None of this advice should need to be reiterated in a book like this. One would think that anyone who has any ambition would know these things. Apparently not. Rudeness and a shocking lack of consideration exist throughout certain areas of the business world. Fortunately, the new breed of executive, or would-be executive, seems to have better manners than his predecessors-in spite of what older generations always say about younger ones. So, if you are an executive-status seeker, consider your better-bred competition. Learn to be polite.
Learn-at least-not to interrupt or to charge into someone else's office without an "excuse me." This rule applies to the treatment of your subordinates as well as your superiors. At this point, it seems right to mention again the sense of humor necessary for maintaining sanity in the corporate world with its increasing pressures. A sense of humor-or proportion -is more important than a comic sense. Learn to keep a good balance. Remember that not everything that goes wrong is a catastrophe.
Experts on Poise and Manners
You will get more worldly goods, more friends and a greater kick out of life if you thank people for their smallest favors. - Elmer Wheeler
Confidence and enthusiasm are the greatest sales producers in any kind of economy. Have confidence in your products and the house backing them; have enthusiasm for your job. - O. B. Smith
Remember you can't learn when your mouth is working. You learn when it is closed, and your ears are working. - Elmer Wheeler
Poise is a big factor in a man's success. If I were a young man just starting out, I would talk things over with myself as a friend. I would set out to develop poise-for it can be developed. A man should learn to stand, what to do with his hands, what to do with his feet, look his man straight in the eyes, dress well and look well and know he looks well. By dressing well I don't mean expensively, but neatly and in taste. - F. Edson White
And if you want to hear a masterpiece of confident self-justification, go chat with the rather ill-bred climber who has never been able to get anywhere in business except by cutting corners, welching on promises, and taking advantage of weaker individuals. He cannot hide his lack of ethics, but he can glorify it by saying, "Business is business." This is nonsense, of course. I have never known a truly competent business leader who ever found it necessary or even desirable to be less courteous, honorable, and considerate of others in business than on the tennis court. It is only the insecure little men who pretend to think that business means shabbiness or cold-blooded lack of concern for the human decencies. - Robert Collier Page
Late millionaire Bernard Baruch, advisor to presidents and park bench philosopher, once said the secret of success was "to be quick to praise. People like to praise those who praise them. To be polite. If you are, others will be polite to you. To be helpful. That's the first definition of success. To be cheerful. There are enough crepehangers around. Don't be envious. By far the better way is to assume that what the other fellow does, you can do as well or better." - John McCarthy
Enthusiasm is the key not only to the achievement of great things but to the accomplishment of anything that is worthwhile. Enthusiasm is a wonderful word. But more, it is a wonderful feeling. It is a way of life. It is a magic spark that transforms "being" into "living." It makes hard work easy-and enjoyable. There is no better tonic for depression, no greater elixir for whatever happens to be wrong at the moment, than enthusiasm.
No person who is enthusiastic about his work has anything to fear from life. All the opportunities in the world-and they are as plentiful today as ever despite what some people say-are waiting to be grasped by the people who are in love with what they are doing. I have found enthusiasm for work and life to be the most precious ingredient in any recipe for successful living. And the greatest feature of this ingredient is that it is available to everyone-within himself. - Samuel Goldwyn
Anyone can be polite to a king. It takes a gentleman to be polite to a beggar. - John Stoner
The essential element in personal magnetism is a consuming sincerity-an overwhelming faith in the importance of the work one has to do. - Bruce Barton
...We may have to go one step further-or one fathom deeper-in our thinking about education. We may need to go beyond all the specifics of curriculum content and teaching methods to the spiritual and psychological needs of human beings. - James Zeder
A sense of the fitness of things, as I employ the term, is not mere social polish or intellectual veneer. It permeates a man's whole being. It leads him intuitively to reject the spurious and the false, to welcome the genuine and the true; to repulse baseness and vulgarity, and welcome nobility and refinement in thought, emotion and action. - H. W. Prentis, Jr.
Personal magnetism is a mixture of rugged Honesty, pul sating Energy, and self-organized Intelligence. I believe, absolutely, that truth is the strongest and most powerful weapon a man can use, whether he is fighting for a reform or fighting for a sale. - Arthur Dunn
What we call "manners" are but the surface advertisements of the consideration we have for others in our hearts. - Elmer Wheeler
A man's own good-breeding is his best security against other people's ill manners. - Lord Chesterfield
You must embrace the man you hate, if you cannot be justified in knocking him down. - Lord Chesterfield
