Grandma’s mantra
Mind your manners. Learn how to do things correctly. Act with confidence, charisma, flair. Grandmother was right: they are a path to inner fulfillment and to great external success.
LDN
Do’s and don’t’s of diversity
Much has been made of cultural diversity in politics and in our schools, both globally and within America itself. Oddly enough, little attention is usually paid to the nuts and bolts of courteous interaction between cultures, especially at the professional level. Enter WorldWise Protocol. As a lifelong professor of foreign languages, literatures and cultures, I bring a unique and highly practical understanding of how protocol and etiquette can bridge, elegantly, effectively, and often with good humor, the wonderful differences that exist between nationalities or between the local cultures that operate within a single business or university. My in-depth experience in international business, both with my own and others’, adds the results-oriented perspective that you will be seeking.
LDN
Don’t touch the apples
For fifteen years I have taken classes of college students abroad. We spend three weeks in Paris and then three weeks either in Italy or in Spain. Their aspirations are varied, but many want to work in some international context, either at the UN or in business or in religion. Immersing themselves in a foreign environment, tasting the tastes, learning the rules, acquiring the language, knowing something as basic as how to order food and wine in a restaurant are deemed, wisely, to be essential to those bold aspirations. I recall a student returning one afternoon, in tears. She had innocently touched a piece of fruit in a small greengrocer’s shop. A taboo. The outraged shopkeeper had expelled her from his shop.
LDN
Bono at the Vatican
What about the pragmatic objectives? In religion, in business, in the arts, we find ourselves in situations where very particular codes of conduct pertain. Fulfilling the expectations of that code will please as much as the failure to do so may cause consternation. Even a renegade pop star knows exactly how to behave when he or she meets the Pope. Or enters a mosque. That art of pleasing is as important as all the philosophy in the world in aiding an exchange of ideas, a rich meeting of minds, and a bright prospect for the future.
LDN
More than “good form”"
That process never stops, really. Before it has anything to do with the pragmatic objectives of success in marriage or business or acceptance in circles to which you aspire to belong, it has to do with striving upward toward your full potential as a vital member of a highly civilized society. In that sense, good manners are not just “good form,” but are an essential part of an enlightened life.
LDN
“Mind your manners”
Perhaps you remember a favorite grandmother intoning those words as you plucked up a strand of spaghetti with you fingers. We obeyed, even as very young children, grasping the fact that a crucial part of our education was underway. Minding (and learning) our manners at home meant many things. It meant that we could go to other people’s homes, or to church, or to school, and behave in a way that pleased those around us. It meant saying you were sorry after a juvenile lapse of conduct and doing it in such a way that not only erased the incident, but left you standing a little higher in the esteem of the lady whose (delicious) raspberries you had stolen.
LDN
