At a time when our world seems increasingly divided and fraught with conflict, it is more important than ever to be kind and compassionate toward one another. Whether interacting with customers or colleagues, friends or family members — or even total strangers — we should always try to display good intentions and show courtesy and respect.

This pervasive sense of meanness and anger in today’s culture is constantly perplexing to me. It’s showing up in our businesses and displaying itself in almost every walk of life.

A primary aspect of a great business and extraordinary customer experiences is simple respect and kindness. Here are three steps we can take to display that we care:

1. Listen more and talk less. We can learn a lot about someone by genuinely listening to them without interruption or judgment.

2. Seek first to understand, then to be understood. This is a principle from Stephen Covey’s classic book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” It means that we should try to see things from the other person’s perspective before communicating our point of view.

3. Put ourselves in the other person’s shoes. This is similar to the previous point, but it takes it one step further. Not only should we try to understand where the other person is coming from, but we should also try to empathize with them and feel what they are feeling.

Just because a person is from a differing political viewpoint, or a dissimilar religion or a different race or gender doesn’t mean they deserve disrespect. Today’s social media has created a lot of “keyboard courage” — people sending messages via Twitter or Facebook that they would have difficulty saying in person to someone. However, part of what we’re seeing is a lowering of the standards of common courtesy. After you get away with bad behavior online for a while, perhaps it becomes easier for many to assume that you can act that way in person, as well.

Here’s a fundamental challenge when it comes to this problem. As I state in the book “ICONIC,” when it comes to reciprocal respect, the key is that YOU must go first.

• This is NOT to say you should alter your opinion.
• It’s not to say you should diminish your beliefs.
• However, you cannot wait for the other person to show you respect before sending it their way.

That kind of “I’ll do it if you do” approach will never work! It is also antithetical to the principles of respect and kindness. Instead, we need to proactively show others that we care about them — not just with our words but with our actions.

By practicing these small acts of kindness and courtesy at every opportunity, we can bring more compassion and empathy into the world around us. If more people made a conscious effort to be just a bit gentler toward one another, perhaps we could begin to heal some of the wounds currently ripping our society apart.

Even if we only make a slight difference in this world, that would still be worth doing. Let’s try a little kindness today — in our daily interactions with others, as well as in our broader efforts to create a better society.