Why "Mind Your Manners" Is the Best Career Advice
"Jane is very smart," I remember commenting about a colleague.
"More important than that," my boss replied. "She's has style."
At the time, I thought that a flippant, even condescending response. Who cares what her style is? But the remark stuck with me, and over time, I came to understand what he meant and decided he was right.
What my boss meant wasn't related to how she dressed, did her hair or how slavishly she followed fashion. It was all about how she treated people. And in its essence, it was this: everyone she encountered, Jane treated as an equal.
That meant that she paid attention to anyone she worked with, whether a typist, receptionist, waiter or Ambassador. Everyone counted and was treated with respect. She was excellent at remembering names but chiefly everyone came away from their encounter feeling that they mattered.
Her word was her bond. If she said she'd do something, you knew that she would. There was none of that "let's have lunch" or "let's get together for a drink" - the fatuous enthusiasm that belies total indifference. When Jane said "let's have lunch," she expected you to suggest dates.
She always replied, to emails, notes, voicemails quickly and efficiently. However grand she became, she never delegated her relationships.
And she was invariably on time.
Manners = Respect
I see now that Jane's exquisite manners all articulated respect for other people. That's one reason everyone enjoyed working with her.
By contrast, I'm amazed by the number of people I work with today who lack all of these qualities. I find myself wondering: are they really so arrogant - or is it just that they have no manners?
When Peter Chernin was COO of News International, what struck me most about him - beyond towering competence and his mastery of a Byzantine organization - was that he was invariably polite, punctual and attentive. I found myself wondering: is he so well mannered because he is in this powerful position - or is he in this position because he's so meticulous? I've concluded it's the latter. I know that I have hired people because they had good manners -- and fired people who didn't. Nothing my companies did was ever so simple or inevitable that we could (or wanted to) carry extra baggage.
In my own career, having been brought up by parents who obsessed over etiquette, I always thought it was something of a failure to be praised for being reliable, on time and on budget, for always remembering birthdays and holidays. Reliability feels like a very dull virtue. But now I see that, in essence, it inspires trust. I could trust Jane to be on time, respond to my queries, deliver what she'd promised when she promised to the standard expected. Working with people you can trust is a dream; working with those you can't is a nightmare and no amount of talent compensates for the pain. Reliability shows that you respect other people: their time, attention and competing demands.
Jane didn't have an MBA. She didn't need one. What she had were good manners. Of course she was also very smart. But it was her respect for others that built her network and her reputation. It's easy to imagine that a great career depends on world-changing innovation but very few people on the planet can deliver that. But anyone can have good manners.
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