Smoothing the Lines of Communication

Last week, I was in Midtown Manhattan in the early afternoon and I happened to be walking behind four professionals, two men and two women, who were well dressed in business attire. One young woman in particular was wearing a well-cut black pantsuit with pinstripes and it fit perfectly.

But the more she walked, I began cringing. All I could see was the jiggle of her upper thighs and buttocks as she walked. This is by no means a commentary on weight, because she had a slim figure. And it is not meant to be catty or crass. This is about appropriateness, sense and, well, knowing when to thong and when not to thong.

And while an investment in SPANX could have solved this woman’s faux pas, sometimes when it comes to etiquette and propriety, the corporate world needs a heavy hitter. That’s when Gretchen Neels gets a call.

“When is the last time you heard, ‘sit like a lady’ said to anyone?” Neels posed at the onset of our interview. And she wasn’t kidding.

Neels has seen some mind-boggling things in the workplace and that is why this former executive recruiter is now the president of Boston-based Neels & Company, which bills itself as the “leading provider of soft skills training to professional services firms, covering all areas of business communication.” In other words, if your salespeople are having trouble closing the deal because they don’t know how to conduct themselves in a restaurant, your employees are texting and e-mailing instead of walking down the hall and actually making a human connection, or you’re tired of explaining why flip flops are not acceptable in the office, Neels will be happy to come in and offer a program tailored to the particular needs of your company.

“It usually manifests with the dress,” Neels said. “And the communication. There is a lack of home training. They don’t know the consequences of their behavior.”

For example, while Neels was addressing MBA students, a woman asked why she must wear hosiery in an interview.

“They’ll say, ‘Why are panty hose more appropriate than bare legs?’ I tell them it’s more finished and that their clothes will fit and fall better,” Neels said. “They seem satisfied with that.”

If it’s not already obvious that proper dress is a sticking point with Neels – who is working on a book titled, Get Dressed, For God’s Sake, and More Tips for New Professionals – get her started on casual Fridays. She says firms started to relax their dress code that one day of the week, but then it became all summer “and it’s been a black hole ever since.”

This made me laugh. In fact, about halfway through our conversation, I started to think there should be a compilation somewhere of on-target, witty Neel-isms like that one. A sampling:

“Why do you think actors wear costumes? You dress for the role. It’s the same thing when you go to a job.”

Or:

“People will say to me, ‘I don’t want to be sitting next to you, Gretchen, no offense.’ That’s because I see a used fork on a table and I cringe. A manager will say, ‘Things were going well with this client, but then we had dinner and never heard from them again.’ I want to say, ‘That’s because you eat like a pig.’”

See what I mean?

Neels is particularly attuned to the generation called Millennials, which includes those born between 1980 and 2000. They are a generation known for being technologically savvy, used to instant gratification and accustomed to a certain amount of coddling. She first heard the term while hearing someone speak at Harvard, but when she married for the first time at age 40 and became a stepmother to children ages 14 and 16, she started to understand this group a little better. Now, with the Millennials entering the workforce in droves, she sounds like an old pro.

“They require special care and feeding, lots of praise and attention,” Neels said. “They’re used to receiving pats on the head from coaches and teachers. They expect pats on the head for coming in on time. It drives managers crazy. They want to say, ‘Just do your work.’ But now some companies hire people just to throw confetti.”

She points to the story of the high school in Boston that decided to stop submitting its list of honor roll students to the newspaper so the others don’t feel bad as an example of what’s normal to this generation.

“What happens is they go into the world and their coping mechanisms are non-existent,” Neels said. “Someone will get their first negative feedback and they’re down in (human resources) crying, literally crying. Or they’ll tell a manager in an interview, ‘I’ll have to talk to my parents about it.’”

Neels calls cell phones “the umbilical cord” and tells of Millennials whipping out the phone and handing it to the HR person so Mom can negotiate their vacation time. She notes there is a word that comes up repeatedly when referring to this generation -- entitlement.

“Things get heated when we start talking about how managers can adjust,” Neels said of the workshops she offers to those managers. “We tell them to praise them and give them positive feedback. There’s such resistance. One woman said, ‘That’s not going to happen at my company.’ A year later I went back and they said, ‘You were right. We just implemented some simple things. Stepping up the feedback process can make a huge impact.’”

And, as Neels aptly points out to clients, the Millennials are not going away and they’re not changing, so why not turn their technological savvy and smarts to advantage for the company? What’s important for our generation to remember – that’s mine and Neels’ – is that when you get right down to it, our opinion of what “helicopter parenting” has done to the Millennials is irrelevant. They are a fact of life for corporations.

Part of the strategy even includes “Bring Your Parents to Work Day.” Frankly, I thought Neels was off her rocker when she mentioned this and I told her so, but my research tells me this is indeed happening. Ogilvy Public Relations hosted one in New York last year and now their Chicago office is embracing the idea. Other firms are following suit.

“It’s for companies to connect to the parents,” Neels said. “Parents want to know, ‘Who’s the manager? Where’s the cafeteria? What does the cubicle look like?’”

Meanwhile, Neels finds this group often has poor dining habits, which she attributes to the fact that they’re used to eating pizza or chicken nuggets in front of the computer. Also, communication is typically in the form of IM-ing or texting and they rarely walk down the hall to talk to someone or even pick up the phone to conduct business. Plus, they are willing to up and quit if someone doesn’t treat them the way they want to be treated.

This all adds up to Gretchen Neels’ services being in demand for a long time as she helps smooth the lines of communication between generations.

Let’s see SPANX do that.

Nancy Colasurdo is a practicing life coach and freelance writer. Her Web site is www.nancola.com. Please direct all questions/comments to FOXGamePlan@gmail.com.