Seeds of humanity

I’d just boarded the TGV in the south of France when the door of the carriage slid open and I heard, “Mesdames et Messieurs, vos billets s’il vous plaît!” Tickets please!

An elderly lady behind me was having trouble finding her seat, not helped by the fact that each seat had two numbers.

The conductor patiently explained that there was one number for trains going north to Paris, the other for trains heading south. She had in fact found the right seat, and settled into it happily.

He then asked a mum next to me how many people she was travelling with. “Three,” she replied. “One, two, three, “ he counted her and her children, then continued, “four, five, six, seven…” pointing to the Barbie and Ken dolls carefully set up on the little girl’s tray table.

She giggled, delighted to have been seen.

The conductor knew that a moment of levity on a long train journey can go a very long way.

I’m pretty sure his job description didn’t list “sense of humour” as a prerequisite. He was simply being himself.

In his book Reinventing Organizations, Frédéric Laloux advocates a transformation in the corporate world towards 'conscious organisations' - based on a new business model.

Moving away from a hierarchical structure, in which people are placed in an optimal way like cogs in a machine, to a more organic one in which we can optimise our talents, and share our humanity.

This means stepping out from behind the professional mask, to bring our whole selves - our heart and spirit - to our work.

As the conductor went about his work that day, I watched him sow seeds of humanity throughout the carriage… and smiled.

Photo by Joshua Lanzarini on Unsplash