the challenge gathering impact data
Kuladharini
March 2017
Scottish Recovery Consortium, 2/1, 30 Bell Street, Glasgow, G1 1LG
Charity Number: SC041181 Telephone Number: 0141 552 1355