“Hello, Welcome, Please, and Thank You”
by Eli Amdur
The Career Coach
Career Coach Eli Amdur conducts workshops and one-on-one coaching in Career Planning, Career Skills Development, Resumes, Interviewing, and Communication. At Fairleigh Dickinson University, he is Adjunct Professor of two graduate-level leadership courses. Please note his new email address, eli.amdur@amdurcoaching.com and new website, www.amdurcoaching.com. He can also be reached at 201-357-5844.
Civility.
The other day I called my friend, Dr. Jim Hutton. Jim, Professor of Marketing and Entrepreneurial Studies at Fairleigh Dickinson University, is a colleague, the guy who hired me over eight years ago as an adjunct professor to teach a graduate course called Executive Communication and Leadership, which he also taught.
Jim is also, I’m proud to say, a regular reader of this column, and has fed me several ideas that have shown up here over the years. So when we got done talking about what I called to discuss, he suggested that I might want to write an article on civility, which – if not a totally lost art – is certainly getting harder to find.
I’ve written on civility several times before, but Jim has such a great take on it that I just had to share it with you. In his Marketing Communications class, Jim gives a lecture called “Hello, Welcome, Please and Thank You.” While it applies to marketing, it most certainly applies to your career in any field, to your success as a job candidate, and to how you choose to define yourself as a human being. So I asked Jim for a little input for today’s article, which he was happy to offer. Quite civil, wouldn’t you say? Here are a few of his key overview points.
We live in such an uncivil society that simply being courteous can give a person or an organization a competitive advantage. There is scientific evidence (through studies of various kinds) that these simple courtesies are extremely effective tools of persuasion. Saying “thank you,” for example, goes a long way toward relieving what scientists call “cognitive dissonance” and what marketers call “buyers’ remorse,” providing affirmation that is so critical to building brand loyalty and personal relationships.
• These simple courtesies represent a win/win strategy, which is one of the keys to success
in business. In his PR class, Jim talks extensively about focusing on win/win, handling the
win/lose situations as diplomatically as you can and trying to turn them into win/win if possible, and avoiding lose/lose at all costs. Civility is the foundation on which this rests.
• In keeping with a commitment to civility, “hello, welcome, please and thank you” are the right things to do from an ethical perspective.
Here are a few quick examples. [The comments in brackets are my interjections.]
Hello. Wal-Mart’s entire “greeter” program is based on this simple principle of common courtesy. Interestingly, Wal-Mart had trouble implementing its greeter program when it came to New Jersey because the idea of saying “hello” or “welcome” was so foreign that many people thought the Wal-Mart greeter was just a pervert or a senile old man loitering at the front of the store to harass people. [This is the state that brought you Snooki, don’t forget.] Even after Wal-Mart became a huge organization, incidentally, founder Sam Walton used to make a point of visiting as many Wal-Mart stores as possible each year, just to say hello and thank you to his employees. [Relate this to proactive networking.]
Welcome. The dean of the University of Hawaii’s business school wrote me a welcome letter, offering his assistance, when I moved to Honolulu as a businessman. I never forgot it, as he was the only person who didn’t want something from me as I was relocating to Hawaii.
[Others hit on Jim for one favor or another.] Interestingly, he later became my boss as the CEO of my company. [Whoa! Talk about a career coincidence!]
• Please. It’s still the magic word, just like Mother always told you. [When you’re networking or targeting companies or otherwise reaching out to make contact with people, and you use the word “please” regularly, you will stand out. People call me all day long, come up to me after a presentation or workshop, and email me from all corners of the globe. Trust me; I don’t see or hear “please” anywhere near enough. And if I notice it, so do employers.]
Thank you. A small jewelry store owner proved how effective simple courtesies can be,
using an experimental design and dividing customers into three groups. Group one received a “thank you” telephone call, group two got a “thank you and we have a special sale” call, and group three got no phone call at all.
What were the sales results? Overall, sales increased sales by 27 percent over previous year. But 70 percent of the increase came from group one (“thank you” only), 30 percent came from group two, and there was no change in group three. [So how often do you say thank you?]
“Hello, welcome, please and thank you” need to be done sincerely, much the way that Dale Carnegie’s principles were successful because he was sincere about them. Jim is spot on.
One major precipitating factor leading to the decline in civility happens to be the very thing that has created and facilitated so many benefits for humankind: the Internet. It has, quite frankly, made communication too easy, too automatic, too casual, and too impersonal – less civil, in other words. And so there are many who have no expectations of civility. To them it doesn’t matter.
But there are plenty of people to whom civility is still a big deal. To those people, it still matters. People like Jim Hutton and me.
And, likely, the next guy who interviews you.
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