Remembering Others

During my time out in BC I helped out with a leadership seminar happening in downtown Vancouver. The speaker was a young man who, after working in advertising for a few companies, started his own advertising firm. I found him to be a very charismatic speaker, engaging and motivational. He had many insights in the world of advertising to share, including some personal stories of his own journey that he shared with the audience.

One such story he shared was about a time his office was holding silent auctions for a charity cause. One of the prizes up for bid was one hour spent with the president of the company, in which the president can do whatever you wanted for one hour. To give a bit of context, this is a company with hundreds of employees, and by the sounds of it the president wasn't the type of guy you can just strike up a conversation with at the water cooler. The speaker went on to say that no one was bidding for the president's time, so he puts in the base amount... and he won.

So the big thing now became, "what are you going to make him do??" The president was such a busy guy, that they scheduled their meeting in two weeks. So in those two weeks, the speaker said, he was bombarded by colleagues and managers asking him what he was going to get the president to do.

"Are you going to make him clean your shoes?"

"Will you parade him around the office in an elf suit?"

"I will give you $100 to tell me what you're going to do!"

I'm impressed how well he was able to keep quiet. Even one of the top executives came to him, ordered him to say what he had planned to do, and he didn't say a word. If memory serves me correctly, the president himself came to him and asked what he had planned, and he still didn't say.

Finally the day arrived, and the speaker says he went to the president's office with a box in his hand. By now everyone knew something was going to happen, they just didn't know what. They surround him, asking what is in the box. Still he refused to say.

"Alright, let's do this," says the president of the company, "you have one hour. What do you want me to do?" The speaker smiles at him, opens the box, and pulls out a list of names. Below each name was their title, achievements, and phone numbers. The speaker tells him, "these are people whom I have worked with on various projects during the time I have been employed here, and there is something that they have contributed. I want you to pick up this phone on your desk and call each one, thanking them for the great work they did." So for that hour the president called every name on that list. When he was finished the speaker said, "there is one more number I want you to call." It was a floral shop. The president had flowers delivered to both of their wives, on his own bill.

His story was a humbling reminder that so many times we think 'what is the best way for me to get ahead', and we rarely stop to think of those around us. Or those around them. What a selfless thought, to even think about telling his boss's boss's boss to send his wife some flowers.

It's an encouragement to us all, to not treat the people in our lives as means to an end. This speaker was really fantastic, and I'd be honoured to ever have an opportunity to work alongside someone with his kind of mindset.