Giving an A – small adjustment that changes relationships

We’re packing in the European experiences right now, attending a personal growth conference in Italy’s Garda Lake en route to Davos. Engaging with people from far flung lands is a reminder of how similar homo sapiens think and behave. Most of the time anyway.

Put two strangers from different ends of the planet at a lunch table and they’ll invariably get on just fine. Once the pressures of nationalism and dogma have been removed, most of humanity tends to treat others with mutual respect.

You have to love how the inimitable Benjamin Zander approaches strangers. “Give them an A,” the former conductor of the Boston Philharmonic suggests, “they’ll always live up to it.” And you don’t need to be outside the country to do so.