Executive Etiquette Class Thrives Even Fortune 500 Types Need A Bit Of Finishing School Now And Then

Flanked by gilt-framed mirrors and sconces at the Ritz-Carlton, Amy Mills Tunnicliffe calls out a warning: Hands off the flatware until the hostess gives the signal. It’s time for lunch, but it’s also the beginning of a class for two dozen business people.

The idea behind the school is that knowing where the soup spoon rests on the consomme saucer is a way to climb the corporate as well as the social ladder. And corporate executives and sales professionals are willing to fork over $450 for a daylong session on company manners at the table and elsewhere.

For the lunch session, the students self-consciously unfold their napkins - under the table, with the fold facing the stomach - as the waitress makes her way through potted palm foliage with a silver tureen of lobster and corn chowder.

“Do you say ‘Thank you’ to your waiters?” asks Mike Clemmey, a vice president for Boch Enterprises, a well-known local car dealership.

“Yes, but not if you’re in the midst of a conversation,” says Tunnicliffe. But thank them often.

Waitress Allison Perry thinks the etiquette class is a good idea. Only about 20 percent of the Ritz-Carlton’s guests know the difference between a fish fork and a pitchfork, she guesses.

Tunnicliffe’s message is simple: Be polite at all times. At the table. Anywhere you do business.

Never lick your fingers. If you’re pregnant, don’t ask colleagues to feel the baby kick. And, please, you young hotshots with the MBAs, don’t take up too much space.

“Many young people in the workplace, armed with their MBAs, dash into the corporate meeting room, grab the best seat in the room and spread their papers out. That,” she pauses, “is very offensive. You should always ask the senior person in the room where to sit.”

Are such lessons really needed? Tunnicliffe and her husband Guy have made a good business convincing people around the country that they are.

Tunnicliffe, who has a degree in advertising from the University of Missouri, started teaching etiquette to children in 1991. When the children started correcting their parents, the parents started seeking her advice.

Now she teaches poise and polish to thousands of executives, business owners and sales professionals every year. Most come willingly. Some are sent.

The Boch car executives are thrilled to be there. Three sit with Tunnicliffe’s husband, Guy, as he coaches them through a business meal.

Plug your product at the end of the entree or the beginning of dessert, he says. The car salesmen barely take their eyes off him - or, rather, his flatware - as he describes the difference between American and Continental styles of eating a salad, where to put your hands and how to make light conversation.

“How about portions?” asks Geller. “In some households, your mother is pushing it on you, you know, ‘Eat more, more.”’ “Don’t go to a business meeting or a cocktail party hungry,” said Guy. “You’re there for a reason.”

Pat Talbot, a residential lender for Fleet Mortgage in the affluent suburb of Hingham, nods as she takes a small bite of lemon sorbet. Networking is important to building her business, she said. She’s noticed her colleagues plant themselves at the food table or the bar while competitors work the room.