Where Have our Manners Gone?
How complex have we let our lives become that we’ve forgotten the simple good manners taught to us by our parents?
A few years back Lori and I discovered that you could no longer invite a few people over for dinner and anticipate they would accept. If you want 12 people for dinner you need to invite 36 a month in advance and follow up multiple times. It seems that multi-tasking and over scheduling have led us to be focused only on the urgent; unable (possibly unwilling) to make commitments into the future. Do you find you can’t make a commitment three to four weeks out? You wait until the last possible moment before responding to an invitation.
I was recently invited to a party where the host was using an online web service to manage the attendance and allow people to indicate if they were attending. I was struck by the fact the day before the event half the folks who had been invited had not responded with a yes or a no or even a maybe; no feedback at all. Have we forgotten what RSVP means? It is fair or polite or respectful not to respond? Not the way I was raised.
I remember a book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. Maybe we need to go back and relearn the messages from that time.
Are you the sort of person you would recommend to someone else .. as someone to hire, a potential friend or information reference. What are the characteristics that make you feel really comfortable doing that?
I like to use Dan Sullivan’s Referability Habits from his Strategic Coach program:
- Show up on time
- Do what you say
- Finish what you start
- Say please and thank you
Like kindergarten lessons these are simply good manners. If we all just followed the Referability Habits we would be better friends, colleagues and business partners.
What could you do today to be better and up your game? Answer in the comments below.
image courtesy of zimpenfish
