Odland remembers like it was yesterday working in an expensive French restaurant in Denver. The ice cream he was serving fell onto the white dress of a rich and important woman.
Thirty years have passed, but Odland can’t get the memory out of his mind, nor the woman’s kind reaction. She was shocked, regained calmness and, in a kind voice, told the young Odland. “It’s OK. It wasn’t your fault.” When she left the restaurant, she also left the future Fortune 500 CEO with a life lesson: You can tell a lot about a person by the way he or she treats the waiter.
Odland isn’t the only CEO to have made this discovery. Rather, it seems to be one of those few laws of the land that every CEO learns on the way up. It’s hard to get a dozen CEOs to agree about anything, but most agree with the Waiter Rule. They say how others treat the CEO says nothing. But how others treat the waiter is like a window into the soul.
Watch out for anyone who pulls out the power card to say something like, “I could buy this place and fire you,” or “I know the owner and I could have you fired.” Those who say such things have shown more about their character than about their wealth and power.
The CEO who came up with it, or at least first wrote it down, is Raytheon CEO Bill Swanson. He wrote a best-selling book called Swanson’s Unwritten Rules of Management.
“A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter, or to others, is not a nice person,” Swanson says. “I will never offer a job to the person who is sweet to the boss but turns rude to someone cleaning the tables.”
(1) What happened after Odland dropped the ice cream onto the woman’s dress?
| A. He was fired. |
| B. He was blamed. |
| C. The woman left the restaurant at once. |
| D. The woman comforted him. |
(2) Odland learned one of his life lessons from ________.
| A. an interesting best-selling book |
| B. the advice given by the CEOs |
| C. an article in Fortune |
| D. his experience as a waiter |
(3) According to the text, most CEOs have the same opinion about ________.
| A. Fortune 500 companies |
| B. the Waiter Rule |
| C. Swanson’s book |
| D. the Management Rules |
(4) From the text we can learn that ________.
| A. one should respect others no matter who they are |
| B. CEOs often show their power before others |
| C. one should be nicer to important people |
| D. CEOs often have meals in expensive restaurants |