In a recent survey, 30% of respondents said that people today are inherently dishonest. 65% of respondents believed that people are less honest than people were 25 years ago. If you read or watch the news on any given day, you’d probably be inclined to agree with them.
Even if you don’t speak Spanish (especially if you don’t speak Spanish), see if you can identify the ability of this Coca-Cola commercial from Peru to rise above the limits of the spoken word and deliver a positive message about the world and the delightful people in it. The name of this commercial is “La Billetera de la Felicidad,” or “The Wallet of Happiness.”
As part of an experiment in a very crowded Lima district in Peru, Coke deliberately left a wallet containing $100 to try to test people’s honesty. 70% of people passed the test. Not only that, their honesty drove them to incredibly great lengths just to do the right thing.
Whenever humanly possible, we need to see – and celebrate – our employees and the people around us in the same way.