The Business Case for Good Manners with etiquette coach William Hanson

This episode is brought to you by True Classic. I'm so proud that True Classic is a sponsor because I really like their company and I really like their CEO and I really love their clothes as well. I've been wearing their t-shirts long before they became a sponsor. Do check them out. What are some of the specific things that you have seen that a lot of people get wrong when you are having a conversation.

It's a networking event, culture party. What's ever it is, a lot of people sort of you'll be doing a story about a skiing accident. For example, that you've had, you were on a ski skiing 10 years ago, you had some accident. And most people seem to listen to that and will be thinking, what story do I have about an accident I've had on holiday?

Rather than, let me ask you a follow-up question. Let you have that moment, whereas people are obsessed with trying to match or beat the story and it becomes competitive because we have become so insecure, I think, generally. People feel that they need, or they feel they need, again, to bond. I've got to say that I've gone through the same process as you.

That's very tiring. It is said that manners make it the man. And that was also said in the 14th century. So 600 years later, do our manners really say something about who we are? According to William Hanson, our manners absolutely say something about who we are. But not for the reasons most people might think.

William is an etiquette coach from England and the executive director of the English manner, an etiquette and protocol coaching company. And his latest book, Just Good Manners, is now available in the US. So he knows a thing or two about how to use our cutlery and a lot more. Where most people think that good manners is about showing off or trying to look or sound upper class, in reality, good manners are about making other people feel like they matter, which is a very good reason why we should all practice good manners.

This is a bit of optimism. We should talk about etiquette. Yes, I'm fascinated that, I don't know how to put this politely. I'm fascinated that you have a career. Thank you. Well, my family is stunned. I have a career. Because not because there's no need for etiquette, it's because it's less, it seems less of a thing in our modern day, like the Victorians talking about etiquette and commenting on someone's etiquette and making sure that you have etiquette was a thing.

Yeah, it was very big for them. And we are a more informal time, we're in a more informal time, where an I live in America where, and I was raised with a proper English upbringing, where I got in trouble for elbows on the table, and I learned to use a knife and a fork with fork at my left hand, cut with the right hand.

And I'm showing up in America and I see people stabbing their steak and cutting its switching hands, and I was incensed. The Englishman and me was incensed. And have you started doing that? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I eat food. We can continue with this engine. No, no, no, I still eat properly.

I do put my elbows on the table occasionally, but not to eat. No, I would say it's impossible to eat. Just to relax. Anyway, so how in this modern day and age, how did it begin? How did you announce, how did you show up that I'm gonna teach etiquette and people will actually like, you know what? I, you come here, I'm going to give you money for that.

When it was, yeah, it wasn't, I didn't wake up one day and go, well, this is what I'm gonna do. I, I was, this will come as a shock to you Simon. I was quite precarious child and my grandmother gave me a book of etiquette when I was 12 for Christmas. And I, to be honest, didn't sort of leap at the chance to read it, but she used to stay with us and would sort of keep saying, have I read any of it?

So I thought, right, I will go and find it. I will open it up in the middle, read a bit, and then I can tell her I read it. And actually I read the whole thing quite quickly. It was very interesting, but it posed lots of questions. I wanted to know why we had to do certain things and cyborg more books, more like the history.

Like the history, how did we end up here or what is the logic behind doing this? It was all very well to give me a rule that I wanted to know what's the justification for doing the rule. You can't have a rule for no apparent reason, otherwise it makes no sense. And so I bought more books, didn't really make a thing out of it.

And then when I was at school and I was 16, my, one of the teachers came up to me and said, oh, could you teach the young years how to set a table? We need, we need them to learn for various reasons. Would you do it on Tuesday? And I said, what does that mean? I don't need to do rugby. And they said, yes, and I had signed me up.

And basically my career now 18 years into it has just been one long excuse to not do any sport. And nobody has stopped me. I wanted at that time to be either archbishop of Canterbury or a spy. Those were my, those were my options. I could do both. Maybe that would be really good. Exactly. That's a novel.

But anyway, that not particularly for any religious reasons, but just I like the robes. And I thought that looked fun. And I thought, how many people want to be archbishop of Canterbury as well? Two. Yeah, well, yes, two. The guy right before the archbishop of Canterbury and you. And me. Anyway, Lamb of Palace are thrilled that I'm not archbishop of Canterbury or in running for it.

So I went off to university, read English, and got some press coverage quite back just in between school and university. And the company I now run, the English manor, run by a lovely lady called Alexandra at the time, who used to be from their work for the Royal Household, wrote to me and said, well, look, if you're going to do this, I've read about you doing this, if you can do it, come and do it for us, please.

So for the Royal Household? No, for the English manor, she was extra royal household. She set up this sort of modern day finishing school etiquette consultancy. So I thought, all right. And I read English at university, so I wasn't rushed off my face. For Americans, that means studied. Yes, I studied English.

And thank you for interpreting in this by language podcast. And yeah, and I was delighted that she sort of sort of thing. So who goes to English manor? Who pays to learn etiquette? We work with corporates. We work with individuals. We work with the Royal Households elsewhere, all over the world. And when you say corporates, is it more like executives learning how to use, go to a dinner party and not offend anybody when you have 10 knives and folks?

No, we have done that. Well, I'm very proud I know how to do that. It's very easy. Just work from the outside in. Exactly. Yes, that's it. Start from the outside and go in. I would say with the corporate work, we do sometimes do C-suite level training with people that need a bit of polish. We had someone who basically they wanted to make their CFO, but was terrible at entertaining and conversation was it was it could work themselves around a spreadsheet nicely, could do the deal.

Right. Just had really bad table manners and bad interpersonal skills. They don't anymore. So we're then. So how did this person, what were considered bad table manners that were so noise, egregious that he was turning people off that he was actually putting his career in jeopardy? Noise. Meaning we can hear it the way he was eating.

