The decline of such education in schools, the vanishing family supper hour where the art of small talk was once learned, an increasingly entrepreneruial business world where social skills fade as profit pressures grow, and the societal turmoil two decades ago that thumbed its nose at courtesy--all have helped create a boom market today for the sale of savoir faire.
     And, as the corporate sales staff at the Boston Harbor Hotel learned recently, good table manners and conversational style can be critical in closing a deal. This is especially true, Boston etiquette consultant Rosanne Thomas told her class, if your client is from a culture where such skills are held in high esteem and talking business at a meal is considered rude. Even the food and wine, fine though they might be, is secondary, she said. "A business function...is really all about building a relationship. As they say, you sing for your supper."
     Some, of course might argue that etiquette, carried to an extreme, interferes with constructive dialogue. Stephen P. Steinberg, executive director of the Penn National Commission on Society, Culture and the Community at the University of Pennsylvania, sees irony in this: "We want comfort in our interactions with other people, but at the same time we don't want to lose the energy and creativity of those interactions.
     And those in business who embrace and promote better behavior say they do so because everything an individual does, good or bad, reflects not only on the person but his or her company.
     "In general, business has become more relaxed in recent years," laments Jennifer Schaeffner, a vice president at FIS Securities Inc., the Boston mutual funds subsidiary of Fleet Financial Group. Hoping to dent this trend, she recently hired Thomas to offer etiquette advice to her 22 Massachusetts sales representatives.
     "I thought it would be valuable for us to all go back and see what the basics are," Schaeffner said. "I think it will help standardize the kind of behavior we want our people to display, so that if you went to any of our offices...you would see similiar behavior."
     The curriculum ran from the correct way to introduce one's self and to shake hands to the role that seemingly idle conversation plays in helping people understand each other.
     On handshakes, Thomas's rule is to keep your thumb straight up and you can't miss. As for small talk, avoid business topics until it's time to get serious: don't discuss sex, politics, or religion, and don't boast about your kids.
     Fashion was covered, too, although this group, crisply dressed and clearly at ease in their Financial District setting, hardly needed it. They roared with laughter at a slide Thomas showed of a man wearing a short-sleeve dress shirt in an office setting--OK in Arizona, perhaps, but a no-no in Boston. They marveled, though, at the intricacies involved at making a proper introduction.( continue on next page )

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