29 August 2007
Management Training: Etiquette for the Manager and Staff
How does a manager know if the employee can stand in for the boss, if the staffer will not stand up when he walks in?
Is standing when the boss comes in a sign of respect? Or brown nosing?
Your Business Blogger is noticing a most disturbing trend among some business clients. The younger employees do not, it appears, render proper subservience and groveling to their elder-better bosses.
This disturbs my sense of order and entitlement.
I continue to wonder,
Is good old fashioned boot-licking dead?
Cubicle Farm As I traverse cubicle farms across the fruited plain, I see entry-level staffer-drones toiling away. Plowing as straight a furrow as any dependable farm hand.
Yet some of these (very bright) hayseeds have yet to learn manners.
In the US of A the worker bees would continue typing and clicking away when the Manager and Your Observant Consultant would wander by and stand at the cube threshold.
The employee’s eyes would remain on the monitor — ears open to the boss — listening, we were assured, to the manager’s every instruction. The young employee would call this “multi-tasking.”
I call it rude.
On site in India I compare this ‘dis’ trend to the contrast of the warm glow Your Business Blogger would routinely feel when consulting in India.
Whenever the business owner enters a room. All work would cease. All would stand.
Then the boss would magnanimously, graciously invite the employees to be seated and resume their work.
Of course, no one moved. Until the owner left the room.
(There’s a lot to be said for the kiss up, kick down management style of the sub-continent.)
In India the employees would stand up.
In North America the employees don’t even look up.
The US Army, as usual, gets it right when dealing with rank:
The senior never thinks of it.
The junior never forgets it.
Whenever soldiers would cross paths, the junior would acknowledge the senior. If one is an officer the junior will salute the senior. And the senior will return the courtesy.
The private businesses who never had employees who were privates in the Army, think and behave as if everyone is equal.
Wrong.
There is far too much of this egalitarian nonsense in our culture. Much of it comes from the academy, where most nonsense originates.
At the University of Virginia where Charmaine earned her doctorate, the instructors are addressed as Mister. Not Doctor. Mr. Jefferson was a fan of fraternite and Voltaire and all things French.
Egalite run amuck.
But the manager and the ambitious young man, understanding the spirit of the times, knows that nothing changes in the human spirit. We all want to be appreciated.
Even the boss.
So the young future leader desiring to be a stand out, will stand up when the boss enters.
The young man will stand up when a lady enters the room.
The employee with integrity will take a stand.
Be a stand up guy.
And everyone will accuse you of apple-polishing.
But you will soon fill those boots everyone thought you were a-licking.
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Management Training: Etiquette for the Manager and Staff
My partner, Bill Oncken was recently interviewed by The Hindu Business Line. Oncken’s theme was
What you know will not get off the ground without the active support of who you know.
But this can be a challenge. How does a manager know if the employee can stand in for the boss, if the staffer will not stand up when he walks in?
Is standing when the boss comes in a sign of respect? Or brown nosing?
Your Business Blogger is noticing a most disturbing trend among some business clients. The younger employees do not, it appears, render proper subservience and groveling to their elder-better bosses.
This disturbs my sense of order and entitlement.
I continue to wonder,
Is good old fashioned boot-licking dead?
Cubicle Farm As I traverse cubicle farms across the fruited plain, I see entry-level staffer-drones toiling away. Plowing as straight a furrow as any dependable farm hand.
Yet some of these hayseeds have yet to learn manners.
In the US of A the worker bees would continue typing and clicking away when the Manager and Your Observant Consultant would wander by and stand at the cube threshold.
The employee’s eyes would remain on the monitor — ears open to the boss — listening, we were assured, to the manager’s every instruction. The young employee would call this “multi-tasking.”
I call it rude.
On site in India I compare this ‘dis’ trend to the contrast of the warm glow Your Business Blogger would routinely feel when consulting in India.
Whenever the business owner enters a room. All work would cease. All would stand.
Then the boss would magnanimously, graciously invite the employees to be seated and resume their work.
Of course, no one moved. Until the owner left the room.
(There’s a lot to be said for the kiss up, kick down management style of the sub-continent.)
In India the employees would stand up.
In North America the employees don’t even look up.
The US Army, as usual, gets it right when dealing with rank:
The senior never thinks of it.
The junior never forgets it.
Whenever soldiers would cross paths, the junior would acknowledge the senior. If one is an officer the junior will salute the senior. And the senior will return the courtesy.
The private businesses who never had employees who were privates in the Army, think and behave as if everyone is equal.
Wrong.
There is far too much of this egalitarian nonsense in our culture. Much of it comes from the academy, where most nonsense originates.
At the University of Virginia where Charmaine earned her doctorate, the instructors are addressed as Mister. Not Doctor. Mr. Jefferson was a fan of fraternite and Voltaire and all things French.
Egalite run amuck.
But the manager and the ambitious young man, understanding the spirit of the times, knows that nothing changes in the human spirit. We all want to be appreciated.
Even the boss.
So the young future leader desiring to be a stand out, will stand up when the boss enters.
The young man will stand up when a lady enters the room.
The employee with integrity will take a stand.
Be a stand up guy.
And everyone will accuse you of apple-polishing.
But you will soon fill those boots everyone thought you were a-licking.
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