A relentless, competitive business strategy:

98 | Spirit

A relentless,

competitive business strategy:Being Nice.

{ Extreme Etiquette }BY JAY HEINR ICHS

PHOTOGR APHY BY CEDR IC ANGELE S

F1_Etiquette_kdm.indd 98F1_Etiquette_kdm.indd 98 11/5/08 9:31:07 AM11/5/08 9:31:07 AM

Spirit | 99


Not that Anna or any other Post would

stoop to humiliate anyone. Their mis-

sion in life is to put everyone at ease,

and make everyone put everyone else

at ease. But I don’t know that yet. I’ve

even borrowed my wife’s Prius, the

politest car in America, instead of driv-

ing my own beat-up, reeking SUV. Can’t

be too careful, I think. I have a lot to

learn. (As we shall see, it turns out that

you can be too careful.)

The Emily Post Institute authors Emily

Post’s indispensable Etiquette, now in

its 17th edition, along with books on

business manners, manners for men,

and coping strategies for brides and

young singles. It’s a family business:

Seven Posts currently work there full-

time, comprising more than half of the

employee roster. Anna and her younger

sister, Lizzie, both in their twenties,

represent the youngest generation, and

the one that will take the Post manners

juggernaut well into this cantankerous

century. Anna has served as a spokes-

person for the Web phone service

Skype and for Hyatt Place hotels, telling

people how to be polite to each other

in their phone calls and travels. She her-

self travels a couple dozen times a year,

conducting business politeness semi-

nars, teaching brides the formalities,

and doing media interviews. She’s living

proof that in our lives and business, eti-

quette is alive and well.

Either that or she’s living proof that

we all desperately need some.

WHEN I WALK through the door of the

Institute—a suite of brick-walled offices

in a former school building—I startle at

the sight of several dogs of the Labrador

and German Shepherd variety. Would

Emily have approved? Still, I’ve never

seen politer dogs. One black lab rises to

a sitting position and pants in greeting.

It waits hopefully for me to pat it on the

head. I wonder if the Posts also have this

effect on humans.

A F T E R PA R K I N G at the Emily Post Institute in Burlington, Vermont, I check my teeth in the mirror, make sure my hair isn’t sticking out, and brush potato-chip crumbs off my lap. I’m about to meet Anna Post, great-great-granddaughter of Emily Post, the woman who did for American manners what Noah Webster did for dictionaries.

100 | Spirit

I M P R O V E M E N T


Emily Posed Anna bears the portrait,

and genes, of her aristocratic ancestor.


102 | Spirit

beets in a restaurant. “Emily Post would

eat her beets!” the grandmother said.

Anna says she responded by throwing

up on her dinner plate. You have to love

this woman.

When Anna was in elementary

school, an occasional student would

tease her on the playground by mak-

ing slurping noises with an imaginary

spoon. After graduating from the Uni-

versity of Vermont, Anna went to work

for Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy in

Washington. A job at the Motion Pic-

Anna comes out of her office with

the sort of smile someone gives an old

friend. Tall, dark-haired young women

like Anna never smile at a guy like me

unless I’ve given them a big tip in a res-

taurant. As she introduces me around,

I get a warmer reception than I have at

some weddings. They all have perfect

posture, great smiles, direct eye contact,

firm but not crushing handshakes, and,

most of all, an interest in their visitor—

or at least the appearance of it.

All that can be taught, but then I

notice something deeper. Early on in

our conversation, Anna and I are talking

about rudeness in movie theaters when

she brings up a good example. “I saw

March of the Penguins,” she says, “and

there was a woman in the row in front of

me filing her nails with an emery board.

She probably had OCD.” Talk about

sympathy for others: Some woman adds

a rasp rasp rasp to the cute-penguin

soundtrack, and Anna manages to spec-

ulate that the obnoxious jerk has a psy-

chological condition. “People are rude

because they’re unaware or because

they feel justified,” she says. “‘I’m run-

ning late because my sitter was late so

I’m going to cut you off.’ Or, ‘I didn’t

sleep well.’” Talk about sympathy.

Anna herself grew up in a family

that ensured she would never, ever be

unaware. When she was a little girl her

Aunt Peggy asked what she wanted to

be when she grew up, and she said, “I

want to be Emily Post.” Not that she was

the perfect little lady herself. Her grand-

mother once tried to make Anna eat

You’re Welcome Anna, Lizzie, and father Peter pro-fessionally put people at ease from their Ver-mont HQ (left).

