Don’t forget the simplest rule for success: be kind - Sunday Times

Instead of going all-out to drive a hard bargain with suppliers and partners, try kindness and seek a good deal for both sides

very business leader wants to create a legacy — achievements that add up to something more than figures on a spreadsheet. Beyond building companies and helping entrepreneurs to realise their ambitions, I hope I’ll look back on my career as someone who played fair, was trusted to do the right thing when it mattered, and operated with kindness. In boardrooms and the cut-and-thrust of deal-making, you don’t often hear that word — kindness — but it is essential.

I read recently about a new study of 900 schoolchildren aged between 5 and 18 in six countries, and how their behaviour was transformed by learning empathetic techniques. It’s a brilliant idea. Teaching kindness would be a wonderful addition to our school curriculum, just as it would be to business. We talk a lot about purpose, but I think kindness is the secret ingredient for building strong, mutually rewarding relationships.

Business is a long game and reputations go far. A friend who runs a successful property company is renowned for his unforgiving style — squeezing what he can from suppliers and partners, and renegotiating deals at the last minute to get what he considers are the best outcomes. But I worry that, by driving too hard a bargain, he might be restricting his ability to do future development deals.

For me, kindness is about getting a good deal for both sides, so that no matter where or when I next meet the person I’ve worked with, they know instantly what they’re going to get from me: openness, honesty and a fair deal. My business philosophy has always been never to fall out with anyone, which is perhaps why so many ex-colleagues are members of HomeServe’s alumni club. You never know when you’re going to cross paths again, so don’t leave bitter memories.

Encouraging kindness is especially important in how we deal with suppliers and partners. About 80 per cent of the UK’s smaller businesses are part of supply chains and, according to the Federation of Small Businesses, almost one in five says it has been “bullied” by larger partners into, for instance, unreasonable price reductions. A quarter feel powerless in contract negotiations.

If business is a series of marathons rather than a sequence of short sprints, we need sustainable, collaborative relationships rather than ones forged through strong-arm tactics. Smaller companies have a tough enough time as it is without having to worry about elongated payment terms or prices that give them single-digit profit margins, eliminating their scope to reinvest for further growth.

Establish a code of conduct that you agree with your partners and suppliers to enhance co-operation. Set clear parameters so no one feels that contracts are exploitative. And be vested in each other’s success. Large companies can help mid-size firms, and smaller ones can help each other.

One of the reasons why Mansour Group is the world’s largest General Motors dealer, and a major distributor for Caterpillar in Egypt and the Middle East, is that the arrangements between all parties are fair and make for great long-term value creation. Equally, companies such as Patagonia and H&M are renowned for the way in which they elevate ethical behaviour in deals in their complex supply chains.

I made plenty of mistakes running HomeServe, but I never used our size to extract unfair terms from our subcontractors carrying out repairs, or from insurance underwriters. A 20-year partnership with Axa and decade-long ones with AmTrust and Aviva are testament to that. Even when personnel changed, the spirit of the agreements, and the culture of our organisation, ensured that our business connections remained strong.

Kindness doesn’t mean you have to be a soft touch and stop negotiating hard. If a partnership is failing or things don’t feel right, confront the brutal truth and find an agreeable exit strategy. When we were first expanding in America, I scrapped a potential deal with an underwriter because they changed the terms again and again. When I read the final contract, I realised we had moved so far from what was originally agreed that I couldn’t accept it.

Gut instinct and kindness go together and the more we practise it, the more sensitive that gut instinct becomes. Sometimes, things just feel wrong — not just in a company’s relations with providers of goods and services, but in joint ventures, distributorships, lending, licensing and franchise agreements. So, teach kindness and learn it, improve on it, set aside your own ego for other people, situations and partners, and show others in your team how to display it.

Make kindness part of your personal strategy and you will find it’s reciprocated in multiple ways. Instil a daily strategy of doing at least one kind thing a day at work, with colleagues or clients, so that it becomes a habit.

It’s not about being nice and patting each other on the back. It’s about seeing the bigger picture, balancing the needs of all parties and not always doing what’s easy for you. We can become too seduced by short-term financial rewards to see the value in longer-term alliances that create true sustained value.

Life is short, relationships come in and out of your life at high speed, and sometimes you get only one chance to make it work. Showing kindness means that when you look back at your career, you’ll be proud not just of your achievements but how you went about them. Wherever you sit within an organisation, it matters. There’s kudos in kindness.

Richard Harpin is founder and chairman of HomeServe and Growth Partner, and owner of Business Leader magazine