Everywhere I go: in a hotel shuttle in Kentucky.

I was eating my breakfast in the hotel when Julia, the hotel’s shuttle driver, kindly asked if she could take my bag to the shuttle as I finished my breakfast.

“Of course! Thank you!” I said pleasantly surprised at the attentiveness of the staff to point me out and relieve me of my luggage.

A few minutes later, she welcomed me aboard the shuttle with a smile and a cheerful greeting, asking my destination.

“Good morning! I’m headed home to Tacoma,” I replied.

“Oh that’s nice! And what brought you to Florence, business or pleasure?” she asked.

“I was here on business.”

“Ah, that’s great! What business are you in?”

“I help organizations create more loving and human workplaces!”

“Oh wow! Well, we could have used more of that at the other motel I used to work at! I was only there for a couple months.”

“Oh really? Why is that?”

“So this hotel where you stayed is like a family, but at the other motel, the management is really harsh and unfriendly. And it gets out.”

“That sounds like a bad experience. I’m sorry. What do you mean when you say that it gets out?” I inquired.

“Well for example, we ran a program that allowed guests to put out a special sign on their door knob and the motel would make a donation to a charity in the guest’s name. Once a customer asked to verify that her donation was being made, but it wasn’t recorded on her account. When I asked a manager to correct the donation, he reviewed the wrong account and made rude comments about me not knowing what I was doing and sarcastically put me down.”

“The customer overheard this. It was embarrassing and really reflected badly on the motel. The management wasn’t kind and it created a negative atmosphere so that employees weren’t kind to each other and weren’t really kind and patient with customers either.”

How ironic that a business trying to position itself as kind, compassionate, and socially responsible by offering this donation option, was consistently communicating and demonstrating the opposite set of values. In small but important moments and daily interactions they showed their true colors and this wasn’t lost on anyone, not customers nor employees.

No lofty corporate program espousing human values can overcome the cultural truth that shows up when there’s a mistake, a misunderstanding, an unusual need, or a heavy workload and people are inhuman to each other.

My friend Robert Martichenko calls this cultural fraud. And these days, if employees or customers catch a whiff of cultural fraud, well it’s all over.

Julia went on. “But at this hotel, everyone works with kindness. Management is kind. Employees are kind to each other, and everyone really wants to be kind to customers. It’s that type of atmosphere.”

“You know, I take my work seriously,” she went on. “I really want to do a good job for people. I was raised to understand that if I make a mistake it has consequences and I care. If I do something wrong at this hotel, the manager is a great coach and talks with me about it. He doesn’t get mad and go after me, because he knows I’m hard enough on myself. There’s respect and it really makes a difference. I like working at this hotel.”

Julia turned the conversation to the coming holidays, and we chatted happily. She exuded positive energy, care, and kindness throughout the drive until we reached the airport, where she unloaded my bag and wished me a safe flight with an authentic smile and a wave.

Everywhere I go people tell me stories about their workplaces.

Some are full of fear, missed opportunities, bad business, and outright harm. Others are full of love, respect, kindness and the benefits that come to customers, employees, and organizations when these human values are embraced.

Whichever the case, the truth definitely gets out. And I see it everywhere I go.