Emily and her descendents are right. Etiquette is not about the rules. It’s about

adaptation to any environ-ment. Survival of the fi ttest.


Spirit | 103

1. Should you ask a top executive who clearly outranks you for his business card?

A) Yes. B) No.

2. Which of these chivalries are gender-free?

A) Holding a door. B) Getting off an elevator. C) Helping put on a coat. D) Paying for a meal. E) Shaking hands. F) Helping to carry something.

3. Is it all right to call a fellow employee “Sweetie”?

A) Yes. B) No.

4. How far away should you be when you talk face to face with someone?

A) One foot. B) 18 inches. C) Two feet. D) The next state.

5. Can you wear white suede pumps in November?

A) Yes. B) No.

6. Which topics should you steer away from at a business social occasion?

A) Your educational background. B) Golf. C) Politics. D) Sex. E) Religion.

7. Which way should you pass food?

A) To your left. B) To your right. C) What are you doing passing food in the first place?

8. Can you tip your soup bowl or cup?

A) Yes. B) No.

9. What should you do if you have something in your mouth you want to remove?

A) Bring your napkin to your mouth and quietly spit the item out. B) Raise your fork or spoon to your lips and gently push the offending article onto the utensil. Then deposit it on the edge of your plate. c) Discreetly remove the thing with your fin-gers and place it on the edge of your plate.

10. How far should you fill a glass of red wine?

A) Half full. B) Two-thirds full. C) One-third full. D) To one inch below the rim. E) To the brim

Quiz answers are on page 110.

Are You Polite Enough for Business?Test your etiquette prowess. (Answers adapted from The Etiquette Advantage in Business by Peggy Post and Peter Post)

ture Association of America followed,

until the call of etiquette drew her back

to Vermont. Anna has big ideas for

the Post Institute, involving etiquette

around the world. She embraces the

Web; both Anna and Lizzie keep blogs.

THE POST WHO BEGAT all the others

grew up in New York society, where

anyone who was anyone knew every-

one, and everyone kept vigilant for

the slightest nuances that determined

where one stood. (Anna’s grandparents

made the move to Vermont.) Born Emily

Price in 1872, she was the daughter

of a famous architect. She attended

finishing school and married a rich

stockbroker at age 19. A life-sized oil

portrait, painted about that time, hangs

in the Post Institute. She was—forgive

me, Emily—a babe: dark hair, brilliant

gray-blue eyes, and a figure that must

have caused whiplash on Park Avenue.

She had two sons in rapid succession,

but her marriage was a disappointment

and her husband, Edwin, often absent.

Emily took up writing, and family con-

nections landed her her first magazine

story. She would pen novels that had

such comfy titles as Purple and Fine Linen and Woven in the Tapestry. Edwin

had affairs with fledgling actresses and

chorus girls; in 1905, a gossip sheet tried

to blackmail him to keep one particular

indiscretion silent. The Posts refused to

pay and instead helped to expose the

scheme that had netted other society

folk; the sting turned the incident into

a public scandal. By 1906, Emily found

herself a divorcee.

Please try to digest this. Emily Post,

the woman who taught America how

to live gracefully, divorced her husband

after a public scandal. Emily later wrote

that “the man who publicly besmirches

his wife’s name, besmirches still more

his own, and proves that he is not, was

not, and never will be, a gentleman.”

(Edith Wharton, also no stranger to

New York society, would have been a

consolation: “A New York divorce is in

itself a diploma of virtue,” she wrote.)

An editor friend at Vanity Fair, Frank


Crowninshield, talked her into writing

a book on etiquette. And in 1922, Funk

and Wagnalls published Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home—all 627 pages of it. It turned

out to be one of the most revolutionary

books in American history.

Emily Post’s book allowed millions

of Americans to dream of becoming

an aristocrat by dint of their manners,

even while telling them that becom-

ing an aristocrat wasn’t important.

Whereas in Europe good manners

would get you nowhere unless you

were an aristocrat by birth, in America,

so the hope went, an aspiring lady or

gentleman could earn membership in

the “Best Society” simply by behaving

as if she or he belonged in it. And just

what was Best Society? Emily described

it as “an unlimited brotherhood which

spreads over the entire surface of the

globe, the members of which are invari-

ably people of cultivation and worldly

knowledge, who have not only perfect

manners but a perfect manner.” Mean-

ing that you don’t just want to know the

rules but to do and say “those things

only which will be agreeable to others.”

