Is it nature or nurture? Is it our culture or the white man’s culture you are trying to teach us? Over the past few years teaching etiquette to private individuals, groups and institutions, I get these two questions quite often and I can understand why.
Etiquette for the longest time has been stereotyped as some rigid rules about cutlery and drinking tea. Most erroneous! and I am on a campaign to ignite a change in how we look at the art of etiquette. Somehow those of us on this side of the globe tend to view etiquette as some set of foreign rules. Today I want to encourage us to look at etiquette through a different lens and embrace it as a tool for excellence.
Let’s remember that the simple life values of being kind, polite, not offending others, being considerate and having integrity have nothing to do with race, colour, gender or geographical location but rather more to do with ensuring that we live at peace with each other and enjoy the pleasures of graceful living.
By nature, we are inherently selfish and seek our own good first. However, right from childhood, we have been nurtured into accepting various values. These values; cultural, traditional, religious or maybe even silent rules of respect for oneself and others all form the basis of etiquette. We are just not used to calling it etiquette. The level to which one exudes these qualities is the basis by which we categorize a person as having good manners or not, as being decent or not or as being respectful or not. Our level of Excellence is benchmarked against these.
Today, as a first level, I just want us to start our journey of accepting etiquette as part of our personal growth towards excellence. Forget about the infamous stereotype of etiquette being a set of rigid rules being forced down on us by white people.
While we need to go back to our cultural, religious and community values, let’s also embrace those of the global community. Afterall we happily trumpet that we are now part of a global community and yet we choose to ignore simple things like the proper use of cutlery…. which can cause you terrible embarrassment. How about understanding simple seating protocols at meetings. May seem insignificant, but could cause so much offence in business and international circles.
Can we be a bit more intentional? We are in an age where we have no excuse. Knowledge and the search for personal and business growth is the trend. How well are we progressing towards excellence. In whatever context you find yourself, are you confident enough about the image you portray, the appropriateness of how you interact and the effect it has on you, your business and community?
By all means eat your fufu, kenkey and banku with your hand in the most decent and deft manner (it is “etiquettically” correct to do so), but also learn to use your cutlery right, so you can be comfortable and confident anywhere.
When you think etiquette, think of it as tool towards excellence, a Lifestyle!
