Jan. 24, 2001
DINING ETIQUETTE
The PAWS (Providing Athletes With Support) Program is dedicated to the overall development of the student-athlete. An aspect of that mission is to prepare our athletes for life after Villanova. Workshops offered include Resume Development, Real World
Considerations, the Resume Guide, and the newest, a Business Etiquette Dinner.
Often, today's interview process includes a lunch or dinner with prospective employers. Many of our athletes who have experienced this situation have reported that they often felt unsure of the correct rules of etiquette. In order to help alleviate this added stress in an already stressful situation, a dining etiquette workshop will be offered to all seniors.
Ms. Lynn Tully, the owner of the consulting firm, The Professional Edge, will host a four course dinner and address such issues as silverware use, buffet and banquet rules, as well as an assortment of dining do's and taboos. Ms. Tully has presented her workshop to CEO's and executives of many major companies throughout the country. Three workshops will be offered this year: November 1, February 20 and 21. All will be held in the Villanova Room in the Connelly Center.
During dessert, Mr. Jim Kane, Associate Director of Human Resources, will discuss "real world" issues such as payroll deductions, taxes, benefits and other options to be considered when deciding upon a job offer.
Students are asked to arrive on time and dress as they would for an interview. The evening is enjoyable and valuable for all future plans after graduation whether those plans are for employment, graduate school, or even the pro's..........no matter what, everybody has to eat!
To illustrate the importance of etiquette in today's business world, the following article appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer several weeks after our etiquette dinner.
In New Economy, manners still matter
By Lini S. Kadaba
Philadelphia Inquirer
November 16, 2000
Who goes through a revolving door first - the host or the visitor? Is it appropriate to tell a business associate that his fly is open? And how exactly do you eat that roll?
These age-old puzzlers of business etiquette are as important as ever, even in the New Economy - but fewer and fewer of us, whether computer whizzes or MBA hotshots, know the answers.
Plainly put, gentle reader, the workforce of the New Economy isn't minding its manners. So red-faced corporations are calling on etiquette consultants more than ever to polish up employees who may be savvy about C++, gigabytes and IPOs, but lacking in some of the finer graces.
"I think it's important we project confidence to our clients," said Susan Zimmerman, who, as director of client services at IMS Health Inc. in Plymouth Meeting, invited an etiquette consultant to visit her staff of mostly 20- and 30-year-olds. "My staff will feel more confident if they understand what appropriate business etiquette is. ...I've been on too many conferences where my employees have picked the wrong bread plate."
Zimmerman's experience is not unique. Barbara Pachter, a Cherry Hill-based etiquette guru and author, reels off much, much worse faux pas:
There was the sales rep who was invited to a holiday party given by her manager. "She brought her dog. That's not the worst of it. Then the dog proceeded to do its business on the dining room rug."
And the financial services adviser who licked his knife while at dinner with a prospective client. "The client took his $30 million portfolio somewhere else," Pachter said.
One company had an employee who filed her nails at meetings. Others complain about bleeping cell phones and beepers. And who holds the door open, anyway?
True, some rules have changed - and that accounts for a portion of what looks like boorish behavior.
Men no longer need to rush ahead to hold the door open for a female colleague. (Whoever reaches the door first should take care of it. But if a man does make a special effort, then the woman should simply offer a thank you.)
New technology (e-mail, voice mail, cell phones) and the global economy have added to the confusion. "Mothers couldn't teach us how to behave in e-mail, because it didn't exist. You could be on your best American behavior and still offend," said Pachter, whose book, When the Little Things Count ... And They Always Count: 601 Essential Things That Everyone in Business Needs to Know, is due out early next year.
So Pachter reminds her clients to not use all capital letters in e-mails. (It's the equivalent of screaming.) Put cell phones on vibrate during meetings. Don't use a speaker-phone when you share office space. Abide by the host's culture when conducting business abroad. (One young woman refused to return her Japanese host's bow - an incredible insult in that culture.)
But most of the time, experts say, etiquette foibles happen because so many of us don't know Manners 101.
"I grew up knowing about elbows on the table. We shared meals together. Many don't share meals," said Janis Moore Campbell, associate director for Temple University's Center for Student Professional Development at the Fox School of Business and Management.
"You're going into a workplace with 60-, 50-, 40-, 30-year-old," she said. "Each was raised with different mores. You have to be sensitive to that."
At Temple, business students take a course that covers the do's and don'ts of etiquette, spanning from traditional rules to those still under construction around e-mail or Palm Pilots - all an effort to help them navigate the real world, beginning with internships.
It's not about kissing up, Campbell tells students, who don't always see the value of etiquette. "It's consideration," she said. "Manners has to do with two-thirds common sense and one-third kindness."
Etiquette can be a hard sell. "There are a lot of good jobs out there and they [recent graduates] can have the attitude that I can get the job, so why do I have to care about how I look or act?" said Marjorie Brody, head of Jenkintown-based Brody Communications, which delivers etiquette seminars at $3,500 to $5,000 a pop to clients as diverse as Microsoft Corp. to University of Pennsylvania students.
"Don't think people don't notice," she warned. "They do."
Megan McCalley helps to recruit students for employment at Cigna Corp. "We look for some core competencies, shown by how they present themselves at an interview or at a cocktail party," she said.
McCalley has noticed the difference that an etiquette course such as the one at Temple can make. So has Eleni Athanasiou, a recruiter with the Ernst & Young accounting firm, which sponsors a dinner for Rutgers students at which Pachter covers dining etiquette.
"It's a good investment," Athanasiou said. "I had recommended we offer it to current employees."
During the 90-minute etiquette workshop at IMS Health, a pharmaceutical market-research firm, Brody corporate trainer Amy Glass elaborated on the finer points of dining, introductions, conversation starters and name-tag protocol. (It goes on the right lapel.)
The group of five staffers reviewed some basics, discussed handshakes (hand extended at a 90-degree angle, thumb up) and practiced chitchat.
They also tackled those age-old questions. The host goes through a revolving door first. (Otherwise, the visitor would enter unfamiliar territory alone.) Bread, put on the plate to the left of the place setting, should be broken, not cut, into smaller pieces and then buttered. And yes, you should tell a colleague about his zipper problem - or any other embarrassment (lipstick on the teeth) that can be corrected with relative ease.
"Etiquette is about guidelines, so you know what to do in any situation," Glass said. "All etiquette is based on three concepts: logic, kindness, and efficiency. ... We're looking for ways to make it easier for others."
By the end of the session, Carrie Cooper, 25, a market-research analyst, said she had learned a thing or two, especially about those revolving doors.
"We did that wrong at my old company," she said.