Yet what most likely made Etiquette

such a success—it was an instant best

seller—was not people’s desire to make

themselves more agreeable. People

bought the book in hope that they

Petiquette Even the dogs practice the polite art at the Institute.

104 | Spirit


Spirit | 105

It’s Fine to Wear Very Few Clothes:The Wisdom of Emily Post From Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home (1922)

SKIN IN THE GAMEThat young people of today prefer games to conversation scarcely proves degenera-tion. That they wear very few clothes is not a symptom of decline. There have always been recurring cycles of undress, followed by muffling from shoe-soles to chin.

MONE Y TALKMost of those thrown much in contact with millionaires will agree that an attitude of infallibility is typical of a fair majority.

HIGHER LEARNINGEducation that does not confer flexibility of mind is an obviously limited education; the man of broadest education tunes himself in unison with whomever he happens to be. The more subjects he knows about, the more people he is in sympathy with, and therefore the more customers or associates or constituents he is sure to have.

WA SSUPThe fact that slang is apt and forceful makes its use irresistibly tempting. Coarse or pro-fane slang is beside the mark, but “flivver,” “taxi,” the “movies,” “deadly” (meaning dull), “feeling fit,” “feeling blue,” “grafter,” a “fake,” “grouch,” “hunch,” and “right o!” are typical of words that it would make our spoken language stilted to exclude.

POKER FACINGA gentleman does not lose control of his temper. In fact, in his own self-control under difficult or dangerous circumstances, lies his chief ascendancy over others who impul-sively betray every emotion which animates them. Exhibitions of anger, fear, hatred, embarrassment, ardor, or hilarity are all bad form in public.

SHINING EX AMPLEAt the same time it is no idle boast that the world is at present looking toward America; and whatever we become is bound to lower or raise the standards of life. The other countries are old, we are youth personified! We have all youth’s glorious beauty and strength and vitality and courage. If we can keep these attributes and add finish and understanding and perfect taste in living and thinking, we need not dwell on the Golden Age that is past, but believe in the Golden Age that is sure to be.


managed to flub six rules of etiquette—

at least the 1952 version that my wife

uses as her social bible:

1. Don’t blow your nose at the table. (I

thought turning and doing it discreetly

was enough. Anna, on the other hand,

had a cold, and not once did I see her

blow her nose.)

could join the social elite, or at least not

condemn themselves to social Siberia.

In England they used to say that a person

who failed to comport himself properly

was “not quite the thing.” Emily Post gave

Americans hope that they could become

quite the thing.

But let’s suppose I don’t care a fig for

social success, or even consideration. In

business, you could argue, consideration

and respect for others can seem like

unilateral disarmament—or capitula-

tion. Anna Post begs to disagree. “If your

boss is worth half his salt, and he’s think-

ing of two employees to send out—the

pig or the nice one—which would you

choose?” Not only that, but etiquette can

be crucial in a job interview, she says.

She recounts the legend that McDonald’s

founder Ray Kroc would take executive

prospects out to lunch, “and he would

judge them by whether they salted their

food before tasting it.”

You’re not supposed to salt your food?

“Not before tasting it,” Anna said.

Sounds like a prudent strategy, but

what does that have to do with etiquette?

“Salting your food insults the cook.

It shows you assume it won’t be to your

taste.”

The topic made me hungry, and so

began my greatest etiquette test of all,

eating out.

During lunch at an outdoor café, I

Now Read the Book A great yarn about the politest revoluionary.

The woman who revolution-ized American manners was born seven years before the end of the Civil War and became one of the early radio celebrities. She used the base of the Statue of Liberty as a personal play-house. When she was a girl,

she aspired to be an actress and was, accord-ing to one newspaper, “perhaps the best banjoist in fashionable society.” She thought slang such as “swell” and “you betcha” were fine, but insisted on calling a tomato a “tomahto.” And she knew practically every-body who was anybody.

The absorbing new biography of Emily Post by Laura Claridge contains plenty of eyebrow raising facts like these. But the book goes far beyond a woman’s life, or even etiquette. Clar-idge, a former English professor at the Naval Academy, uses Emily Post to drill a fascinating cross-section through American culture—from the Gilded Age right up to the swinging Sixties. (Oh, behave!)

