Business and Social Ettiquette

BUSINESS AND SOCIAL ETIQUETTE

INTRODUCTION

Social etiquette: is making other people feel comfortable by the way we behave.

Business etiquette: is all about your social behaviours that you do in the workplace; how people perceive you in and the way you treat others. (www.modern-manners-and-etiquette.com).

Business and social etiquette are vitally important. In this chapter, we will describe the proper manners and protocol for a variety of situations. Whatever you are doing, wherever you are, the following three principles should guide you:

• People tend to like and prefer to interact with people they perceive as similar to themselves. Meaning the more similar two people are, the closer will be the relationship they form. Good cross-cultural manners are a vital part of bridging dissimilarities and hence increasing the possibilities for forming a good business relationship.

• Respect for etiquette is deep-seated, meaning that it is deeper than we can imagine. Be more formal and conscientiously polite than you might normally be at home.

• Show respect. Allows show respect to all no matter what.

Business and Social Etiquette

It is safe to assume introduction everywhere will be much more formal and significant than they usually are in the states.

Here are some of the etiquettes;

a) Try to get the names and titles right

“A man’s name is to him the sweetest and most important sound in any language, says Dale Carnegie. But while that is not absolutely true in all cultures, it is true enough in enough places so that it is worth paying close attention to both pronunciation and proper use of names. For example in Brazil and Portugal, people are addressed by their Christian name, along with the proper title or simply “Mr”, but in countries like Spain and Spanish, the last name is the main one.

b) Don’t use first names until specifically invited

First or given names are used for children, family and intimate friends. This rule applies almost everywhere whether...