Fast Company란 잡지를 창간한 빌 테일러 씨가 하버드 비지니스 리뷰에 쓴 블러그입니다.
최근 LA 지역에도 여러 곳에 오픈한 빵가게와 아마존 창업자의 스토리를 예로 들어 친절함이 얼마나 좋은 관계를 만들어 주는 지를 전했습니다.

한 젊은이가 암으로 숨져가는 할머니가 계시는 병원에 방문했는데 할머니는 손주에게 병원 스프가 너무 짜다면서 빵집 Panera Bread의 크렘 차우더 슾을 먹고 싶다고 하셨습니다. 문제는 파네라 빵집은 금요일에만 크렘 차우더를 하는 것이었습니다.

그래도 젊은이는 가까이에 있는 파네라 빵집에 전화를 걸어봤더니 메니저가 숨져가는 할머니를 위해 크렘 차우더만 만들어 준 것이 아니라 직원들이 보낸다면서 쿠키까지 선물했습니다.

뉴 햄프셔 주 윌튼에서 있은 일인데 할머니의 손주는 이 스토리를 자신의 페이스북에 알렸고 이 청년의 어머니는 파네라 빵집 팬 페이지에 올렸습니다.

그 다음은 소셜 미디어 시대를 반영하는 일이 일어났습니다.
젊은이 어머니의 글에는 50만번의 좋아요 버튼이 눌려졌고 22,000 개 이상의 댓글이 달렸습니다.

빌 테일러 씨는 이 청년과 할머니의 스토리를 읽으면서 2년 전 아마존 닷 컴의 창업자 스토리가 생각났다고 썼습니다. 아마존 창업자 Jeff Bezos 씨는 단순한 테크널러지의 달인이 아니라고 알려줍니다.

Bezos 씨는 10살 때 할아버지 할머니와 함께 여름여행을 하던 중 할머니가 차 안에서 담배 피우시는 것을 보면서 뒷자리에 앉아서 할머니가 하루에 피우시는 담배가 몇 개인지 세어서 할머니께 흡연이 생명을 9년 단축될 수 있다고 알려드렸습니다.

할머니는 눈물을 흘리셨고 할아버지는 운전을 멈추고 침묵하시더니 어린 손주를 보면서 부드럽고 침착하게 “제프, 영리한 것보다 친절한 게 더 강하다는 것을 언젠가 알게 될 게다.”라고 말씀하셨습니다. 그 교훈을 아마존 창업자는 그 스토리를 2010년 대학생들에게 강의했습니다.

빌 테일러 씨는 파네라 빵집 메니저는 숨져가는 할머니에게 아주 좋은 것을 드려서가 아니라 단순한 친절을 보인 것으로 세계적인 주목을 받았다고 강조합니다. 작은 제스추어가 사람을 묶는 것은 분명하고, 영리한 것보다 친절한 게 더 강하고 더 중요하다고 강조합니다.

It’s More Important to Be Kind than Clever

One of the more heart-warming stories to zoom around the Internet lately involves a young man, his dying grandmother, and a bowl of clam chowder from Panera Bread. It’s a little story that offers big lessons about service, brands, and the human side of business — a story that underscores why efficiency should never come at the expense of humanity.

 

The story, as told in AdWeek, goes like this: Brandon Cook, from Wilton, New Hampshire, was visiting his grandmother in the hospital. Terribly ill with cancer, she complained to her grandson that she desperately wanted a bowl of soup, and that the hospital’s soup was inedible (she used saltier language). If only she could get a bowl of her favorite clam chowder from Panera Bread! Trouble was, Panera only sells clam chowder on Friday. So Brandon called the nearby Panera and talked to store manager Suzanne Fortier. Not only did Sue make clam chowder specially for Brandon’s grandmother, she included a box of cookies as a gift from the staff.

 

It was a small act of kindness that would not normally make headlines. Except that Brandon told the story on his Facebook page, and Brandon’s mother, Gail Cook, retold the story on Panera’s fan page. The rest, as they say, is social-media history. Gail’s post generated 500,000 (and counting) “likes” and more than 22,000 comments on Panera’s Facebook page. Panera, meanwhile, got something that no amount of traditional advertising can buy — a genuine sense of affiliation and appreciation from customers around the world.

 

Marketing types have latched on to this story as an example of the power of social media and “virtual word-of-mouth” to boost a company’s reputation. But I see the reaction to Sue Fortier’s gesture as an example of something else — the hunger among customers, employees, and all of us to engage with companies on more than just dollars-and-cents terms. In a world that is being reshaped by the relentless advance of technology, what stands out are acts of compassion and connection that remind us what it means to be human.

 

As I read the story of Brandon and his grandmother, I thought back to a lecture delivered two years ago by Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com, to the graduating seniors of my alma mater, Princeton University. Bezos is nothing if not a master of technology — he has built his company, and his fortune, on the rise of the Internet and his own intellect. But he spoke that day not about computing power or brainpower, but about his grandmother — and what he learned when he made her cry.

 

Even as a 10-year-old boy, it turns out, Bezos had a steel-trap mind and a passion for crunching numbers. During a summer road trip with his grandparents, young Jeff got fed up with his grandmother’s smoking in the car — and decided to do something about it. From the backseat, he calculated how many cigarettes per day his grandmother smoked, how many puffs she took per cigarette, the health risk of each puff, and announced to her with great fanfare, “You’ve taken nine years off your life!”

 

Bezos’s calculations may have been accurate — but the reaction was not what he expected. His grandmother burst into tears. His grandfather pulled the car off to the side of the road and asked young Jeff to step out. And then his grandfather taught a lesson that this now-billionaire decided to share the with the Class of 2010: “My grandfather looked at me, and after a bit of silence, he gently and calmly said, ‘Jeff, one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.'”

 

That’s a lesson I wish more businesspeople understood — a lesson that is reinforced by the reaction to this simple act of kindness at Panera Bread. Indeed, I experienced something similar not so long ago, and found it striking enough to devote an HBR blog post to the experience. In my post, I told the story of my father, his search for a new car, a health emergency that took place in the middle of that search — and a couple of extraordinary (and truly human) gestures by an auto dealer that put him at ease and won his loyalty.

 

“What is it about business that makes it so hard to be kind?” I asked at the time. “And what kind of businesspeople have we become when small acts of kindness feel so rare?”

 

That’s what’s really striking about the Panera Bread story — not that Suzanne Fortier went out of her way to do something nice for a sick grandmother, but that her simple gesture attracted such global attention and acclaim.

 

So by all means, encourage your people to embrace technology, get great at business analytics, and otherwise ramp up the efficiency of everything they do. But just make sure all their efficiency doesn’t come at the expense of their humanity. Small gestures can send big signals about who we are, what we care about, and why people should want to affiliate with us. It’s harder (and more important) to be kind than clever.