In the midst of it all stood one of history’s most remarkable women, a reassuring light-house on the rocky shore of human conduct.

–J.H.Emily Post: Daughter of the Gilded Age, Mis-tress of American Manners, by Laura Claridge. (Random House, $30.)


2. Wipe your mouth before drinking from

a glass. (What can I say? Any boss of

mine wouldn’t have sent me.)

3. Don’t discuss business right away.

Make chitchat first. (I immediately

raised the subject of officemates who

smell bad.)

4. Let the host pay. Never insist. (Anna

proposed the restaurant and took me

there, but I demanded to pay.)

5. Loosely fold your napkin and leave

it to the left of your plate before you

leave for the bathroom. (Sheesh.)

6. When you want the waiter to clear

your plate, place your knife and fork

on it as if they were clock hands show-

ing 4:20. (As consolation, my daughter,

who waited tables to help pay for col-

lege, didn’t know this.)

I learned all that from a seminar Anna

gave that evening, not from her grimaces

during the meal. To illustrate just how

polite Anna is, she told me later that

I hadn’t broken any really important

rules—just esoteric ones that don’t mean

that much today. How kind of her to say

so. You can tell who’s truly polite by how

they handle unruly types like me. Still,

some rules—what to do with an oyster

fork, for example—make me want to eat

with my hands. I think it’s possible to be

polite to the point of rudeness. The Posts

would doubtless agree. Anna tells a story

that the Institute received on its website.

“A man who was new to the office called

men by their first names and women

‘Mrs. Jones.’ He said his mother taught

him that,” Anna says. This old-school

approach understandably upset some of

his officemates. “In strange situations, it’s

best to err on the formal side,” she says.

“But when you do know people’s prefer-

ences, their wishes should be respected.”

It’s the rules that make people buy

etiquette books, and the rules that

make people ridicule etiquette. In the

1980s, the wonderfully snarky writer P.J.

O’Rourke wrote a book making fun of

the whole topic. Modern Manners: An Etiquette Book for Rude People asserts

that etiquette is “a combination of intelli-

gence, education, taste, and style mixed

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be fashionably late,” she said to the stu-

dents later.

Like a good executive, she showed

PowerPoint slides. One said, “Etiquette

= Manners + Principles.” She illustrated

the importance of rules that everyone fol-

lows by having a student stand up. Anna

extended her hand and told the student

not to shake. Her hand lingered in

space, and an awkward silence ensued.

“There’s a tension out there,” she said,

and the students nodded. Anna showed

another slide, this one of a 2005 poll

asking Americans if they frequently saw

people using their cell phones rudely.

Fifty-five percent said yes. (The other 45

percent clearly don’t use mass transpor-

tation.) But only 8 percent admitted to

being rude with their cell phones them-

selves.

“Etiquette gives us a code for how to

together so that you don’t need any of

those things.” His book contains handy

tips like these:

“Never do anything to your partner with your teeth that you wouldn’t do to an expensive waterproof wristwatch.”

“If your drink runs up your nose, you may be lying on the floor.”

“Most men do not look trustworthy with their pants off.”

“Never wear anything that panics the cat.”“A hat should be taken off when you greet

a lady and left off for the rest of your life.”

One might think that the Posts would feel

insulted by the book, but the person who

put me onto it was Anna Post herself.

Nonetheless, etiquette instruction

remains in high demand. That’s because

we have rules for a reason. If we didn’t

have them, then people would walk

around doing clueless things. “Look at

cellphones,” Anna said. “A few years ago,

they were out of control. That’s because

there weren’t any standards for behavior.

Now things are far from perfect, but I

think it’s gotten a little better.”

The rules also remain important for

young people aspiring to employment.

Anna often teaches proper comportment

to executive wannabes. I got to see her

in action during a rare event near her

office. The University of Vermont holds

intensive two-week seminars to prepare

liberal arts majors for the business world.

Besides resume work, job hunting strate-

gies, and field trips to nearby companies,

the students spend an evening with

Anna.

She appeared in a tailored jacket in a

hot, spare meeting room on campus. The

students—some 20 of them—arrived five

minutes early, a feat that may be unprec-

edented in the history of academia and

one that pleased Anna. “It’s not good to

Maybe this is what Heaven is like: a place where consider-ation has been elevated to the sacred. If so, I’m doomed.


behave so we can focus on more impor-

tant things,” Anna said. It’s like being an

experienced driver. “We drive everyday,

so we don’t have to think about it, letting

us think and use the radio, hopefully

without crashing into one another.” Eti-

quette also helps us avoid looking like

pigs. “When you think about it, eating is

gross,” she continued. “Etiquette keeps

us from grossing each other out.”

