Although the office was uni and it was Monday, which is always a different day to me for some reason, last Monday was interesting. As some of you know I study International Communication Management, and that has currently let me to doing a minor in reputation management.

We were lucky. Really. Hill & Knowlton was willing to come and do a training in how to “sell” advice to us. Interesting training you’d say, and you’d be right. Thing is, without going into too much detail of the day, a question of politeness.

The cookie crumbled as such; our expert for the day was a 24-year experienced, ‘senior consultant’ as she positioned herself. Or maybe the company did, but she seemed to be quite content with the description. So we enter the class and here’s this need-looking woman of end/mid-40’s, I guess, immediately coming up to you (I told you it was Monday morning right?) shaking your hand and introducing herself, alright, very polite.

I sit down and stare at the wall where I see the opening slide of her PowerPoint gaping back at me saying:

“Selling’ Advice Training
Hill & Knowlton

A mistake on your opening slide after introducing yourself as a senior consultant, with 24-years of experience, is a wall lifter for me, but again, it’s Monday morning for everyone, right?

Following slides contained mistakes in spelling concerning the words; communication, issues and some others.

But ok, it’s alright, I wasn’t very interested in corporate PR anyway. What I was interested in though was the discussion that erupted the day after in class, sparked by the comment of a classmate of mine, Daphnee, saying at the feedback moment for the ‘trainers’; “Maybe you should consider a spelling check next time you want to do a presentation.” (Which I personally believed to be a very valid point. Being correct is a part of selling in my book anyway..)

The discussion that started was one about being hospitable to guests who come to give a guest lecture and are representing an internationally renowned corporation. This in itself is cool for me, but the point my lecturer was making was that correcting people with such a resume, who come to give us the ‘pleasure’ of their enlightening wisdom, was very rude. Some of my classmates agreed and I did not.

Maybe it’s me, but the acceptation of mistakes, low quality and evasive behaviour of this world is starting to piss me off, more and more. In terms of being polite and hospitable I do not have any problem giving kindness (or forgiving for that matter) to everyone, I am a great fan of Ghandi and Buddha, I get that. Yet, I believe honesty, no matter how shattering is, although it may hurt a bit, in the end ‘s always most beneficial to all parties involved.

Next to that, in terms of personal positioning/branding, you make a complete ass out of yourself when you stand somewhere talking about your over-two-decades of experience. Being a ‘senior’ within one of the biggest PR-corps known to mankind, to me, would at least entail being able to make a simple PowerPoint without mistakes, right?

Anyway, I was wondering what you think, politeness over honesty or the other way round? And how come they (seemingly) cannot be combined in the minds of a lot of people?

I actually think it is very polite when someone points out a mistake you’ve made, seeing the fact that thinking to yourself “Jesus, what an idiot” isn’t very polite and next to that it’s unhealthy to keep frustrations in.

Please let me know what you think, I’m curious.

Peace & Love to all.