Brian Biro: The ROI of Kindness

Brian Biro is an author, keynote speaker, and coach. He has spent more than 36 years helping leaders build cultures of empathy, humility, and connection. With more than 2,000 presentations delivered worldwide, he teaches that kindness is not a soft skill, it is a strategy for breakthrough success. His book, The ROI of Kindness, reframes compassion as both a moral compass and a measurable advantage in leadership and business.

Brian was raised in Southern California. He was a competitive swimmer who discovered his calling while coaching others. “You don't really coach swimming, you don't coach basketball, you don't coach sports, you coach people. And I loved it.” Brian built the largest swim team in the United States at that time. Forty-four of his swimmers earned full college scholarships, and he received the United States Swimming National Coaching Excellence Award. “It was a very wonderful time, but I had no life.” This realization led him to begin leading corporate teams through culture turnarounds.

Kindness, for Brian, is most powerful when it is difficult to give. “It’s easy to be kind to kind people. It's not easy to be kind with people that you really disagree with. It's not easy to be kind with people who aren't at their best, who are scared or in a bad place.” He describes being drawn to kind heroes. “John Wooden was the greatest men's college basketball coach of all time. He was by far the greatest in what he did. But he was, most of all, kind. He was the exact opposite of a throw-your-chair kind of guy. So he was one of my heroes.”

The ROI of Kindness framework highlights how empathy-driven cultures outperform their peers. His story about Kaiser Permanente illustrates the point. He pointed out that in the 1970s, Kaiser did not have a great reputation. “Today, they’re recognized as one of the absolute top healthcare companies, and it wasn’t a big change in the doctors, it wasn’t a big change in the facilities, but it was embracing kindness. It was embracing patient care, which is their form of kindness, and they extended patient care. Patient care wasn’t just about treating somebody’s symptoms. It’s about the whole human being, and it’s even bigger than that. It’s about that person’s family. Because sometimes when we’re facing health challenges, we’re more worried about the people we love and how they’re going to deal with it than we are about ourselves.”

When Kaiser Permanente’s Mother-Child Healthcare unit in Los Angeles fell well below standards, scoring in the 50s instead of the desired mid-80s, Brian was asked to help. He began by listening to everyone in the department and soon recognized that what was missing was kindness. He developed what he called the “Four Ws” to bring it back: Welcoming, to ensure every person felt seen the moment they entered; Warmth, especially when it was difficult to give; We, to replace division between teams with collaboration; and World Class, to anchor excellence in empathy. Together they redesigned the space, improved communication, and strengthened appreciation between shifts. Within two months, satisfaction scores rose from the 50s to the 90s and stayed there. For Brian, it was proof that investing in kindness transforms not only culture but measurable results.

Earlier in life, Brian faced his own turning point. In his twenties, he shifted from striving to be the best to striving to be his best. “The shift from the best to my best transformed me. It made me a kinder person.” Humility is another cornerstone of his philosophy. “To be kind is to be humble.” He keeps a note on his desk that reads humility. In his words, “When you’re humble, it’s easy for you to give credit, to share appreciation, to recognize and acknowledge people, because you're not always comparing yourself to other people.”

Brian encourages everyone to become a Chief Kindness Officer (CKO). He emphasizes that “you can be the CKO,” a choice available to anyone on a team. The first step is presence. He recalls the day his daughters, then eight and three, asked, “Do you love your phone more than you love us?” That moment changed his life. He resolved never to miss another dance recital, school event, or bedtime story.

“Whenever you’re fully present, you say to that person beyond words, you’re important.”

Brian Biro is a speaker, author, and teacher of kindness as a daily practice of leadership. He believes kindness is what transforms intention into impact and turns success into significance. Keep an eye out for more interviews.