My friend of almost 40 years, Larry Berg, is the CEO of the Vancouver International Airport. During the recent 2010 Winter Olympics, there was a lot of pressure on the airport and all related logistics. Imagine all those thousands of people and thousands of pieces of equipment coming and leaving in concentrated ways over a two week period.
It is especially stressful as the entire Olympic world departs at once after the closing ceremonies. My understanding, by all objective accounts, is that Vancouver set a new bar for great airport performance.
If you know anything about being Canadian, you probably know that hockey is the oxygen of the country. There was no better ending to the 2010 winter Olympics than to have Canada play for the gold medal in men’s hockey on the last day of the games. Tickets for that game sold for thousands of dollars on eBay.
Larry, who is a big hockey fan, had four premium tickets to the game. What did he do? He gave the tickets to four of his direct reports who worked their butts off to make the airport run like a finely tuned machine.
That’s being abundant! That’s character. Character Hall of Fame inductee: Larry Berg.
with Character,
Lorne