Yes. Yeah. The mouth open. Yeah. Food flying everywhere. Right. You know, glass of water or wine, whatever they're drinking and just pouring for themselves rather than pouring for other people. Oh, yeah. Putting themselves first. And that's really what manners are about. It's just putting other people first before you.

It's very selfless. And I think it's an excellent habit to get into. This is good because this is, I think when we hear the word etiquette, you think prim and proper, you know, you know, little finger out when you're drinking tea. Well, no, well, you do think that, but the little finger out supposedly, there's a little bit of historical evidence to show that that was a sign in Louis the 14th court to tell someone that you had syphilis.

So it's got absolutely nothing to do with being posh necessarily. It was the posh people that were doing it. Because they all had syphilis. Because they all had syphilis. And it wasn't polite to sleep with someone without letting them know you had an STI. I believe we still have the same rule today. And so it's a sort of a silent code whilst they were drinking a tea at the end of a, end of a sort of a large dinner at their side.

For example, they would flirt and they really stuck their finger out. It was me just politely, nonverbaly letting you know, well, I've got syphilis. And if you start your little finger out great, we can't get it twice and off we went. I have to say that if nothing else, this is the most valuable thing you've shared.

Because from now on, anybody who thinks they're being posh and sticks their finger, I'm going to ask them if they have syphilis. Exactly. Yes, get the anti-packed wipe sounds, wipe them down. So you help this guy and I have to, you have to use your skills of etiquette to tell somebody it's pretty awful sitting across a table from you.

Yes. Because I mean, I've sat across some people who I'm thinking of somebody right now and he's extremely successful. And I can't sit at a table with him because it is and how, so how do you even broach the subject? I guess it's been broached by them sending off sending him off to the school. Yes. I mean, we have, regardless of who is coming through our doors or we go to see at the English manor, you have those that sort of have paid the invoice themselves who want to be there.

Right. Easy. And then you've got those, you know, if we're going into a bank and we can't understand why they've made exactly it or it's a group of graduates and we're having to train them who, you know, there is a bit of reluctance for the first 10 to 15 minutes because they would rather be somewhere else.

So yes, it is, it is a delicate art. And it's not one that we practice when we're not working and don't sit in front of my friends and tell them, right? No, that's a bit noisy. But you do notice things, of course. The official art. The official answers. And of course, when I'm not working, of course, I don't notice.

I'm not working. The unofficial answer is yes, I've noticed. Does the world offend you? The world doesn't offend me. The world annoys me. There's a lot to be annoyed about that's so basic and people, I just want the best for people basically. So I get offended. I think it's probably because again, I had a pretty standard English upbringing, you know, and I remember when I first moved to America and I'd go to like a coffee shop or something and the person sitting in the line in front of me would go to the barista and say, you know, espresso, you know, I was like, please.

Yeah. And then they would be handed in and they'd just walk away and I would say, thank you. And I, you know, I'm less pedantic about it, but it does register. Absolutely. It goes in my head like simple pleases and thank yous. It's not, it's not, it's not pompous and it's just, I think it's being nice to another person.

I guess you're right. It's a selflessness, right? Yeah. It's acknowledging that somebody is doing something for you and that they have done something for you. And it's taken no extra effort to tag on a pleaser, thank you, you know, on to a sentence or cost anything, it takes no extra time. It's a bad habit that people have fallen into and probably because no one's pulled them up on it.

If we're polite, we'd say that the world has become more casual. If we're in polite, we can say the world has become ruder. So what A is that true or is it just an old person thing and B, if it is true, why is that happening? There is a, there is a passage from a, some monk in like the year 45, a, a, b, c that has been transcribed that my friend of a friend has on their walls that basically translates as the younger generations are getting ruder and ruder.

So I think that is sort of always going to be around. And if they were thinking that how many years ago, we're always going to think that I actually have, I'm not Gen Z, I'm Millennial, but I have great optimism in Gen Z, the Gen Z who come and up to me and say hello on the street are so lovely compared to the slightly more entitled millennials.

Now I don't know whether, when Gen Z get into the age that millennials are now, I don't know whether that will change. Could be a confidence, sort of lack of confidence thing. But I think Gen Z are more aware of their actions and the actions of others. And really that is all that etiquette and manners are.

It's just an awareness that you are not the centre of the universe and that there are lots of other people and also not assuming that you are the most important person. And we also have to remember that these standards of etiquette, they change from culture to culture. Totally. And they change within culture.

Because we're talking about English etiquette predominantly. Yeah. Which is different than American. Well, it's more uptight. It is much better. Generally. And what I write in my book or say on Instagram or in my lessons, I would hope that in 20 years time, I'd hope at least half of it is completely irrelevant because etiquette has got to evolve and adapt and reflect the society that is around us.

It would be ridiculous if I was still talking to you about the, I mean, I was just talking to you about the etiquette of Louis XIV, but only with a historical context. But if I was saying, well, in the court of Louis XIV, you had to wear a ruffled sleeve. Simon, why are you not in a ruffled sleeve today?

Right. We ridiculous. And that's why I think etiquette gets a bad name because sometimes people sort of hold on to these rules and don't allow them to adapt. It's associated with your grandmother. Yes. And funny, dirty. And when I, when I was a young person, I had to do this, you will do this, even though that was 60 years ago.

Yeah. And they may be right in some instances. I'm not saying they're always going to be wrong, but etiquette has to evolve. Yeah. It has to adapt. So, and the same with language, right? Language changes and evolves and the OED, the dictionary is a living, breathing animal. A great book, by the way, called word by word.