She got the biggest student buzz when

she demonstrated how to hold a knife

and fork. As students practiced, the clat-

ter of dropped silverware filled the room.

“If you can’t do it, just do the best you

can,” Anna said. “I don’t want to see food

flying across the table Pretty Woman

style.” To my surprise, Anna herself uses

the European style, eating with the left

hand after cutting her food. Turns out

Emily herself did this, preferring the

method to what she called “zig-zag eat-

ing.” Anna’s other tips to the students:

If you get lousy service in a restaurant,

leave a tip anyway. “You can leave less

than 15%, but talk to management.

Otherwise it doesn’t resolve anything.”

When the wine steward hands you the

cork, just look at it. If the wine is more

than halfway up the cork, it hasn’t

been sealed properly.

Pass the bread bowl to the right after

offering to the left.

Eat cherry tomatoes with a fork. “Better

to squirt someone from your plate than

from your mouth.”

If you see spinach on someone’s teeth,

tell them by discreetly pointing to your

own teeth. (“Or you could text mes-

sage them,” one student says pragmati-

cally.)

Anna insists, though, that the rules

should help us, not restrict us. “Worlds

won’t end if you do it differently,” she told

the students. “Sometimes the rules get in

the way, because people follow the letter

of the law. Short of putting your face on

the plate, you really can’t go wrong. But

if you wouldn’t be comfortable seeing

yourself do something on video after-

ward, then you shouldn’t do it.”

Etiquette takes on particular impor-


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Quiz Answers From the Emily Post Institute

If you got 8 or more correct, kind sir or madam, we thank you for your extraordinary polite-ness. If you got 5–7 correct, you might want to study up on your etiquette books. If you got less than 5 correct, would you mind eating at the next table?

1. (b) If a senior person wants your card, or wants you to have hers, she will tell you so.2. All are gender-free. The first person to the door, and anyone who is encountering dif-ficulty, take precedence. And whoever invites does the paying.3. (b) The simplest test is, if he or she wouldn’t say it to a man, he/she shouldn’t say it to a woman. 4. (b) About 18 inches is reasonable.5. (a) These days, the old seasonal injunction against the color white no longer applies. The determinant applies only to white fabrics and materials—and loosely, at that. White suede pumps in November? Sure, if they go with your outfit.6. (c), (d), and (e). These are potential argu-

ment-starters that can backfire on you.7. (b) Practicality comes into play here, how-ever: If someone nearby to your left asks you for an item, it’s perfectly okay to take the shorter route and pass the item to your left.8. (a) Yes, it is acceptable to tip the bowl—but only for the last drop or two. Again, tip the bowl away from you rather than toward you” so as “to avoid inadvertently directing a drip into your lap.9. (b) Believe it or not, the easiest—and most appropriate—thing to do is to raise the uten-sil you are using to your lips and gently push the offending article onto the utensil. Then deposit it on the edge of your plate.10. (a) White wine glass: about two-thirds full. Red wine glass: about one-half full.

field—whatever that field is.

It’s nice to think about a world in

which everyone followed the Posts. If

everyone suddenly turned polite, dicta-

tors would issue a formal apology for

tance in the business world because

business is more formal than most of the

rest of our lives. And being formal means

you follow the “forms”: suitable dress and

behavior. This has always been true. The

ancient Romans published books about

decorum, the art of fitting in with the rul-

ing elite. They meant “fitting in” not just

socially but in a Darwinian sense as well:

only the fittest, the ones who most close-

ly fit themselves into their social environ-

ment, thrived. Cicero said that decorum

was the most important, as well as the

most difficult, of all leadership skills.

He himself was a novus homo, a “new

man” who rose to the top rank by talent

and etiquette. He was clearly not alone:

Books on manners followed through the

centuries. Many of the books published

in nineteenth century America were

about elocution—the skill of speaking

like a lady or gentleman.

AND THAT’S RE ALLY what etiquette

is all about, I have come to realize: the

art of fitting in. Emily and her descen-

dents are right. It’s not about the rules.

It’s about adapting to any environment.

Survival of the fittest. In that sense, Eti-quette is a manual for surviving in the


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