The power of kindness

I’ve heard about it, I’ve read about it but I couldn’t understand the magnitude of it until I saw it with my own eyes.Dubai. A truly modern city of beautiful infrastructures gleaming with steel and mirror is now a favorite destination for tourists all over the world. Travelling together with my friends Ivan and Tess Yao together with their kids Vhonne, Yvonne and Yvette, we were so amazed as we  looked at the ultra-modern city rising up in the middle of the desert.

This reminds me of an actual story that happened to TV producer Bob Briner many years ago. He talked about this in his book entitled Squeeze Play.

The Sheik of Dubai wanted to have a tennis tournament to showcase the progress his country had made during the vast oil wealth he controlled. There had never been a tennis tournament in Dubai, no stadium, no tennis officials, and the reality that much of the population of Dubai would have absolutely no interest in attending a tennis tournament. But the sheik wanted a tennis tournament, so he would have his tennis tournament.

Scouting around for the resources he needed, he called on a sports promoter named Bob Briner to take over the project. Promoting tennis tournament is a major activity of Bob’s business. With his experience plus the money provided by the Sheik of Dubai, an entire tennis complex rose up out of the desert.

The sheik flew in the same officials who officiated at Wimbledon to work at his event. Another plane ferried the players who happened to be some of the biggest names in the game, as well as the international tennis press, who were willing, even eager to freeload at the sheik’s expense. One of the most important activity that the sheik wanted is to have the whole tournament televised which turned out to be Bob Briner’s major role through out the entire tournament.

Briner’s agreement with the sheik called for them to take only a few of their own people and to supplement the rest of the crew with staffers from Dubai Color Television, the Sheik’s own network. With the heat of the desert serving as the backdrop for their first meeting together, this was aggravated by the fact that those days were high tension days in the gulf. America was increasingly being viewed as the “Great Satan” as both Iran and the militant Arabs pumped out their messages of hate. The little television crew from the States was seen by the locals as ugly Americans all of which is not a very nice way to start a business relationship. The first day of their meeting was a disaster. The staff of Dubai Color Television had no idea how to set up to shoot a tennis tournament and certainly were not about to take any suggestions, much less orders.

As the four dispirited American unit met for post mortems back in the hotel, there was serious discussion about the possibility of scrapping the whole deal. Bob found himself right in the middle of a high-stress, high-tension situation where several disparaging remarks were given addressing the locals with whom they had to work with.

The easiest way is to simply pack up and go home. But Bob Briner’s company had far too much riding on the event and the attendant telecasts to give it up without trying every possible way to make it work. And so they decided to try something really radical. They decided to be friendly, to be respectful, to care and to be understanding. In other words, they decided to try something that should have been started in their first approach rather than as a last resort. They now began to realize that they had gone in the situation like hot-shot cowboys knowing they had all the answers. And they realized that an attitude like that never worked. It never does.

The next morning they met their Arab colleagues with a decidedly different attitude and approach. They complimented their facilities, asked to see some of the tapes they had done being careful to praise everything of quality in the production and they did something that really surprised the locals. They invited all of them back to their hotel as guests for lunch. And the magic of kindness was beginning to work.

They spent lunch trying to know each one by name, no longer just a bunch of Arabs but really getting to know each person. And they responded by showing the Americans pictures of their families. Before long everybody began to be comfortable with each other and the project became a huge success.

The day after the event, the Americans stood on the tarmac of the Dubai airport waiting to board the Sheik’s plane for the long flight home. All the locals from Dubai Color Television were there to see them off. There were many hugs. Many of the locals wept openly to see the once-hated Americans leave, probably never to return. They have arrived as enemies and they were now leaving as friends.

A little kindness brings forth a lot of wonderful things, even in business.

Some people who are still living in the dark ages say that “Business is business and it should not be personal…” WRONG! Good business is all about being personal and cultivating a trusting relationship.

This is the key behind long term business success.

(Send me your feedback and write me: franciskong@ businessmatters.org. You can also listen to my radio program “Business Matters” aired 8:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. daily over 98.7 dzFE-FM ‘The Master’s Touch’, the classical music station.)