Blog

We’re telling you this story just in case you can apply the idea to your own business.

A steward on an airline was in charge of the first-class passengers. It takes about 10 minutes to serve all of them, which means those up the front get their Champagne first and those at the back become sort of second-class in the first-class section.

What the steward did was go to the back first and give those passengers bottles of Champagne and glasses.

He explained he would be serving the passengers at the front first but hoped they would look after themselves until he got to them. He repeated the same trick when it came to serving dessert, giving the back passengers some cheese and biscuits while he served the front passengers their desserts.

One of the passengers was heard to comment: “Gee you know how to work the room!”

What was particularly interesting was that the airline didn’t even know their steward was doing this. He was using his initiative to solve a problem that could have hurt the airline’s reputation for first-class service.