This is a story about American Airlines, helping children, and the kind of culture successful business leaders learn to build.
But first, let me tell you about Quack. (I promise this will make sense.)
Quack was my nephew's stuffed toy duck. He took it with him everywhere when he was little. I remember one time, we were all out at a family celebration and Quack was left behind at a restaurant.
I volunteered for Quack-rescue duty, and I texted photos to show Quack on our journey back:
- Quack sitting on a park bench.
- Quack looking at a pond.
- Quack climbing up onto a town fire truck.
I never had a Quack, exactly, but when I was a little boy, I had a toy cat that I slept with every night. And while writing this story, I asked my wife if she had something similar; turns out she had a security blanket instead of a stuffie.
This makes sense, because our daughter had a blanket, too, when she was little--a white one with little cartoon bumble bees all over it.
Maybe you had a take-it-with-me-everywhere toy as a kid, too? If not, maybe your children did, or at least you can imagine what it's like for a child to form a special bond with a toy.
And maybe you can also imagine what it would be like if they abruptly lost the toy, especially if the child thought he or she might never see it again.
With that, let's talk about an American Airlines pilot named James Danen, who flies regularly between Dallas-Fort Worth and various destinations in Asia, and who came to the rescue of a 9-year-old girl who had lost her equivalent of Quack.
A neighbor told Danen about an online post she'd read, about a Texas family that was frantically searching for their daughter's beloved American Girl doll, named Beatrice--a gift from her grandmother, in fact, which made it extra-special.
The family had been on an amazing vacation to Indonesia, and they'd somehow left Beatrice behind while changing planes in Tokyo.
The girl was distraught; her heart was broken, she later said. Her parents had been searching ever since. And while they'd tracked the doll down finally to a lost-and-found office for Turkish Airlines at Haneda Airport in Japan, efforts to bring it back so far had failed.
Danen stepped into action.
It took him two trips to Tokyo to track down and connect with the right Turkish Airlines lost-and-found (bureaucracy, what can I tell you), but once he had the doll in hand, he took it with him on his next flight home--more than 5,000 miles back to Dallas.
Having connected directly with the family -- Valentina Dominguez, age 9, and her parents, Rudy and Celeste -- Danen delivered the doll personally to their home, along with a few extra gifts.
"It's just my nature. I like helping people," Danen said when he was interviewed by a local TV station in Dallas afterward.
Now, chances are you might have heard some part of this story this week. I'm certainly not the first person to report it. And we can imagine why it was so popular around the world.
It's relatable, and we all like the idea that someone went out of his way to help a child in particular.
But I think there's something else to take away from this story, especially if you're a business leader. It has to do with hiring, and building culture, and creating an amazing company. It has three parts.
The first part has to do with Danen, the American Airlines pilot. This is a man who went out of his way to do something nice for someone who wasn't even a passenger on his airline.
This is the kind of person you want to recruit, all other things being equal. Sure, we talk about not hiring jerks who can undermine a team even if they're exceptionally talented. But maybe it's worth screening for people who just like to be helpful when they can.
The second part of the lesson has to do with culture.
I love the idea of building a culture in which people can find joy at work. But there's something about this story that suggests people who go out of their way to create joy.
Employees who embrace that mindset are more likely to be happy at work, to treat customers well, to rub off on other employees, and to add that extra X factor that helps make your business successful.
Finally, there's the third part--and this seems like the one that's easiest to overlook. It's the fact that you and I know about this story, because people cared enough to share it.
Think about it: When your employees do good things like this that would make just about anyone think highly of you and your company, do you make sure the world knows it?
Or at least the smaller "world" in which you might find more customers and future employees? You don't need a full-court media press, necessarily. Just a social media post or two calling out employees who went the extra mile can pay dividends.
Look, we follow the airlines because we fly (most of us), but also because they're the easiest industry to learn from.
As I point out in my free e-book, Flying Business Class: 12 Lessons for Leaders From the U.S. Airlines, they're a group of publicly traded commodity companies, and their smallest moves are tracked by an army of analysts, investors and journalists.
Today's lessons are frankly some of the most pleasant to learn: Hire for character, build a culture of joy, and encourage your employees to go the extra mile for your customers.
And when they do it, don't forget to let people know.
September 03, 2023 at 11:15AM
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMikQFodHRwczovL3d3dy5pbmMuY29tL2JpbGwtbXVycGh5LWpyL2FuLWFtZXJpY2FuLWFpcmxpbmVzLXBpbG90LWhlYXJkLXRoYXQtYS1saXR0bGUtZ2lybHMtaGVhcnQtd2FzLWJyb2tlbi1oaXMtc29sdXRpb24td2FzLWEtc3Ryb2tlLW9mLWdlbml1cy5odG1s0gEA?oc=5
An American Airlines Pilot Heard That a Little Girl's 'Heart Was Broken.' His Solution Was a Stroke of Genius - Inc.
https://news.google.com/search?q=little&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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