Excerpt From "Bound for the Boardroom"

After graduating from a school of higher education, some fortunate young people are hired immediately for well-salaried executive positions. If these newly employed, technically trained graduates are required to host business events, they feel totally lost. Most were not even taught the ultimate greeting: the business handshake.

Often they sit back and watch what others do and wish good manners, communication skills, and more self-confidence would magically appear on their list of credits.

Wishing doesn’t make it so. These experiences, which are thrust upon them with expectations of success, are often extremely negative instead, and failure will destroy any possibility of a bright career. Usually enthusiastic about their career paths, with dreams of success, they become fraught with insecurity, self-consciousness and embarrassment, ultimately leading to failure or close to it.

Some students, even those graduates currently participating in the business community, actually believe the degree or advanced degree they worked so hard to achieve will absolutely guarantee success. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Those men and women, who strive to succeed using valuable lessons learned from well-intentioned parents, unfortunately are using yesterday’s mindset. Times have changed. Social etiquette and business etiquette do work hand in hand but are not the same.

The business jungle is not quite the comfortable home setting filled with love, security and encouragement. Far too many young, even middle-aged, warriors competing in the business arena today turned their backs on etiquette training, thinking it was of little importance, elitist, stuffy and certainly not for them. Many of their parents did the same thing during the 1960s, when they also turned their backs on “the establishment” and conformity.

As a certified etiquette and protocol specialist, I am one of the least stuffy and most non-elitist trainers on our planet. Like so many other business people, I am aware of the nuances and also the blatant lack of even the simplest acts of courtesy. In the highly competitive arena of business, like it or not, management equates good manners with competence and bad manners with incompetence, even during the interview process for entry-level positions.

In the seminars I present, the message from the attendees is consistent. Oh, what a silent awakening is traveling at breakneck speed across these United States and throughout the world today.

I am happy to say that civility is alive and well. In every city, village and hamlet, the outcry is the same. “Where did it go? We want it back!” The desire for etiquette consciousness and professionalism is infiltrating the core values of people everywhere. There is a demand for thoughtfulness, consideration and respect that reflects the language and action of our heritage.

A most vital component to business success today is not only being familiar with the rules or protocols of the game of business, but also playing to win. Personally, you might be just as intelligent and technically proficient as your competition. However, to become a leader or even experience a modicum of success in your chosen field, you must be self-confident and practice civility 24/7 in everything you do.

To rise above mediocrity, break out of the ordinary and reach above and beyond toward the boardroom, you must have great communication skills, executive presence, consideration and a healthy dose of respect for yourself and for those with whom you come in contact. These credits or qualities are not to be taken out and put on as you would your “Sunday best.” You need to practice and use these tools to become comfortable, confident and at ease as you navigate the business community.

If you are bound for the boardroom, you must do whatever it is you do, better than your competition. You need to create a desire for customers, clients and business associates to want to do business with you because they are welcomed, known, appreciated, and most of all respected. Anything less is unacceptable.

Without knowing and practicing the steps outlined in the following pages, you’ll find that the boardroom door is closed to you and the key thrown away. Welcome to the “real world,” where you just never know what others know and you don’t.     

About the Author

Barbara B. Bergstrom is Executive Director of Greetings: Voice - Image - Communications, a leading etiquette and protocol training company with offices in Chicago and Orlando. She offers a wide range of cross-cultural etiquette and protocol training and consulting services. An award-winning trainer, motivational speaker and author, she has generated articles and training films that have been distributed nationally.

Barbara was educated in private preparatory schools in Chicago and attended the University of Texas, where she majored in mass communications. Following certification by the nation's most prestigious etiquette and protocol school in Washington, D.C., she established the International Association of Independent Etiquette and Protocol Consultants. Currently, Barbara serves as Chief Protocol Officer and Hospitality Chair of the International Council of Central Florida under the auspices of the U.S. Secretary of State.

A Distinguished Toastmaster, Barbara received the Toastmaster of the Year award for the state of Florida and the Bahamas in 2000 and was named Protocol Officer of a 10-state region including Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, plus the entire islands of the Bahamas.

Barbara is regularly featured on television and radio talk shows and in local and national publications. Her extensive list of clients includes professionals and those entering the business arena, celebrities, and specialized medical, corporate and civic groups, educational and financial institutions as well as government agencies.

Visit Barbara B. Bergstrom on the web at www.greetings-eps.com or reach her by email at greetingseps@aol.com; fax (407) 292-0306; or mail at P.O. Box 617554, Orlando, FL 32835.

You may contact her for speaking engagements, private sessions or customized in-house training seminars. Her programs are problem-solving, educational, motivational, professional, energetic and uncomplicated. The results are immediate!