COURTESY AT WORKPLACE
To be courteous is definitely a prime human attitude but many of us fail to realize how important this human phenomenon is for our daily living either at home or at our work place. Courtesy and the interest we take in our clients and customers, friends and family members, our colleagues and compatriots and our people put us in a very elevated position in our daily dealing with them.
In fact courtesy begins at home and spills into the community to give us a huge dividend at all times. The more interest we take in our people, our employees and our organization and the more assistance we give them the better our places of work become. To be courteous and kind are the true attitudes of mankind.
Courtesy is a strange thing. We tend to give it generously to strangers and yet the better we come to know people, the less we think about using it. This is unfortunate because plain ordinary courtesy, the same kind we often extend wittingly and automatically to strangers, is an excellent way of winning cooperation and good will from the people who work for us.
Therefore, I feel that courtesy is more than a matter of lip service. It shows up every day in many ways. Many times little things, perhaps, but they all add up and they then can produce a huge effect on the attitude of those who live, work and interact with us. For example, do we always take pains to greet people pleasantly? Or do we sometimes settle for a preoccupied grunt?
If a stranger wanted to tell us something we should have the courtesy to listen carefully and respond appropriately. The question that comes to mind is, do we tend to half listen and interrupt?
Courtesy or the lack of it can be symbolic of a person’s, a manager’s or an employee’s attitude toward others, subordinates and superiors. I find that people appreciate courtesy and they are quick to notice the lack of it, too.
My conclusion is that courtesy is the shortest distance between two people.