ROTARY VOTARY - The Rotary Club, West Chester

Today we were treated to a most civil and

informative sketch of the need for proper

business social skills. Ms. Joan Stokely sold her

accounting business in 2002, after twenty

successful years, to start a new business

dealing with a common thread connecting her

many successful clients—the fact that the most

successful people also exhibit good social skills.

Thus Ms. Stokely founded The Society of

Diplomacy, Inc. to teach business diplomacy,

social diplomacy, and etiquette as a necessary

skill for promotion and wealth creation. She

gave us her top ten business social skills

checklist and explained each in brief.

Modern life has prevented many young people

especially from learning proper etiquette, which

becomes a definite handicap to their success in

life. For example, dining etiquette used to be

learned over a period of years from everyone’s

daily experience at the family’s evening meal.

This is no longer the norm. I have read reports

that offers of employment often hinge on how the

applicant handles himself at an interview over

lunch and that one young man was not

considered to have sufficient judgment when he

salted his food before tasting it. Ms. Stokely can

even advise foreign travelers of the proper

etiquette of different cultures.

Of course

different venues demand different levels of

etiquette, challenging the knowledge of even a

professional like Ms. Stokely. For example, as a

young Air Force officer, I learned that it was

perfectly acceptable to be carried unconscious

from a formal stag, as long as one’s coat and tie

< Back