On Their Best Behavior

By Barbara Rudolph

American business leaders have been urged to toughen up, to partake of power breakfasts, to dress only for success. Now along comes Letitia Baldrige's Complete Guide to Executive Manners (Rawson Associates; $22.95) telling them to be polite. Good manners constitute good business, Baldrige argues. Her model executive is gracious and considerate. When he fires a subordinate, he breaks the news compassionately; when he loses a job, he leaves the firm quickly and quietly. He exhibits an old-fashioned virtue: good manners.

A syndicated columnist, public relations executive and Jacqueline Kennedy's onetime White House social secretary, Baldrige, 58, has a solution for almost every imaginable corporate conundrum. Trying to make a smooth sales pitch in Peking? Do not wear white, the Chinese symbol of mourning. Stuck at a monotonous meeting? Do not doodle, and refrain from "conference table tics, such as bending paper clips into endless combinations or rolling bits of paper into tiny balls," Baldrige advises. Preparing a menu for the office Christmas party? Keep it simple and "save the snakemeat canapes and the blanquette of hare for your personal parties."

Baldrige is at her best when dispensing sensible advice about such mundane matters as writing memos and talking to one's boss or client. No one should end a phone conversation by saying "Have a nice day," she counsels. "The person you say that to may be facing an IRS audit or a tooth extraction." For those too shy to make small talk at cocktail parties, Baldrige offers a list of innocuous conversational subjects. Examples: landscape gardening, Princess Diana, the A.S.P.C.A., professional wrestling and the use of hypnotism to stop smoking.

Business correspondence should be simple and brief, Baldrige declares. She proudly reports that soon after her brother, Malcolm Baldrige, became Secretary of Commerce in 1981, he programmed the department's word processors to reject such business jargon as "to prioritize," "bottom line" and "impact" used as a verb. The smart business executive meticulously manages what may seem to be minor concerns. Writes Baldrige: "Details linked together create a strong, effective executive presence that propels an individual upward in his or her career."

The book's no-nonsense tone is particularly effective in treating some of the delicate subjects that surround the recent arrival of women in the executive suite. A pregnant employee is advised to exercise restraint in publicly describing her physical condition. Baldrige approvingly quotes a woman who proclaims that "a daily report on varicose veins is enough to put women back at least 3,000 years." At the same time, men are counseled not to bombard a pregnant colleague with questions like "Are you going to stop working?" and "If you're coming back, when will you?" On sexual harassment, Baldrige offers women unsurprising but sane advice. If a man makes an unwanted move, she writes, "explain that he is demonstrating a complete lack of professional respect. Tell him you know he didn't really mean to make that pass. Then leave." If sexual advances are repeated and accompanied by threats or bribes, Baldrige suggests that the offense should be reported to management, "without regard to diplomacy and tact."

As well mannered as she is, Baldrige remains an articulate critic of misplaced pretension. Wine, she notes, is one subject that often seems to inspire such affectation. When drinking a restaurant's simple house wine, Baldrige advises, "don't discuss its pedigree or lack of one; just drink it and enjoy it without editorial comments."