There is a story doing the rounds about a hotel manager whose hotel was quite near a hospital. Over a period of time a father and son had been coming in quite regularly so the staff assumed that they must be getting treatment in hospital. One night the manager was approached by the father who said "I just wanted to let you know that tomorrow morning my son's going in for chemotherapy and he's really, really worried about losing his hair. So I thought we would shave his hair tonight so he has time to get used to it, and I thought I'd shave my head as well so he doesn't feel on his own. Could you possibly tell your staff in the dining room, so that when we come in for breakfast they don't react in any way, so that he doesn't feel embarrassed?" So they went to bed, and when they got to breakfast in the morning there were seven members of staff in the hotel who'd shaved their heads as well.

I just joined an organisation which is showcasing the individuals who work there, not in uniform but with their passions, as a signal to remind staff that we want to them to bring their passions to work. They are photographed with their tennis racquet, or baking a cake - we photograph them doing the things that they're passionate about because the energy that it releases when they're being photographed is very different to the energy being released when they're doing their job. What we want to say to people is this is what we want you to feel like when you're at work all the time because this is a place you can feel like this and do your job and still be passionate. I thought this was quite cynical and that it might not be lived, but everywhere I've been so far people talk about the ‘be yourself' ethos and about being given permission to be themselves when they come to work, not put on a uniform and be something else.

I worked for a rail company whether the chief executive made sure that whenever he travelled on the network he spoke to every single member of staff personally, to get to know them, built rapport with them, and understand their issues. He brought those issues back into the boardroom and explained them in their language. All of the management team were required to wear our name badges whenever we travelled and to be available to customers and staff alike as part of our jobs. This doesn't sound very complex, but to the chief executive it was an expression of being available, being responsible, being there as part of the management team not just being a name that you could hide behind in your office; not just a job title but something that was a living expression, and you had to be in that space every moment of the day.

I got a call at 6 o'clock in the morning one February. A client company had had their second fatal road crash in an eighteen month period. It was a hideous morning, not just because of the accident but it was incredibly bad weather, the kind of weather that generally people don't go to school and people don't go to work because it's too difficult to make it through. Every single member of the team that I worked with came into work to support our client on this awful day, in an extraordinary display of team spirit. Was it the character of all those people that came out in that moment? I like to think that corporate character is the sum of all this fragments of individual character and that when everything else is laid bare it comes to the fore. It was a very special experience.

One of the things we have been doing in the company I work for over the part twenty years is something called Christmas Calls. We have about fifteen coach loads of pensioners who come into the workplace on a Saturday and Sunday and they can use the phones for free to call their relatives in other countries to say Happy Christmas. We give them a Christmas meal, and the staff come in and sit and chat. They tell their stories about their children, and just talk, and enjoy a glass of sherry or port. There is a Santa giving out presents, there's music, and it's a great occasion every year. Staff look forward to it and we look forward to welcoming back people year on year. It's now something that's in the culture of the company because it's been going for twenty years.