If you're into the how dictionaries are written, it's really a fun read, and how language evolves. And there's a group of people who actually decide what goes in and out of dictionaries. But what are some of the things that you have seen adapt for the modern day that used to be unacceptable, that are now acceptable, even in the past, call it decade?

And I would say we've probably softened in our, or changed, in our approach to, well, well, there are two, two guns to come to mind. One, suddenly in Britain, and I would imagine in America as well, we are eating so much more different cuisines than ever before. We're very lucky. British food, obviously, the butt of many sort of eighties and eighties of American sitcom jokes.

But actually, British food now, particularly in London, is probably the best in the world. You can get anything. Yeah, it's great. It's great quality, and it doesn't have to cost the earth either. So we're eating so many more different types of cuisines. Now you can't transpose our sort of quite stiff dining etiquette for Western slash British food onto ramen, for example, you're going to make a mess.

Just not going to work. And so we are having to change how we eat and what we eat and sort of have these different sort of toolkits to use and to apply depending on what we are, what we are eating. So certainly our food has improved and our table manners. So in some instances, it's got worse, but also in others, it's got better.

But also the way we approach matters of gender with social etiquette, I would say we are predominantly now more business etiquette focused in terms of introductions. For example, if I had granny and Annie, granny is 80, Annie is 18, I would in a social setting give precedence to granny because she's actually, so I would say granny, man, introduce Annie, the most important person's name goes first.

If I was sitting here talking to you 20 years ago, I would also say we would look at gender. So a woman would be given precedence over a man, so I would say Mrs. Smith, man, introduce Mr. Jones, for example, in a business environment, someone's age, someone's gender completely irrelevant. And so we just don't look at it.

We go on rank. So CEO, man, introduce, right turn. I would say socially we're moving more towards that where we're looking at sort of position right. And we do look at age still, but position rather than gender. So age is becoming less of a factor for the social hierarchy. I think if there is a dramatic age difference, granny and Annie, 18, 18, and yes, but generally if we're all sort of in our thirties, we might go alphabetically as a man, introduce that.

That's so interesting because when I'm thinking, I'm thinking like how I introduce people and I think, well, at least you do Simon, because so many people to think, well, I have this, I don't know if it's a disease or I don't know what it is, but I sometimes forget the names of the people I'm with. And I, I always tell my friends, and sometimes I forget names, I forget names a lot.

I tell my friends when we go to social situations or even if it's work, I say I will always introduce you to somebody. If I don't, please introduce yourself because it's because I don't remember somebody's name because I'm trying to avoid somebody saying to me, aren't you going to introduce us, Simon?

Yeah. And then I'm screwed because I don't know the names. Yes. So, and the worst is when there's like six people and I know I remember five names and not one, I kind of choose anybody. So I sometimes make no introductions out of fear of getting a name wrong because that's worse, right? Yes. And our name is so personal.

It's the only sort of thing that really belongs to us massively. And so if someone gets it wrong, we can get some people get quite paved. I mean, yeah, because especially if we've said it, but I'm just trying to think like when I do make introductions, assuming I remember all the names, I'm trying to think if there's a hierarchy in how I do it, sometimes I just go in order, just like from left to right.

Lovely. You know, very fat. And if there's a, if there's a, if I'm bringing somebody that I want to like this person's amazing, you should all know this person. I'll start with them. Yes. But I guess that's some sort of hierarchy. Well, exactly. And you have, and maybe it's their guest of honor, it's the your hosting birthday party for a whole more.

It's some book launch or whatever. Then yes, there's, there's a logic to it. One of the England wasn't, wasn't I wasn't working for the company at the time, but one of the Englishman is very first clients that Alexandra, when it was just her running the company, she went into pitch for business. She'd had a bit of an in at a friend of a friend at a very well-known American bank, but it was the London office.

Yeah. And she went into pitch to get training and they sort of rather patronizingly sort of listened to her, but sort of, yeah, well, that sounds lovely. Thanks very much. We'll keep you to some file type thing. And they had then gone over to Osaka in Japan to negotiate some deal for a flight and on first day of the negotiations, the business itself, Japanese walk in, Americans walk in and the head of the American delegation from the London bank goes to shake hands with the number two from Japan before the number one and they all walked out and that was the end of negotiations.

Yeah. Cost them millions. Then she got a phone call. Oh, yeah, we'll have that training now. And it's always the way we've got to get training that we do. It's always most of the corporates that we work with, something's happened. They won't take a proactive approach and nip it in the bud. Some, some disaster.

You're like therapy. Yes. It has. You're like therapy, which is the relationship has to fall apart first. Exactly. Then we should go learn how to communicate with each other. It'll affect their bottom line and then, and then, but it's like, well, you know, the trident of what the training back in 2001 would have been when that was, but what how much would it have cost, but it would have been absolutely nothing compared to losing that business.

That's really interesting. What about, so I also know that the world, as the world changes, it changes the standards of world war two in the UK who really affected the class structure. Yeah. It broke the class structure down quite a lot. Yeah. And we know even the way the queen spoke before and after the war, yeah, profoundly changed.

Yeah. It became more, I won't say, egalitarian, but it did soften the divide between, between the classes. Yeah. COVID. Have you seen etiquette changes as a result of COVID, because we know we were all insanely casual. Yes. And it's like, I'm going to call unshaven hair a mess. Everybody in, you know, at leisure, I went, I mean, I, and I was thinking to myself, this is the best.

I'll never wear jeans again for the rest of my life. I like wearing sweatpants way too much. Well, I'm pleased to say that Simon is sitting here in jeans, in jeans. I am. Yeah. They're stretchy though. They're stretchy, but that's fine. Yeah. Um, I, yeah. I think with, I think we've, COVID was, was interesting for my etiquette point of years, you say, we, I think we reassessed who we, when we then were able to socialize with each other in real life, we were slightly in person.

