Finding President Obama in the headlines is no surprise but when his wife makes national news for ‘touching’ the Queen it leads you to question what is going on? The fuss started during a visit in April 2009 when Michelle Obama seemingly half hugged the Queen.
So we have been waiting with bated breath for this forthcoming visit to see if Mrs Obama ‘did it again’ or if greater guidance in relation to royal etiquette has been passed on to spare her blushes.
It would seem our attentions should have been on her husband, none other than President Obama. During a formal dinner yesterday evening the President was seen to raise a toast and speak through the National Anthem. Not a good start.
Although I find the press coverage relating to this particular incident a little over the top it does make you think about the way you approach people and the manner in which you address them.
As an example, at Open Communications we wouldn’t greet a client with ‘Alright mate, how’s it going?’ and in the same vain we wouldn’t shower our clients in ‘air kisses’, it’s just not how we want to work and certainly not how we want to present ourselves as a business.
However similarly to the Obama’s (yet on a far smaller scale) we meet and deal with so many different clients and suppliers who work in a range of industries from shopping to law, retail to training, there are obviously preferred ways of communicating with each and every individual that you have to learn.
More seriously than that, there are things that we need to know when working with international companies, again referring to etiquette. Something very innocent from one nation could be deemed particularly rude by another.
It’s not so much correct protocol but effective communications. If you want to be received well you should take the time to understand a market, know how they prefer to be communicated with and when it is likely to be best received. You don’t just presume that one size fits all and you can use a mass communication to target everyone – it won’t work.
It would seem that despite two strikes in two visits the Queen chose not to respond to the ‘gaff’ yesterday evening and instead managed to hide a smile – perhaps she was just relieved that for once it would be someone other than Prince Philip hitting the headlines for all the wrong reasons during a state visit.