Try a Little Tenderness

By Nick Jacobs

Almost ten years ago, I wrote about a word that stopped a room full of accomplished people in their tracks, tenderness. It came up during a meeting of business leaders in New York City, where we were working to shape an international quality center for health and wellness. In a break between sessions, one participant cautiously asked, “How do we add the word tenderness to our mission statement?”

It wasn’t a throwaway comment. It came from a conversation some of them had had with Pope Francis the previous week. He had urged them to weave tenderness into everything they did including how we care for the planet. At the time, it felt both simple and radical. Now it feels incredibly radical.

So much has changed in the past decade. Institutions we trusted have been decimated and discredited. Narratives have shifted. And yet, the core idea, that human beings are hungry for gentleness, kindness, and authentic care—has not changed at all. In fact, it almost feels like the need is more desperate.

I’m not on the road the way I was, moving from hospital to hospital planting seeds of culture change. But I am still consulting, still writing, and still speaking where I’m asked. Oh, and I’m still carrying that same message. Tenderness is not soft. It is not naïve. It is not the opposite of strength. It is, in fact, the most underutilized form of strength we have.

When I first entered healthcare in 1987, I knew that the moments that mattered most were rarely about technology or infrastructure. They were about how people felt, patients, families, nurses, aides, and physicians. Did they believe they were being seen and heard in the most vulnerable moments of their lives? Were they being treated with dignity?

That’s tenderness.

We have all experienced it. A nurse who lingers a few extra seconds. A doctor who makes eye contact instead of staring at a screen. A housekeeper who notices a worried family member and offers a quiet word of reassurance. These aren’t line items on a balance sheet, but they are the difference between a system that just functions and one that heals.

And here is the part that still surprises executives when I say it, “Tenderness is not just morally right. It is economically smart.”

Healthcare organizations spend enormous energy trying to solve financial problems with financial tools. They cut staff, reduce benefits, and tighten budgets. Those are the uncreative levers. The harder work is cultural. The harder work is when we ask if their people feel valued, respected, and cared for. Because if they don’t, neither will the patients.

 Treat employees with tenderness and dignity. They will become your brand and your most credible sales force. Patients notice. Families notice. Communities notice. It’s not complicated. It’s just not common. And it’s not limited to healthcare.

In business, in education, in public life, the current trend is performative toughness. We reward aggression over understanding. My father’s last words to me were, “Kid, you’ve gotta toughen up.” I’ve spent a lifetime, sometimes painfully, proving that I didn’t follow his words, but I’m not sorry.

Success to me has always been much simpler. Do kids and dogs trust you? Do people leave a conversation with you a little less burdened than when they entered it? That’s tenderness in practice.

Can we find a way to stop arguing over whose version of truth, faith, or power is better and instead find out how we might care a little more for one another, for our communities, and for the planet itself?

Why?

Because at the end of this brief, complicated, often beautiful trip, the thing that stays with us is how we were treated.

Ten years after I wrote that article, our country, and our world are a lot more divided.

But my message hasn’t changed.

Try a little tenderness.

Nick Jacobs is a partner with SMR, LLC and founder of the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine, former board member of the American Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine, Jacobs maintains a website, Healinghospitals.com.