You can tell me what it was like in America. We considered who we were greeting and how we were greeting them, because I think in pre-Covid, we could got quite a particularly in London, overly tactile with people that we didn't really know. Yeah. And we should default to pull them in for a hug. Yeah.

And it was the first time we met them, why, why they're dickens, are we hugging them? Yeah. If you're going to hug them on the first time, what are you doing the second time you meet them? Doesn't leave anywhere to go. So I think when with the, the, the more conscious of germs and our personal space and distancing, I think we're like, okay, now, maybe a handshake or even not even a handshake, but maybe just, well, we've only just met.

So let's build up some affection. And then maybe when we say goodbye, or the second time we greet, we'll do a slightly more genuine. Real etiquette question now then, okay? People will come up to me and I will shake their hand. And this is like in every context, social business, everything, right? And I'll put my hand out to meet them to shake their hand.

And they will say, I'm a hugger, oh, hey, it's okay. And there's no choice. If you're a handshakeer, you are now caught in a hug. And I don't know when it became what, why, why, it's not rock paper scissors. It's not like hug beats handshake. And if I say, well, I'm a handshakeer, I'm a, I'm rude. So look, I mean, look, in reality, I don't really care, you know?

But I do find it funny, yeah, that the hugger they can say that is like, well, I'm a hugger. Well, like, well, then I guess we're hugging. There's no, there's no, the trouble is, I think people, it's, I know it's warm. It's done with warmth. Well, yes, yes, but they think it's, they think it's warm, but the trouble is what, where we are, and I'm glad you, because it winds me up as well.

And I did actually want to say to someone, well, I'm not, what they said, I'm a hugger. And I, I hate to say very poetic. They sort of, they laughed, I sort of said it with a smile, and I got away with it. But the, the, the, the, those sort of people thing. And it's the same as, for example, if I suddenly, we've only just met today, if I was calling you Si, for example, now I don't know whether you like me or not, yeah, quite.

But people think, oh, I can, what I'll do in order to bond with someone, I'll just cut out some steps, and we'll jump straight to the hug. I'll jump straight, calling us Will and Si, for example, rather than earning that affection or building up the rapport, I'll just jump straight in. And it, it familiarity breeds content.

It, it pushes a part. It doesn't, doesn't draw you together. Uh, I know a guy who's a germaphob and he hugs everybody, so he doesn't have to shake their hand. Well, I mean, that looks genius, I think. I'm not a microbiologist, but I would say you'll probably, no, no, because you can, you can go past someone's head and not breathe in their face.

You can hug and his, he doesn't want to, because germs are primarily transferred, um, primarily, but are very often transferred by, by our hands, you know, door handles and things. So he doesn't, and it's too rude to, to do a fist bump anymore or an elbow bump in the room. I mean, it's not rude. It's just ridiculous.

Yeah. It was, it was a time and a place. And so yeah, he, he's a germaphob, so he hugs everybody. Okay. So everybody thinks he's really warm, but really just doesn't want to shake your hand. It's genius. Okay. Well, I'm, I still think he's perhaps going to get some germs, so it's maybe reducing the number of germs.

So let's, let's take this into practical land, right? Which is, I, I, I think that, so I've told the story before, but I'll tell you because I think you'll appreciate it. Yes. Of how I think about etiquette. Okay. Right? And some of the things that you're talking about in a professional context, especially in the early days of, of Disneyland, yeah.

The Imagineers who build Disneyland, um, had built what they thought was the perfect animatronic bird that looked like a bird, it's, it moved like a bird, perfect bird. And so they couldn't wait to show Walt Disney, they bring him in, they do the demo at flaps, it moves its head, and they're like, eh, eh, eh, and Walt goes, nope, no one will believe it.

And they're like, what are you talking about? It's absolutely perfect. And he said, it's not breathing. And they said, no one will notice. And he said, people can feel perfection. And he's right. People will look at him and be like, I don't know what it is, but there's something wrong with that bird.

It's not real, right? And I think etiquette is the same thing, which is, which is, these, they're very subtle sometimes. It's very, the pleases and thank yous, for example, it's very small. But for some reason, it will elevate the way people think about you, the way they regard you, even though they may not be able to say the reason why.

And I think that for me is the reason to learn some of the things that you talk about and especially in a professional context is because if it's a job interview, especially, or if you're meeting somebody very senior for the first time in a large corporation, you will stand out for these little things that they won't be able to put their fingers on.

What are some of the specific things that you have seen that a lot of people get wrong that are so easy to correct and get right that will have this impact that will, that will be the breath of the bird that will make you stand out even though, you know, nobody could actually say the reasons why pleases and thank yous amongst them.

Please and thank yous taken, yeah, that's, that's a, that's an easy one. Really asking, in conversations when you are having a conversation, a networking event, cocktail party, whatever it is, certainly, and I probably use the case in America still as well. But in Britain, a lot of people sort of what you'll be doing a story about a skiing accident, for example, that you've had, you were on a skiing 10 years ago, you had some accident.

And most people seem to listen to that and will be thinking, what story do I have about an accident I've had on holiday, rather than let me ask you a follow up question, let you have that moment, whereas people are obsessed with trying to match or beat the story and it becomes competitive because we have become so insecure, I think generally people feel that they need, or they feel they need again to bond, oh to bond, I've got to say that I've gone through the same process as you, that's very tiring to ask a follow up question.

I mean, I don't love talking about myself, I like finding out about other people. So ask about the other person, ask a follow up question, and it's particularly if you've got a client, client's not massively that fast what you did at the weekend, but the client would love to talk about what they did at the weekend, so just ask them questions.

