Posted on 06/28/2005 12:16:13 PM PDT by phoenix_004
Business etiquette coach Barbara Pachter likes to tell the story of a financial executive who, dining with a potential client, licked his knife clean at the end of the meal.
"It was a $30 million dollar lick," she said at a recent etiquette seminar in Goshen, New York, referring to the value of the deal the executive lost by offending the potential customer.
Businesses are turning to etiquette training to boost their bottom line, according to the coaches who train employees on everything from shaking hands to buttering bread.
Simply put, better-behaved employees are more valuable than brutish oafs, they say.
"Etiquette is saying that it's really OK to be nice," said Peter Post, the great-grandson of etiquette's grand dame Emily Post and himself a writer and lecturer on business etiquette.
"We've had an attitude in this country that being nice was somehow counter-productive to good business, to being successful," he said, adding, "In fact, being nice is a way to be much more successful in business. It has real bottom-line, dollar value."
He's seen demand for etiquette training boom in recent years, he added.
"We've heard over and over from corporations who have employees with all these skills but can't let them take a client out to lunch," Post said. "I get calls every week."
In suburban New York, employees of Elant Inc., which runs health and housing facilities for the elderly, have been studying etiquette since the company decided to slash its advertising budget and send staff into the community to drum up business through word of mouth.
LOST ART
Sent out to join civic groups and meet people, employees soon complained they were uncomfortable networking and socializing, so the company turned to an etiquette coach, Elant Chief Executive Donna Case-McAleer said. "It's a lost art," she said. Elant employees recently attended a day-long seminar to hear Pachter answer an array of etiquette questions:
--What accessories do people notice first? Watches and pens.
--Where should empty foil butter wrappers go? Fold the foil wrappers in half and place them under the bread plate.
--How does one eat spaghetti at a business dinner? Don't even touch spaghetti; it's too messy.
--Should a man be told that his fly is open? Yes, people should be always informed of zipper failure.
Listening, Elant administrator Laurence LaDue said he was well aware of his own etiquette failings. "I don't speak up, I'm guilty of the 'ums,' and I'm a fidgeter," he said.
Jan Davis, new to Elant management, found herself practicing her handshake with some tips from the coach.
"I've never been in the corporate world before. I've got a lot I need to learn," she said.
In a telling development in the world of business etiquette, Post said he has just added a chapter on ethics to the business etiquette book he first published six years ago.
Not paying attention to ethics, he said, can be costly. Just look at Tyco International Ltd.'s Dennis Kozlowski, facing prison for stealing the company's money, he said. The former chief executive could have used a little etiquette, he said.
"We teach people to think before they act. My guess is he wasn't thinking. He was doing. But unfortunately we're responsible for our actions, and now he's responsible for his," Post said after a recent lecture in New York.
Experts say modern etiquette is different from just a few years ago. Women's roles have changed, families spend less time in such settings as sit-down meals, children of working parents often fend for themselves and television and movies glorify profanity and rough-and-tumble behavior. "If I asked my mother where she learned manners from, it was probably from Sunday dinner, and I don't think you find that today," said Susan Schulmerich, an Elant vice president. "In many ways, we're missing a lot in our informal society and loss or tradition."
BACK TO BASICS
Pachter said she often has to go back to basics. "I am amazed I have to tell people to say please and thank you," she said. "Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, we stop using those words."
Listening to Post, businesswoman Dale Marcovitz said she wished her company, a huge retailer, would train employees.
"I'm from the old school and social graces, or the lack of, is what I notice the most, she said.
A study of people who experienced incivility at work, conducted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School, showed how costly it can be.
One in five said they worked less hard as a result of rudeness at work, and one in 10 spent less time at the office. Nearly half considered changing jobs, and more than 10 percent did so, the study found.
"It's more than just telling a person the rules," said Post. "Etiquette does have value for people. Etiquette makes you a successful person."
I do believe they get wadded up and tossed at the jerk wearing his hat a the dinner table. But that's just me.
Silly you!
We just have fun with it. Actually, I look forward to it this weekend, when everyone will be here for the annual family reunion.
