Shovel an extra spot

The following story appeared in Forbes concerning the ethics of leaders. The senior vice-president was certainly a great example of ethics and leadership, but I want to focus on the events leading up to the encounter. The young man faithfully served and shoveled a little extra each day that paid off huge!

We used to get piles of snow in winter around our business center, and most people dreaded coming and leaving the office in their car, because doing so meant a lot of work with a shovel. There was a young guy cleaning the parking lot for a small pharmaceutical company, but he would also clean a few extra parking places, including one where an older man parked his Volvo.

One day he was seen in the lobby wearing a suit and slurping coffee. Turned out he was going to his first proper job interview in our business center. As he was getting in an elevator, he spilled some coffee on his shirt and a tie and panicked. The man with the Volvo saw that and offered him his shirt and a tie, since it was an emergency for the young guy. They both got out on the company floor and that guy kept his jacket and a T-shirt on while sending the young man towards his destiny in his shirt and tie. “It's my lucky tie,” he said.

The young man was called in by the manager while the man from the Volvo sat in the reception area. The manager looked at the young man and said: “That’s a nice tie! Where'd you get it?' The younger fellow told him the truth and the manager said: 'Then you’re hired if our senior vice-president makes sure you look your best for the job interview.”

–Anatoly Yakorev, Director, Center for Business Ethics & Compliance, Moscow, Russia

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