I wish you were around many years ago because you've basically described why my dating failed for most of my 20s, and maybe 30s, is I did the opposite, which is somebody told me about something they did, and I wanted to match it to show, look, we're the same. So the intention was still, I'm trying to create a common experience, trying to show you that it wasn't intention, it wasn't intention, I wasn't trying to, I wasn't competitive, I wasn't trying to want up, it wasn't like, well, you did that, I did this, it wasn't that at all, but it was, it was here about your experience, tell you about my similar experience, and I've only learned now many years later that that's awful, and though well intentioned, it was completely wrong, so I think what you're saying is very valuable

and professional context, even more valuable in a dating context, and especially when you're a little socially awkward or insecure, and we don't know, and I think this is such good advice, which is be the journalist, be curious, and I think it goes back to what you said before, which is, etiquette is the being polite and demonstrating good etiquette is just remembering to put the other person first, that if they're telling you a story, let's make, let's put the spotlight on them in their story for a while, and since I've learned that, maybe a year ago, since I've learned that, here's what's happened, I'm now investigative and asking questions and asking follow-ups to the point where they say, I've been talking

to myself for far too long, tell me, and now they want to know about me, rather than me, trying to tell them about me, this is lovely, what happens when both people are trying to be polite, stalemate, you can talk about yourself, you absolutely can talk about yourself, they'll be ridiculous to never share anything, and actually you do want to share a bit, because otherwise you come across as a little bit closed, and a bit suspicious, suspicious yeah, yeah, why are they not saying anything about themselves, but as long as you have their spy on the original account, that's why, exactly, but as long as you have sort of focused on them for 80 cents at the time, I think it's okay.

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Give me some examples. So a guy in New England, I found out he was a big Tom Brady guy, he had a terrible experience, I got on the phone with them, I worked it out, I went on Amazon and found a signed Tom Brady poster, it was easy, I could mail it to him, it meant so much to him. This is genius, a customer has a bad experience.

You get on the phone to personally apologize. In the course of that conversation, you learn he's a huge Tom Brady fan. You don't just send him, like what most companies would do, like, hey, I'm really sorry you had a bad experience, here's a bunch of our product. You go and find what he actually likes, and send him what he actually likes, nothing to do with your company or your product.

Not just to say, we screwed up, I'm sorry, here's something I know you want. Yeah, because like, this is how you got to show off for people, you got to go way overboard. You know, even if they never buy us again, it's got an amazing ripple effect. My other sort of number one rule for people in relationships, and saying that I had to tell my husband to do is that, you know, obviously, you're spending your life with them, you probably have heard the anecdote a thousand times before, when somebody goes to tell the anecdote at a party, what I've got a fantastic anecdote about this, what the husband, wife, spouse, partner should not do is go, oh, this one again, out loud, they might be thinking that absolutely you've described my whole career, just repeating the same six

stories. Yeah. Yeah, but we're all, you know, it would be, it would be rude for your friends, anyone you're in a relationship with to go, oh, this one again, because it all sets it up like you're flagging into everyone else that is about to hear it. Oh, this is not good. This is not a good story, or it's not new, or you're, because I'm very good at telling stories to sound like they're, I'm telling them for the first time.

You've never told that Walt Disney bird story before. Thousands of people. Yes, no, I know. And I'm very good at telling stories that make sound like the first time. So if somebody ruins the trick, it's like revealing how, how the, the, the car trick has done. I know there's a trick behind the car trick, but the, the joy is that I don't know the magic.

Yes. Let me think that it's, it's a miraculous feat of, you know, all the other thing I think partners do, I mean, might, thankfully, my husband does not do this, but jump in with the punchline. Oh, they ruin it for you. Yeah. No, I'm, or I might have done a, I'm, I'm workshopping a new punchline, I've finessed it.

What are some other common mistakes that you see in that, like, again, going practical? I think the, the, the, the, the, the, the, I won't call it competitive, but the, the story matching. Yeah. I think it's a really, really good one, professionally and definitely personally. What are some other common ones that you see that, that we can easily fix?

Well, it literally, I mean, well, this is not professional, I mean, I guess it has a professional context to it. The, have it on the, on the Elizabeth line, getting here today, the London Underground. Speaker phone calls. Oh, God. Pandemic. Everywhere you go, even on the New York subway, when I did, where I was on it once, earlier this year, um, it, people just seem to think that just because we have this technology and that we can make a speaker phone call, my pet peeve, I have many.

One of them is, uh, people that keep ringers on in public places. Yeah. Like, uh, you're sitting on a plane, um, waiting to take off or you've just landed. And the ringers are on. So you hear bloop, being, bloop, being, bloop, being, and it's like just the little thing on the side, just flick a phone should make no noise, a phone should make no noise unless you need it to make noise because you have a babysitter and they're calling and you got to take the call.

Yeah. I get it. But the, the, and I, I think it's an age thing I've noticed, slightly older are compensated to be oblivious that their phones make noise. Broadway. I was watching death becomes her a few weeks ago and person sitting behind me, older woman, not old, but older woman than the lady I was with her smart watch kept pinging.

Yeah. Because she had a text. Yeah. And I was sort of turning around, but she wasn't getting in the, the, the distance was quite high between the seats. So in the interval, I turned around and said, oh, hello, I hope you're enjoying the show. Could I just ask, could you please sign it to your smart watch because it's making a noise every time you get a text?

Yeah. And she generally, she looked completely as if I, she was like, oh, oh, right. Okay. Like, didn't even realize it. But that was not a thing. The, the people that you were with didn't go mum or whoever it was. Could you just like stop that? Yeah. So let's get into this because I think one of the reasons that we don't tell people, you know, we, we, we, we, we sit and see about behaviors that other people are doing that whether it's chewing loudly or their phone pinging or whatever it is, what I think one of the reasons is we don't know how to politely interrupt these things without offending someone or creating a situation.

