Is etiquette
important to your career?
Only if you plan on having one.
Stories abound
about business deals that fell through or job opportunities that
were lost because of etiquette ignorance. Apparently, they're
not just urban myths. Sue Fox, head of Los Gatos, Calif.-based
consultancy Etiquette Survival and co-author of Business Etiquette
for Dummies, recalls a phone call from the a software company
CEO who wanted to sign his company up for her services. Earlier,
he had declined her pitch for his business, but after rejecting
a candidate for a senior-executive position because of his raised-by-wolves
table manners, he changed his mind.
The highly qualified
candidate, who was this close to getting the job, violated even
the most basic of table manners, including talking with his mouth
full. "He had salad dressing on his chin the whole time,
and he didn't even know!" Fox marvels.
Sound picayune? Hardly.
"It made the CEO realize, 'Would we want to put these people
like this front of clients?'" Fox explains. In fact, Fox
says many chief executives will not hire senior executives without
having a meal with them first.
Top executives are
often the most sorely in need of some table manners -- but telling
them so is itself a study in tact. "People get offended,"
says Fox.
What's more, because
of their success and high position, a C-level executive's ego
can get in the way. Says Judy Bowman of Boston-based Protocol
Consultants International" "I think some people have
a mentality that their expertise exempts them" from minding
the finer -- or even basic -- points of etiquette.
Managers who want
to get promoted within their own company are not off the hook
from cramming for charm school, either. And among senior managers,
those vying for the CFO spot might benefit more than others from
brushing up on their p's and q's. "CFOs are often not out-going,"
notes Fox. "If finance people want to be promoted, they need
to work on people skills."
The etiquette expert
recalls the promotion to CFO of a finance executive at a large
computer manufacturer. "She was brilliant, but not pulled
together," Fox recalls. "She often wore jeans and sweatshirts."
When the executive
was promoted to CFO, she was sent to a kind of executive finishing
school, where she was trained to speak publicly and dress executive-style.
"When they announced her appointment and she made her first
public presentation, no one could believe the change -- it was
miraculous."
