Appeared in Cincinnati Business Courier
Reported by Andy Brownfield
How Cincinnati's generation raised in front of screens can prepare for business
Millennials are a generation more prone to communicating to a screen than face-to-face, more ready to Snapchat than small talk at a networking event. A local entrepreneur has launched a new etiquette institute to get them ready to interact in the business world.
Tiffany Adams told me opening the Cincinnati Etiquette & Leadership Institute (CELI) was something she’s always wanted to do since she was a little girl watching her etiquette consultant mother speak. It became imperative as she saw her sons – one a junior in high school, one a junior in college – getting ready to apply for jobs and colleges.
“I felt the millennial generation needs help,” Adams told me. “Tech savvy generation that they are, I felt like they needed some help to know the proper ways to communicate with each other. The Internet and social media radically changed how we communicate.”
For instance, do millennials know how to smoothly enter and leave a conversation? Whether to introduce the CEO or the client first? How to properly exchange business cards? How to be culturally aware and sensitive when dealing with partners or clients from overseas? Adams hopes CELI teaches them all of that while giving them a competitive advantage when entering the workforce.
Baby boomers are staying in the workforce longer. At the same time, more millennials graduate each year than there are jobs available.
“Graduates are expecting to find their first job immediately, but they’re remaining unemployed for between six months to a year and when they do find the job they’re having to accept positions below their education,” Adams said. “The competition is just fierce. I feel like the Cincinnati Etiquette & Leadership Institute will offer professional development and life skills that will allow them to have that competitive advantage.”
CELI offers courses in dining etiquette, business etiquette, leadership, how to act with foreign clients or partners and leadership for teenagers, which includes etiquette for the Internet.
“I think a large percentage of job success is due to these skills: the ability to build relationships, because at the end of the day it’s not about how many people you know, but who you know and who you can add value to and who you can help, because if you can build genuine relationships people will have your back throughout your career,” Adams said. “And these genuine relationships aren’t built behind a screen.”
You can read the full article on the Cincinnati Business Courier's website, here.