Yeah. So how do we tell someone, can you silence your phone, can you talk softer, you're on the phone in a restaurant, can you maybe turn the ringer off in a restaurant? You know, like how, how do, can you, how, how do we broach the subject because usually what we do is just lean over to the person next to us and talk about it, we hate that person.

Yeah. And it's hard, it's hard to control the behavior of others and I would say what we can probably do is control our own behavior. Right. But how do you, how do we politely ask for somebody to be aware that they're creating an interruption and maybe rooting an experience for more people? Yeah. And I think a show, a concert, that sort of thing is, is maybe more permissible to say something than maybe you're sitting in a cafe because like in airplanes, we see it go haywire, right?

Somebody puts their seat back too far and I mean, you know, madness and soos because we don't know how to say terribly sorry, could you just put your seat back up, please? Yes. You know, could you wait till the meal service is over before you put your, yeah. So how do we politely broach some of these subjects?

I think as long as you are polite, if you, the danger is that you think you're, you to let your frustration take hold and that you are a bit tart and rude with it. Right. And I think actually if you just say, please could I ask you to put your seat forward, I'm still eating my, well, see if you did that to me, that would rub me the wrong way of you.

Hopefully you wouldn't do that. No, I wouldn't do that. I put my seat back very slowly. Yeah. What I did. I did very slow movements was not to kind of catch it, but the, the, but if somebody just said to me, that's very English to say, could you please do that? I think the English probably respond to that better than the Americans said what, but why would you just annoy you?

It would come across as I need, I need a preamble. I need a, I know it's not your fault. I need, I know it's like, I'm sure you're not aware. I was like, I'm terribly sorry to, to, to interrupt. Just give me some sort of contrition, you know, awareness that this is an uncomfortable situation. You don't know how to broach this, but you're going to broach this because I think the, excuse me, can you please see that please, I would say with that tone, yeah.

So say it again, oh, please pass you just to put your seat back into life and finish the meal service. Please. Yeah, I guess it's okay. Try to think. And I say it with a lovely smile and look, you might say no. I also think with Kevin Cruz, go to the restaurant, you're at a restaurant at the prison six sitting next to you, either has the ringer going the whole time or, or they're talking on speakerphone.

Hmm. Yes. How do you do that one in a restaurant? I would probably look over them several times. So you give a couple of, yeah, glances like, are you aware? So hopefully they'll get the hint, but they don't, but then what happens and you know, now you can't help, but that's the only thing you can focus on.

I did say to someone the other day, yeah, if someone I vaguely knew, and maybe I should start doing this with people in public, not to say that they would know or have seen any of my videos, but I did start something with it because I quite like being passive aggressive. It's a key cornerstone of British etiquette, but I started with, listen, who am I to actually want to see, however?

And then I went in with it. And that, that, that worked, but you can get away with it because you have it because I made terribly toughy accent. Yeah. Do I have to? It's a compliment. Is it a toffee accent? It's very posh. Okay. Is it ever talking like, where, where and her majesty, no, it's not, it's not her majesty level.

No. Okay. Good. But it might be, you know, member of court, member of course. Wow. Okay. Yeah. That's good. Okay. Well, thank you. Don't you think you know this? Yes. I think I'm not saying anything. You don't know. No. To me, it's just this is how I've always. Of course. But you are fully aware. This is not a little more.

This is not a typical. No. This isn't your life. You're not, no. No. Alas. Wouldn't life be nicer if it was terribly dull. But that's, that's an etiquette thing too, isn't it? Like accents have changed. Oh, yes. And I think you can have whatever accent you want in life as long as you can be understood as long as that you, you have clear speech.

I don't care what accent you have. But if you're using too much slang or you're using too many abbreviations or Gen Z speak, for example, if people can't understand you, that's when it's an issue. Yeah. As long as you can be understood. We do a thing in our company where I won't allow acronyms unless they're standard acronyms and by standard acronyms, like ASAP, RSVP, those are fine because everybody knows what they are.

But when we start abbreviating the names of products and things and the reason I, I, I, I won't allow them is because I don't want somebody to feel dumb because there might be one person in the room who doesn't know what you're talking about. And that's unfair. And just call it what it is. Yes. Right.

Now, again, or, or we start using them externally because they become so ingrained in our culture, we start just referring to them, will they nilly? And so, and it's all, and because I've sat in meetings like, I've sat in meetings with military people and they speak in acronyms. And I can only ask a couple of times.

What do you mean by that one? Because it gets the point of ridiculous. But I've been, I've felt completely left out of conversations before and being left out. Not good manners. And being left out, not good manners. Yeah. It all boils down. Manus is just how we interact with other people. Anticates is sort of how we, in terms of the mechanics of it, the suggested rules and guidelines, 90% of the time are correct.

Sometimes they're not. The ultimate goal is just to have good manners. I think it's good. I think working on our manners. But maybe that's, is it because I'm English? Is it because I'm English that I think manners, because I do make it the man, there are lots of Americans who would also agree. I don't think it's a particular, I don't think the English, but manners is not a thing.

Like, like, I would get in trouble for not saying, please, and thank you as a kid. You know, I would get in trouble for having my elbows on the table. And I think a lot of Americans think that's funny. And so where, you know, how do we inspire parents to want to teach their kids good manners and good etiquette, not because it's about being, it's not about pump and circumstance.

It's not about being prim and proper. But as you said, it's, it's a mechanism, it's a, it's a system to offer some guidelines to make others feel included, seen, heard and all the rest of it. Yeah. Maybe that's enough. Maybe that's all we have to say. I think that, yeah, you can, you can need a horse to horse you can't make it, but using your, your knife and fork properly doesn't do anything for anyone else at the table.

