Transcription
And the story is that it's about 1953. The queen is presiding, newly crowned, at a dinner of a load of dignitaries at Buckingham Palace. And Churchill's, I think, sitting on one side of the queen.
And halfway through the dinner, some footman comes up and whispers in the ear of people at the top table, "We've got a bit of a problem. One of the extremely distinguished guests has basically nicked a salt shaker." Bear in mind, this isn't a branch of Taco Bell. The salt shakers are solid gold. They date back to George III, and um they're worth about £5,000 each and technically irreplaceable.
So they have this automatic dilemma which is what do we do? Do we just take the hit or do we go and accuse the other person of theft which will create a diplomatic incident force them to deny what they've done? Either option both of them sound like pretty unattractive option.
Churchill goes don't worry just leave this to me. I'll sort this. A few minutes later Churchill reaches over to the table and meet picks up the matching pepper pot and tucks it in his breast pocket. And after the meal, the person who's stolen the salt shaker was standing on her own and Churchill simply cidled up to her and he pulls the pepper pot out of his breast pocket and says, "I think we've both been spotted. We probably better put these back."
Now the sheer genius of that is that by positioning yourself not as an accuser but as a fellow offender the entire emotional response is completely