NASA Is Now Teaching Its Employees How To Hold a Fork
As Times Change, She Returns to the Basics of Dining, NASA LaRC
“I’ve been at NASA Langley for more than 30 years,” said Cheryl Cleghorn, the center’s outreach and protocol coordinator. “I’ve seen lots of changes in the last five or six years.” Many of them involved money. “Before, NASA was given its budget and did what it was going to do with it,” Cleghorn said. “Now we’re collaborating and competing for additional funds for the center.” The key word here is “partnership,” and Cleghorn brought together 17 women and three men from Langley who might be called upon to dine with potential partners who could bring business to the center. They were there to learn to “Outclass the Competition: Dine Like a Diplomat.”
Keith’s note: I’ll be the first to agree that most NASA employees have little or no experince in the business environment out in the real world – and it shows. But I am a little baffled as to why the agency is spending money and time to teach people how to eat.
This story had me rolling on the floor in hysterical laughter. Sort of like when the Mercury astros were sent to “charm school” to learn to put on their socks before their pants. Really, there are more important things to worry about, like having government-supported R&D that directly improves the productivity of US industry. The current NASA strategy of trying to get industry to pay NASA to use its facilities (up to and including the ISS) is not encouraging, dinner or not. It would be more productive to ask US industry what it needs to compete.
Manners and interpersonal skills matter.
Genuine respect, honest communication, real technical competence, mature judgement, hard work and meaningful goals matter. Marketing flash only impresses self-important people who want to get rich quick. Wait a minute – that describes some politicians I’ve met. Maybe this explains why so many questionable proposals have succeeded lately; NASA is making selections on the basis of marketing.
I’m sure we’ve all known brilliant people whose interpersonal skills were so bad that they were prevented from delivering on their potential. Whether one likes it or not, or cares or not, the ability to deal effectively with people is very good to have when you are trying to get things done.Without good social skills, it’s very hard to get the chance to apply all those positive things you reference. Good manners aren’t marketing, they are a lubricant for the social machine without which it can grind itself up and fall apart. Manners and marketing are nothing alike and have very different purposes.
ESA Supports China Docking With ISS
– NASA Watch headline, March 24th.
Me: “Right. Now any NASA employees attending diplomatic/partnership functions will be given lessons on how to hold chopsticks, at enormous cost.”
NASA Is Now Teaching Its Employees How To Hold a Fork
– NASA Watch headline, March 25th.
Me: [facepalm]
This is one of those discussions where I think that neither side is going to convince the other, partly because they work in two different environments. I offer no opinion on dinning etiquette, because it would only be an opinion. However, it does bring to mind a somewhat related matter that I think is too often not addressed with employees who interact with non-employees in the course of their work. I think of it as “avoiding the sharks.”
Imagine that Company A is prime and Company B is one of their subcontractors. Company B has lots of young, new employees (including engineers) who are in this prime/sub situation for the first time. The prime almost certainly has factions that have developed over the years, so for example, you may end up with a program manager and a QA manager on the same program who do not get along — and they’re both “sharks.” So, during interactions between companies away from the main table, the sharks subtly attempt to recruit the young guys from Company B to their “side” using things like friendly warnings (watch yourself around the PM, he has his own agenda; or careful what you say to the QA man, he’s not really a team player). Before you know it, the poison has spread to the subcontractor and young (or new) people are suddenly saying very wrong things in front of other people.
To anyone who’s never witnessed anything like this it may seem a little far fetched, but the unfortunate truth is that this kind of thing goes on all the time. The point I want to make is that a brief but pointed “lesson” to new employees, whether as part of new employee orientation or as a departmental procedure, is all it takes to keep your people from being taken in by the smiling (back-stabbing) sharks.
I’ve only given one example; there are plenty of others. It pays to make sure your people are trained in the basic survival skills of doing business with customers and other companies, and it can cost big time to overlook this. As a generalized statement, no matter who you are and what you do, there will be someone in the room who takes notice of how you “hold your fork.”
Steve
Amen Steve,
One of the best things that ever happened to me was the Dale Carnegie course. A previous employer put me through it, and I’d have to rate it the best class I’ve ever had, bar none. It’s important for your ideas to not only be heard, but the words be put in a way that the listener wants to hear. No, I’m not talking about convincing them, but just getting them to listen and not ignore you after the first sentence comes out of your mouth.
SO, SO many engineers lack even the basics, let alone what they need to navigate the minefields of politics. It is an absolutely necessary part of the job, and about time someone realizes it.
More NASA fluff and charm school.
What NASA should be doing is making fun of the fools that go out of their way eat like that.
I tend to find that someone crude and blunt are many times more worthy as a person that the brown noses participating in this kind of thing.
proper background information:
http://www.youtube.com/watc…
Actually attendees paid for their meal, and it was conducted during lunch time. Here’s the course announcement.
Outclass the Competition – Business Dining Skills
Learn how to present yourself well and represent NASA with authority and confidence at business and social events. Have
fun while learning how to finesse a business meal from start to finish
through a four-course hands-on “tutorial luncheon.” Presented by Cheryl
Cleghorn, LaRC Protocol Officer, trained and certified by the Protocol
School of Washington.
Tutorial luncheon will be held March 19 in the NACA Room of the LaRC
cafeteria from 11:30 – 1:00. Seating is limited to 40 people. Cost is
$12.00 per person to cover the cost of the “tutorial luncheon” meal.
Cash or check accepted. Make checks payable to NASA Exchange Cafeteria.
Payment can be given in advance to Cheryl Cleghorn, Bldg. 1192E, Room 128, or payable at the door of the luncheon.
To register for the luncheon send email to [email protected].
Reminds me of “old culture” that no one remembers where it came from. For instance the rich began removing their elbows from the table top after seeing sailors with elbows on table, as the sailors were used to keeping their bowl steady in rough seas using their elbows in 1600’s & 1700’s (Food was precious at sea). Would be very fitting for Astronauts to eat at table with elbows on table, to show solidarity with their fellow voyagers from olde…