It keeps the food on your plate and going from plate to mouth without it flying off onto the table. Is that the history? Yes. Ish. I mean, we've, this is the elbows. But you didn't, the tutors eat with their hands. The tutors did. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. The sort of finger tutors would be Henry VIII, Henry VIII, Mary Elizabeth I, the last tutor was Elizabeth.

Yes. But yeah, fingers going down the, the eating implements, elbows tucked in, cut, stab, bring up to mouth with, with fork. It's nice. It, you also, there's a practicality and I think this is where British and American dining slightly differs. British dining generally and European dining, we favor long, straight edge tables, nice sort of, you think about the down-to-nabby dining room, it's that nice, sort of rectangle that they've got.

Right. In fact, the day, the day that we are speaking, we have the state visit of France to British and it's the first state visit they will be doing at Windsor Castle since 2014. I assume it's the first one that King has done at Windsor Castle as King. I assume it is going to be in St George's Hall, the dinner, on a really long table that seats about 160.

I mean, it's really quite a knockout shot when they release that, this, this typical that he'll do around tables tonight just to annoy me, saying this, but my point is, because he's another traditionalist. He's not traditionalist now and that that's, which is good, but he, sorry, we, we have these sort of straight edge tables and your jam pack next to each other, so you have to keep your elbows in because if we were all doing this, Buckingham Palace, which is going through refurbishment work, but Buckingham Palace in the state forum, you have 18 centimeters of space between the center of your plate and the center of someone else's plate.

You are like 18 centimeters, 18 inches, 18 inches, 18 inches, yes, 18 centimeters would be half, it would be a lot, 18 inches, it's not a lot. Now the cutlery and the crockery, it's all smaller because it's, it's older, it's not sort of modern stuff, but still you want to give people a sense of what 18 inches is between the center of one plate to the center of another plate.

The standard coach seat is 17 inches and that's plate to plate. Yeah. So when you're cutting sort of American style stabbing the steak and, yeah, if you were all doing it, you'd be able to be able to, so the, so the English way of cutting like this, I don't put my fingers down the, do you know, no, I, I hold them like this, I don't do fingers down. I find this too. No, this, I, my, my, like this, not like this. I can't do that. It's uncomfortable and it's silly. Really? Yeah, it's all fashioned. No. Yeah, my grand, my grandmother, a knife and fork available. I need to see this. I know, I know, like this, I cut like this. I don't cut like this, but I don't understand where the cutlery is going. The fork knife. Oh, I see. Okay. Well, it's, it, look if you can do it. No,

it looks fine. It looks like everybody else. Nobody puts their fingers on the top. Yes, they do. We ought to do. You make sure the fork is faced down. No, come on. I mean, I won't use my fork, I will use my fork as a spoon, which I know is not etiquette, but it's not British etiquette. Fine. Yes. But I mean, how else are you supposed to eat peas?

I mean, I know you put steak, you put them in, you shove the peas on the top, but they always fall off. No, you eat peas by pushing the, the pushing them up. I mean, peas again are not, as I once said in an interview with no sense irony, and I appreciate what I'm about to say, is ridiculous. Peas are not a formal vegetable. So you are not going to eat peas at a state banquet, but you would spear the peas individually or in clusters onto the times of your fork using the back of your knife to push them on and then transferring it to much work. It's not too much work.

I can't do that. I can't poke one pea at a time on each time. Yes, you can. There is a video on my Instagram where I do exactly that. You teach it. And peas are the exception. No, no, but if my grandmother was always a forked down person, I like your grandmother. And I'm a fork up person. Okay. Uh, uh, not always, but, but if you are eating peas, if you're using a knife to push them onto the underside of your fork, that I would say it's more challenging to get these little peas without them falling off. How do we politely disagree with each other?

Like this. Maybe this is part of the evolution of mountains, which is maybe, maybe just don't order peas. It's like, it's like octopuses and octopi. The correct one is either. Yeah, they are both acceptable. They are. So perhaps just as long as, as long as they're forked down and don't fall off your fork, how have you want to put them in? These are different rice.

Very tricky. How do you do rice when it's not sticky rice? Um, well, obviously rice, extremely rice is not, it's not a food native to Britain traditionally, right? imported it. So they're in cultures where it is more, uh, sort of part of the staple diet, you would use your hands or you use your bread, or chopsticks, it's part of a sushi roll, for example, or something like that. Um, so that's a lot easier. But in Britain, yes, if we were having a chicken tikka masala, for example, with rice, it would be if you were doing it, you either don't use the knife and then you hold the fork up turned in your dominant hand, that is fine. Really? But if you're using it with a knife, then the time span. So my understanding was

if there's a knife that has to be used, you will always use your fork in the left hand, if it is not a knife meal, the meal that requires no knife, yeah, you can use your fork in your risotto pasta. Exactly. So that's a fork in right hand. But if you have a chicken tikka masala, you've got spinoff chicken, and you've got rice, how do you eat the rice? With your fork down, fork down, put the chicken onto the fork, and you've got the chicken, and then you just push some rice onto the chicken and it sticks. And I bet you've used a fork face up as a spoon with rice.

No. I mean, I probably have once. But if I was a weak, if I was having a jet lag, if I was having an Indian takeaway, for example, I would use both. Or I use my, or I use my NN. Or you use your NNN, not your grandmother, your bread. Yeah, my, yes, exactly. Right. Yeah. Not not granny. What we're, what you're talking about is no different than dressing a little nicer to go on a first date, dressing, being a little more polite when you show up for an interview. Yeah. You know, we all on a first interview, say, please, and thank you. And we wait to sit down and like, we don't put our feet on the desk of a first interview. Now, once you're part of the company and your friends with everybody and you sit in their office, you might put your feet up. Nobody will care. As you said, you earn,

you earn these, yeah, these informalities. Yes. So, so if we're, if everybody acknowledges that it's okay to be a little more polite, a little more formal for a first interview, why wouldn't we not agree that some of these etiquette things fall in line the same way? I think it's an excellent point. I could teach etiquette. You could. Do you want a job?

