When deal­ing with eti­quette, I am con­stantly point­ing out people’s short­com­ings and turn­ing those into learn­ing sit­u­a­tions. Finally, I have the oppor­tu­nity to point out some­thing that some­one has done right.

Justin Tim­ber­lake is a man of his word and attended Saturday’s Marine Corps ball with Cpl. Kelsey De San­tis. Back in July, Cpl. De San­tis posted a YouTube video ask­ing him to escort her to the the ball and he accepted. Sat­ur­day he proved he was a man of his word by escort­ing her to the ball.

Reports are that he had a good time, was a nor­mal per­son and posed for pic­tures with other guests. While many might con­sider this a pub­lic­ity stunt, Tim­ber­lake was moved by the event and posted a let­ter about his evening on his website.

Tim­ber­lake said, “To all of you that serve every day for us… Ensur­ing our free­dom, I say: My deep­est grat­i­tude to you. I’ve met so many of my heroes… From Michael Jor­dan to Michael Jack­son. And, noth­ing makes me feel more honor and pride than when I get to meet one of you. Last night changed my life and I will never for­get it.”

We can all learn from this and should always give our mil­i­tary men and women the respect and honor they deserve. Thank you for all that you do.

Just in case you want to link to the full letter:

Justin Timberlake’s night at the Marine Corps ball

When most peo­ple think about eti­quette, they think about table man­ners and which fork to use while eat­ing their salad. Eti­quette is also a pop­u­lar topic in the busi­ness world. Hir­ing man­agers judge their prospec­tive employ­ees to see their knowl­edge of eti­quette and man­agers have their employ­ees take eti­quette train­ing to help improve their skills in hopes it will increase sales.

Most peo­ple do not real­ize that eti­quette is also a part of sports. Webster’s defines sports­man­ship as con­duct becom­ing to one par­tic­i­pat­ing in a sport. In other words, sports­man­ship is a form of eti­quette and as such your con­duct should be reflec­tive of you and the orga­ni­za­tion you are representing.

Recently, two foot­ball coaches almost were involved in an alter­ca­tion after their game. At the end of a foot­ball game, it is cus­tom­ary for the oppos­ing coaches to shake hands. Some­times they share a few words, wish the other luck and then go on with their busi­ness, but, at a min­i­mum, they shake hands. At the end of this game, the los­ing coach took offense at the win­ning coach’s exu­ber­ance dur­ing their hand­shake. The win­ning coach shook the loser’s hand and gave him a slap on the back. Already upset with los­ing the game, the los­ing coach men­tally lost it after this hand­shake and began chas­ing the win­ning coach down. Thank­fully, cooler heads pre­vailed and kept the two separated.

Per­cep­tion played a major role in this eti­quette break­down. Your actions are per­ceived by oth­ers and it is impor­tant for your intent to be per­ceived cor­rectly. I’m sure the win­ning coach had no intent to embar­rass the other coach, how­ever, this is how it was per­ceived by the los­ing coach and it almost resulted in a fight. Every­body loves to win, but it is impor­tant to win with dig­nity and con­duct your­self in a man­ner that is respect­ful to the loser and is pos­i­tively rep­re­sen­ta­tive of your organization.