I can still remember the story, and I have repeated it many times. I can not remember in which book I read it, or on which course I was told about it. But it stayed with me, and I shared it with my team members always. To let them think a bit, and hopefully act accordingly.

It goes in headlines like this, an employee of a shop like Harrod’s sees an elderly woman in the shop. He looks at the way she is dressed, and sees his other colleagues are not paying a lot of attention to her. However, looking more closely at the way she walks, he feels she might be very tired or maybe not feeling well. He approaches her and offers her a seat and a beverage. Thankful she accepts his offer, explaining she was indeed not feeling very well, and he stays with her until she leaves.

Though afterward his colleagues laugh with him, and his chef is not too pleased that not all work is done, he feels he has done the right thing even though the woman was technically not a customer, as she did not buy anything. And of course, in his training he was taught to take care of customers, the more they would spend, the better.

A few days later he is called on by his chef. It turns out the woman’s son is there and asking specifically for him, granting him the commission as he will turn into one of their bigger customers. The lady had told her son about the unexpected but very welcome kindness she had received.

Think about this, how often do you use the company car to cut someone off? Skip the row in your working clothes? Find talking to your colleague more important than the person in front of you with a question. When is the last time you helped a complete stranger, clearly struggling with the map or app to find the way? Random and constant acts of kindness, being friendly, alert on being able to help… You never know what it can bring you