I would love to teach etiquette. When we encounter someone rude, or we're disagreeing with them, how do we use our manners to signal our discomfort or, you know, a find a way to move on? We've reached, we've reached a stage in life when we meet or interact with people who have different opinions from us, where we can't leave that conversation until they have come round to our way of thinking. Yeah. And I would say that's because we're probably so insecure in our own opinions and, and our own point of view, that we thus have to sort of make sure that that other person is, is on our way of thinking. And life would be so darling if everyone had the same opinions and had the same was, was wide the same way. I know as long as they don't make speakerphone calls

in public, then that's, other than that, that's, that's the exception. Playing the harp on a speakerphone, you can precisely, yes. But actually, just, you don't need, someone can say something that, okay, if it's, if it's an Ist or an Ism, you know, as bigoted as racist, et cetera, sexist, fine, I do get it, you can call them out on it. But if they just say something, it's like, okay, well, I clearly don't, I don't think, no way do I agree with you. Either you can ask them a quite, again, asking them a follow-up question, so you go into some detail. Be curious as to how they are thinking that, or you just go, well, how interesting, and ask them another question.

You don't have to comment on everything. You don't have to have a reaction to everyone else's reactions. You also cannot know. People ask me my opinions on all sorts of things all the time. And my honest answer is, I don't know. It's not, it's not my area. It's, I'm not, I'm not, I don't know. I know how to find, I find, to, to add levity to a situation, what I mean is instead of taking something super seriously, like, scowling and like, okay, let, let, let the fight begin.

Yeah. Rather, I try and have a sense of humor about that. Yes, find the funny. Like, I'm like, I would, I would say, well, I'm completely different and I would, and I, if anything, mock myself. Yeah. You know, but, um, and again, earning familiarity. I, I think this, I've made this mistake many times as well, where I've, you know, especially in, in a social situation, where I've, I'm, I'm, I, because I like somebody, I project familiarity. And so I try, I act too familiar too soon, because I feel comfortable and I want to create the comfort. But do you, I think the idea that you, we earn familiarity. And it's a dance, and it might go quicker sometimes and slower at other times, depending on the people, and depending on the chemistry. But I think this idea that

etiquette is actually much simpler than we, than, than, than people make it out to be. It's not funny, buddy. It can be. But for the most part, as you've said, it's making other people feel, like, they're the sense of the tension that you're considering the existence of other people in the world. And, um, and that you're, you're, um, you earn familiarity and you just sort of go through the motions until you, until you can relax them. And then once you're familiar, a lot of the etiquette for can fall away. Yes, absolutely. Because we are not particularly. Yes, you can dial it up, dial it down, you're coming on the context. And as you get it, it's not meant to be a restrictive straight jacket where we're trying to repress people and control people. It, as, as the analogy I

give, it's like driving a car. Do you drive? I do. Yeah. Can you remember the first time you've got in a car to learn? I do. We probably weren't really intetic compared to how good you are now. Maybe. Okay. We were all, you know, we were all so focused on keeping that car on the road, not crashing into anyone. Right. Not stalling. Just keeping it going in a straight line and not too fast and not too slowly. And then once we actually learn to drive and got a bit of confidence, now when we get in the car, you know, we change the radio, we're checking our hair and the mirror, we're chatting with the person, it's just, and the driving sort of happens. And it's, and it's still safe. Yeah. And it's still safe. Yeah. That is what etiquette is meant to be. The more you do it,

and the more you practice it, it's just meant to be a muscle memory. Yeah. And it just happens. And it just happens. And you just interact with, with the other people, although did a study many years ago that drivers who are hyper attentive, in other words, meaning like hands on the wheel, fixed out the window, never doing anything versus the driver who's like, you know, few seconds on the out the, out the windscreen, change the radio, few seconds out the windscreen, change the window, few seconds out the windscreen, talk to your friend, few seconds out the windscreen, change the station again, that they're actually better drivers, that there are fewer accidents, because all of your eyes moving a little bit is you're actually seeing everything. You actually see them take the

world in. And so there's something to be said for learning and practicing hyper attentively. And when you get more casual, you actually become dare I say more polite. Yes. Because you are naturally. Yeah. Making somebody else feel seen or heard. Yes. Precisely. And we don't, we don't, we don't want it to be stiff. Yeah. And robust. And I think that's where I think you get a bad rap, which is people think that you're stiff. The word etiquette is so pre-loaded with, which is why it's got too many teas in it. It's got too many tea. It sounds harsh. It's an old French word. And it's why it appears nowhere on my, on the, on the book, the books were just good manners, not just good etiquette, because people just have so many opinions on it. I'm very much, when the publisher

said, no, let's not put etiquette on the book, I was almost slightly offended. Yes. I was like, it's etiquette. Everyone knows what etiquette is, just lean into it. It's like, I'm fine with it. I don't have a hangout with it, but I do understand that manners are soft. They are right. I have told them that. But, uh, manners are a softer, more accessible word. William, thank you so much.

It's been lovely. This is lovely. Uh, yeah. Even if you do hold your knife and fork slightly weirdly. William, thanks for coming on. It's such a joy. A bit of optimism is brought to you by the optimism company and is lovingly produced by our team, Lindsay Garbenius, David Jar and Devon Johnson. If I was able to give you any kind of insight or some inspiration or made you smile, please subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts for more. And if you're trying to get answers to a problem at work or want to advance a dream, maybe I can help. Simply go to Simonsonic.com.

Until then, take care of yourself. Take care of each other.

The Business Case for Good Manners with etiquette coach William Hanson

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