How the Greater Good Helps Workplaces Thrive
In briefAI summary — tap to read
Kia Afkari from UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center presents research showing that kindness and pro-social leadership directly improve workplace performance, profitability, and employee engagement. Drawing on studies of thousands of CEOs and firms, he demonstrates that compassionate workplace cultures foster innovation, resilience, and long-term success while reducing turnover and burnout.
Key takeaways
- Research on 3,548 CEOs from 1992-2018 found that pro-social leaders achieve higher firm value and lower risk through employee-friendly policies and genuine team credit.
- Pro-social managers inspire greater employee effort and engagement, with meta-analysis of 263 studies covering 1.4 million employees confirming employees go above and beyond for empathetic leaders.
- Organizational citizenship behaviors—employees helping each other without expectation of promotion—correlate with higher productivity, efficiency, customer satisfaction, and lower turnover.
- Simple workplace practices like appreciation rounds at meetings and gratitude interventions measurably reduce burnout and increase engagement across diverse organizations.
- Long-term organizational success requires strategic focus on employee well-being rather than short-term quarterly cuts that burn through talent at significant financial and cultural cost.
About Kia AfcariKia Afkari has worked with UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center for over 20 years, translating scientific research on happiness, kindness, and compassion into practical resources and programs for global audiences.
AI-generated from the meeting recording — AI can make mistakes, so check the recording for anything important.
New here? How our meetings work
Is this your first time visiting us? If so, welcome to our weekly online meeting! To complete our meeting, please continue reading from here to the bottom of this page. Each Monday, our week’s meeting is posted early in the morning, U.S. Pacific Time. These meetings are designed so that you can read and watch what we post anytime during the week. The entire meeting takes about 60 minutes to complete, with the video conference recording of the program being the bulk of the time. Note that you can easily read this meeting with your favorite device, so feel free to take our meeting on the go with you. Please also complete the attendance form at the bottom and leave a comment. Enjoy!
To properly attend this meeting, please:
-
Read and watch the content below in its entirety.
-
Complete the attendance survey.
Everyone is encouraged to leave a comment in the Disqus section at the bottom of the page.
Message from our president
Want to Learn More About Us? - Who We Are, What We Do, Why We Do It
Want to become a Rotarian? - Join us in helping to make the world a better place!
Welcome Members, fellow Rotarians, friends, and guests. Thanks for joining our weekly meeting!
Weekly Funny with Shags
We believe laughter is an important part of life, and we should all make time to laugh a little. This segment of our meeting is meant to tickle you just enough. These funnies are curated by member Steven "Shags" Shagrin!
Comparing Flags
A Dutchman was explaining the red, white, and blue Netherlands flag to an American.
"Our flag is symbolic of our taxes. We get red when we talk about them, white when we get our tax bills, and blue after we pay them."
The American nodded, "It's the same in the USA, only we see stars too!"
Inspiration
It might be depressing to run across another problem you didn't know existed, but if there's already a group addressing it, that's encouraging! In this video, learn about the issue of "ghost nets," and what the World Wildlife Foundation is doing with AI to accelerate how they deal with it.
Learn something new
History Through the Eyes of a Chicken
The Ancient Egyptian king Thutmose III described the chicken as a marvelous foreign bird that “gives birth daily.” Romans brought them on their military campaigns to foretell the success of future battles. Today, this bird occupies a much less honorable position – on dinner plates. Chris Kniesly explains the evolving role of chickens throughout history.
📬 Are you receiving the Members-Only Weekly Bulletin?
Our Club News and Member links are now on the Members Only ClubRunner Site and are emailed weekly as a Club Bulletin. Please make sure your email address is current on ClubRunner.
Members, be sure to read our Weekly Club Bulletin, which is sent separately to your email address from ClubRunner each Monday. In it, you will find updates and information about what our members are up to, club activities, projects, Happy Dollars, news from District 5170, and various ways you can support The Rotary Foundation. We also send your Dues notices using ClubRunner email.
Our Weekly Bulletin, sent every Monday, provides club information. To stay informed, please ensure your email is current on ClubRunner and add mailservice@clubrunner.ca to your address book so it does not go into Spam.
Program: How the Greater Good Helps Workplaces Thrive
Speaker: Kia Afcari
We bring you a new program every week on innovation, entrepreneurship, and education and how they contribute to service to others.
UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center (GGSC) has translated the science of a meaningful life to audiences around the world for over two decades, reaching a million people a month through its articles, podcast, and online tools. Today, GGSC is bringing that science directly to the workplace to address the challenges of the multitudes of people who suffer unnecessarily at work. You'll hear about why kind workplaces are more successful, how gratitude can be a game-changer at work, and how you can engage with GGSC to improve your own workplace.
Our speaker, Kia Afcari, is the director of Greater Good Workplaces at GGSC. He has over twenty years of experience helping leaders, teams, and organizations with collaborative change and has served as a consultant to a wide variety of organizations, including tech, biotech, and fintech companies, health care organizations, universities, NGOs, UN agencies, and nonprofits. Kia grounds his work in the science of well-being, prosociality, and contemplative practices and uses creative methods like "instant dance parties" and Boal-informed theater techniques to achieve results. He is a certified executive coach, an Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator, Zenger Folkman 360 Extraordinary Leader Facilitator, and Core Strengths Facilitator.
Kia's TEDx talk on How We Can Reshape Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Together has over 77,000 views, and for his work supporting major culture change efforts at scale, Kia was awarded Chief Learning Officer Magazine's Silver Award for Innovation for his accomplishments in helping shift the organizational culture of UC Berkeley's 8,000 staff.
To learn more, go to:
Why Kind Workplaces Are More Successful free webinar: https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/what_we_do/event/why_kind_workplaces_are_more_successful
Bring a Greater Good speaker or workshop to your organization: https://ggsc.berkeley.edu/what_we_do/speaking
To learn more about the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley, go to:
http://rotary.cool
Our Three Podcast Series
Our main program speakers are available as podcasts in addition to YouTube videos! Each week, they are available on Spotify and Apple podcasts.
Or you can click below for this week’s speaker:
The Weekly Rotarian
Inspiring Solutions for a Better World
And our original podcast, featuring some of the best of our previous speakers, is still available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts
Development Success Stories
Our third podcast features success stories about economic development from around the world. It is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, or you can click below.
Upcoming program recording schedule
All of our guest speakers and programs are recorded live online over Zoom video conference. We welcome members and guests to join us in one of these upcoming recordings. Recordings are approximately 30 minutes long and are subject to change without notice.
Our online video conference room link for these recordings is always http://zoom.siliconvalleyrotary.com/. You are welcome to join us! Please note the timezone listed for all recordings is US Pacific Time (San Francisco, California, USA).
If you can’t join the live recording, please send your questions for an upcoming speaker to programs@siliconvalleyrotary.com.
