In the Disney movie, Frozen II, there’s a scene where a character has literally hit “rock bottom.” Anna is lost, alone, grieving, and at the bottom of a dark cave. In this low spot, she sings a song called “Do the Next Right Thing.”
I won’t look too far ahead
It’s too much for me to take
But break it down to this next breath
This next step
This next choice is one that I can make
And then, step by slow step, she makes her way out of the cave.
There’s wisdom here for us, and for you. When there’s change and unknowns, we must keep moving forward, step by small step.
But how do you discern what the next RIGHT thing is? (You know, versus, the next WRONG thing?)
The Kalon Approach
In ancient Greek philosophy, there’s this notion of “kalon” [KAY-lon], often translated “fitting.” If something is kalon, it fits within a greater harmony. It makes sense within a grander scheme. It is both functional and beautiful–on a small and large scale.
Compassionate leaders train themselves to look for kalon actions, right or fitting actions. Kalon actions have at least two qualities.
1. They line up with your values. My top two values are courage and compassion. If I’m spending precious time and energy on anything that falls out of sync with those principles, then whatever I’m doing isn’t kalon, isn’t right.
2. They positively impact the grand plan and the granular present. As a leader, your horizon is expansive. You have a pulse on all things large and long-term. But you also have your eye on specific people, teams, and processes. The rightest of the right actions will have a positive impact on both what’s big and general, and what’s small and particular.
The Kalon Approach in Action
Here’s an inspiring true tale that illustrates the power of the kalon approach to help discern the “next right thing.”
Several years back, in one of her Black Leadership Council roundtable conversations, Takeda executive Ramona Sequeira heard a painful report from Jory, one of her team leads. Jory overheard a sales coworker making disparaging, “joking” comments about the majority black city neighborhood in which he’d grown up and currently lived. “That place is a total concrete desert, I get depressed every time I have to go near it,” his colleague had offhandedly said on a recent call.
In the roundtable, Sequeira listened to Jory’s justifiable upset about the insensitive, racially charged insult to his home neighborhood and the people therein. She empathized with Jory’s dismay, confirmed that such comments weren’t okay and why, and then asked everyone a strategic question:
“What is Takeda doing to boost quality healthcare availability in this neighborhood? How do we make sure patients here have the right diagnoses, and every person who needs it has access to the medicines they need to live their best life possible?”
Sequeira’s query kicked off a months-long initiative to make Takeda’s life-transforming medicines more available and affordable to the people living in Jory’s hometown. In listening to Jory’s very personal and painful story, Sequeira saw an opportunity not just to speak against prejudice in the workplace. She also recognized a powerful opportunity to improve the health and well-being of the people living in one of her esteemed colleagues’ home communities.
Sequeira didn’t just respond to race-based cultural insensitivity in the organization—which would have been compassionately agile all on its own. Beyond that, she forged a way to dig deep into an individual employee’s struggle, finding therein opportunities for both business growth and community-directed compassion to support greater health equity.
Sequeira’s response was “right.” Kalon. It was fitting and harmonious, functional and beautiful. Why? Because it aligned with her values. Because it had a positive impact on the granular present (for Jory). And because it also had a positive impact on Takeda’s grand plan—to “help bring better health to people and a brighter future to the world.”
As leaders who desire to create workplaces and communities defined by deeper compassion, resilience, and mutual understanding, we must continuously seek out kalon actions – right-sized solutions that resonate on every level.