I was at a restaurant Happy Hour with my wife the other evening, next to a table of three very loud and obnoxious young women and one young man, who probably all worked together, and it reminded me of a date I had in college. I took this girl out to dinner, and everything was going fine until the food arrived, whereupon she dived in facefirst and started scarfing it like a Teamster. I swear, she even licked the plate and burped afterward. I was so grossed out, I never asked her out again. I'd really liked her up until that point, but I couldn't face the thought of seeing that hog-slopping demonstration at every meal for the rest of my life.
It made me want to tell that story to the girls in the restaurant, who seemed to think that their obnoxious antics (shrieking with open-mouthed laughter while chewing food, etc.) were really amusing the guy at their table, who looked to me as if he wanted to flee. I know the feeling, pal.
OK, by popular demand, here it is:
A guy walks into a bar, orders a beer, and notices a piano in the corner. He asks the bartender if it is OK to play a tune.
The bartender says, OK, but if you're no good, I'll have to ask you to stop.
Theu guy sits down and plays the most beautiful song the bartender ever heard.
The bartender says, "Hey buddy, what was the name of that tune? It's beautiful."
The guy says, "Oh, it's one I wrote. It's called, 'I love you so #9!!%$**& much I can't hardly ^%(**#@^.'"
He then plays a tune more beautiful than the first. When asked its name he says, "That one is called, 'You're so #(*&%#$!)_ gorgeous that my &)$%@#& #)*(&*%$%@ hurts.'"
So then he goes to the bathroom. He forgets to zip up. The bartender says, "Hey buddy. Do you know you forgot to zip your fly and your &*&^#$ is hanging out?"
The guy says, "Know it? I WROTE IT!"
When I was growing up, a copy of Emily Post was de rigueur in our house. Thank goodness, and I love my parents for that. The lessons in it have never failed me.
I agree. The only thing worse that losing a client that is that obsessed with table manors is winning that client.
How long before some crazy "outrageous offense" of some sort happens to ruin it later. Life is too short for that.
Treat people nicely and show them respect. That should be enough for business. Elaborate mating rituals are for Romance.
But, the only problem growing up with Emily Post is that those who didn’t/don’t, or the like, view good manners as a personal weakness. I had to learn as an adult to get into the gutter with these ##@%% and show them I was/am capable of a good ugly scrap on their level.
"Don't even touch spaghetti; it's too messy."
Or fried chicken or ribs. Basically anything you can't eat simply with a knife, fork, and spoon. If the salad leaves are too big, cut them with a knife.
"Sounds like an urban legend to me."
Maybe so but I think you're missing the point. If I were a salesman and we went to dinner together and I ate like a friggin pig would you want to do business with me? I represent myself and my company and if you think about it, maybe that's the kind of service you'll get from me and my company. Would you want to do business with me? If on the other hand you ate like a pig I would not do anything to make you feel uncomfortable.
If they had asked where to score some hookers, then taken the girls up to their room......I suspect your reaction would have been the same. Mine would have, I'm sure.
Mebbe that's what the feller in #46 was experiencing...
If you were a pig salesman, why not? &^)
Red
Thanks! That's the spirit we do it in and it's fun, but there is the element of awe, with the elaborate and beautiful table, and the candlelight...;-D
(*sob* I'm finally underSTOOD!)
Red
Nope. But it's an idea....;-D
"Etiquette is saying that it's really OK to be nice," said Peter Post"
Peter Post doesn't get it. Etiquette is not about being nice, it's about holding up your end of the bargain in your contract with society. He then goes on to say that Dennis whats-his-name of Tyco is in prison b/c of bad manners and not stealing. Huh?
Don't forget to lick all the excess butter from them first.
Just kidding.
When my 3 sons were children we had a code word when one of them had a zipper malfunction: "XYZ" (examine your zipper). My children are all grown now, but I still say it to my husband. :>)
Considering the Turdburger might of been a good indicator of the vendor, going to the next slightly higher bid was most likely a good business decision.
Being a Turdburger is light years away from a slight lapse in etiquette.
Isn't it also a sign of poor etiquette to take undo offense at anothers slight mistake?
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