What do you call your coworkers? Employees? Team members? Partners? He/she... or when they did something wrong, him/her?

What about your clients? Is it, clients or Clients? Partners? Customers? Them? That _____...?

John DiJulius recently (7/13/11) was quoting something written by Joseph Michelli From The New Gold Standard: 5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience, Courtesy of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company.

Here is how the Ritz-Carlton refers to ALL of their employees:

"The Ritz-Carlton mindset -
Our ladies & gentlemen come from the exact same labor force, background and quality of life as our competitor's labor pool.
We're not paying a premium, we pay the same as others in our industry.

It's really how we select our people and what we do when they join our family.

We create guidelines for how our people are to perform, but for them to really generate the unique and memorable experience, we have to empower them. You just can't micromanage
unique and memorable outcomes."

My Point: Notice how they refer to their employees as "Our ladies and gentlemen..." What would happen if we gave our Employees and Clients (capital "e" and "c") that level of respect?

Considering our people and Clients as ladies and gentlemen should not feel like a foreign language. If it does, then enjoy talking about this at your next team meeting.

Watch for the e-book version of my next book, The Company Culture Challenge, out later this week!

MEETING IDEAS Some companies require their employees to dress at least "business casual" at the office because they have found it improves their focus and work behaviors.

How about your office?  Have you become so easy going with your dress code (virtually none), foul language, beer bust Fridays and other often superficial ways to engage employees that you have lost the value of respect and professionalism in your workplace?

Before you call me a snob, please understand I believe each company culture has unique attributes based on the Clients you want to serve.  Nevertheless respect and appreciation are powerful attributes of company culture.

Here are some ideas for how you might discuss the way your Ladies and Gentlemen refer to each other, your clients, vendors and community... and why:

1.  List how each person refers to coworkers, Clients and vendors on a whiteboard.

2.  Confirm you have the entire list, not just what people say in public or to people's faces.

3.  Discuss how the way you refer to each type of person (coworker, Client and vendor) indicates your level of respect and appreciation of them.

4.  What would happen to your company if the way you refer to coworkers, Clients or vendors was reported on the front page of your local print newspaper or news website tomorrow morning?

5.  What could be the benefits of referring to coworkers, Clients and vendors with more respect and appreciation?  How do you do that?  How do you hold each other accountable without nitpicking everything people say?