Finishing touches 42 minute speech

Finishing Touches tm
Out in the countryside of northern Virginia, on a farm,
a young school boy sat at the table, by the light of a lantern,
learning his lessons. Perhaps, his father said, “Here, study
this, and you’ll learn how to write and you’ll learn how to
act.” So, the young boy took from his father the 110 Rules
of Decorum and Civil Obedience,1 and took them to heart.
He wrote them over and over again, practicing his
penmanship; by doing so he learned how to write and he
learned how to live. Years later, while President of the
United States, these very rules served him well. The young
boy,2 of course, was George Washington. The rules had
come from England; and, it is surmised that George’s father
or brother had traveled to England and had brought back a
copy of the 18th century rules of etiquette. Research shows
their origin to be traced back to Francis Hawkins in 1640
through the French Jesuits3 to the Greeks and even beyond
that of the Hammurabi Code of antiquity c. 2010 B. C.
It is of interest to note that Sir Thomas Malory’s Code
of Chivalry is not unlike George Washington’s Rules of
Civility and Decorum; so, too, are the Judeo-Christian’s
Ten Commandments. Alongside of “the Code,” “the
Rules,” and “The Ten Commandments” may be placed
several other historical documents, including Hammurabi’s
Code, the Magna Charta 1215 A.D.,4 the Mayflower
Compact 1620,5 the Declaration of Independence1776,6 the
1
Richard Brookhiser, Rules of Civility, The Free Press: New York, 1997: 5.
2
Richard Norton Smith, Patriarch, George Washington and the New American Nation, Houghton Mifflin
Company: New York, 1993: xx.
3
Brookhiser, 4.
4
June 15, 1215 A.D.
5
c. December 21, 1620.
6
July 4, 1776.
Finishing Touches tm Page 1 8/26/2010
tommie@ugaalum.uga.edu

Preamble to the Constitution1787 and the Bill of Rights
1791.7
Hammurabi’s Code of Law is a code of action for
customs and for conventions concerning criminal and civil
actions. The Magna Charta is called “the Great Charter” of
England that limits the monarch’s power as to taxing
without consent of a “council of the realm,” and as to
seizing of property without trial by jury of the peers of the
accused, and as to imprisoning;8 thus, the Magna Charta is
about civil rights; and it showed America’s founding
fathers there was a need for them to enact the Bill of
Rights.9 The Mayflower Compact was drawn up aboard
the ship the Mayflower by the Pilgrims after their arrival in
Massachusetts from Southampton, England, as “an
agreement binding them together in a ‘civil body politic’
for the government of the colony.”10 Within the following
160 years there would be numerous occurrences which
showed that there was a need for rules of guidance for
governance for the entire colonial experience, first to the
creation of The Declaration of Independence with its “life,
liberties and pursuit of happiness” expressions which were
written by Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) during the
Second Continental Congress declaring that the original
thirteen colonies would be “free and independent of Great
Britain;”11 through the failed Articles of Confederation and
its attempt to provide a system of governance for the
7
December 15, 1791, The Athens Banner-Herald, Thursday, October 9, 2003: front page.
8
The Reader’s Encyclopedia, 619.
9
Encarta Reference Online, Microsoft Corporation, 1993-2002, downloaded December 15, 2003.
10
The Reader’s Encyclopedia, 651.
11
257.

fledgling united former colonies; and then to James
Madison’s writing of the Constitution of the United States
of America, a document providing presidential powers and
providing the establishment of the acceptance of stronger
powers for the central government; and then to The Bill of
Rights as the first ten amendments to the Constitution
“guaranteeing liberties, establishing justice, insuring
tranquility.” Earlier, Thomas Jefferson had sought to
define “18th century political life and social life” in his
(1784-1785) Notes on Virginia12 showing a recognition of
and a distinction between religion, law and decorum. From
2010 B.C. through 2004 A. D. almost four thousand years
of evidence shows that there is a need for decorum as the
ideal of propriety and as the ideal of appropriateness.
Perhaps, then, civility, being gained through
knowledge, is how the teenage boy, George Washington,
was taught. Richard Brookhiser documents how the young
George Washington was given the elementary school
assignment of learning to write script while learning about
the “Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and
Conversation.”13 Originally, back in 1595, when the French
Jesuits first set down into print “Decency of Conversation
among Men,” a collection of moral instruction was
preserved and, therefore, was passed down through the
centuries to eventually become our society’s guide to
civility. Brookhiser continues with acknowledgement of

12
The Reader’s Encyclopedia. 518.
13
Richard Brookhiser, 1988, 1.

over ten subsequent editions on decorum, including,
Decency in Conversation Amongst Women in 1672. 14
With careful study and with careful consideration of
the rules and of the history of George Washington’s life,
one may see what an impact the rules actually had on
Washington throughout his entire life from that of a young
boy to that of an older man. When the young George was
asked who had cut down the cherry tree, the quote often
attributed to him is, “I must not tell a lie; it was I.” This is
in reference to the 59th rule which states, “Never express
anything unbecoming, nor Act agst the Rules Moral before
your Inferiours. Translated, rule 59 reads, “Never express
anything unbecoming, nor act against the moral rules.” r
When his peers were discussing how to create codes
and traditions, since there were no examples to follow
except those of the rigid social classes and nobility of
Europe where there had never been an elected leader of a
country before, the American political leaders did not know
what title to call Washington as the leader of the newly
founded country; they suggested that he be called “Your
Excellency”; but Washington refused, saying, “We have
established this country in order to get away from one king;
just call me ‘Mr. President.’” This is in reference to the
63d rule which states that “A Man ought not to value
himself of his Atchievements, or rare Qualities of wit;
much less of his riches Virtue or Kindred.” Translated, rule
63 reads, “A man should consider himself to be important
because he lives a moral and an ethical life not because of
how wealthy he his, who his parents are, or who he knows,
14
Brookhiser, 4.

not just because of his own achievements, keen wit,
possessions, or ancestors.” As a result of Washington’s
truthfulness and humble attitude, out of respect to
Washington, the location for the center of the new
government was named “Washington” in his honor.
Some rules change over time, some change slightly,
and some do not apply at all to later time periods; yet, there
are rules that never change, like not eating with your mouth
open. These 110 rules used to be 220 rules and even as
many as 400 rules in order to incorporate figures of speech
with each rule dictating how one was to act, how one was
to speak and how one was to write. How eighteenth
century British scholars responded with acceptance to the
French maxims on decorum was to use fewer and fewer
rules, and that is how Americans are responding with
acceptance to decorum four centuries later. Even though
the rules have been altered and transformed, rules of
decorum have survived and have been passed down from
generation to generation to us today resulting in our laws
and resulting in our rules of civility, resulting in the laws
and in the rules being that which we wish them to be.
It has been said that “The law of the land is embodied
in thousands of statutes and tens of thousands of reports…
that must be extracted by a tedious and difficult process of
induction.” Through the codes or codification of the law, it
becomes “possible for a lawyer to learn the whole law.”
Knowledge and etiquette are something we are not born
knowing. Knowledge and etiquette are acquired through
study and through family values passed down for one

generation to another just as George’s father passed the
rules down to George. 15
From commandments to creeds to canons, to codes,
civilizations have relied upon guidelines and moral
foundations for unity of laws and of rules. It remains true,
today, that there is a sense of need for ethics; and these
ethics need to be incorporated into every thing we do; we
need ethics in our government; we need ethics in our
corporate boardrooms; we need ethics in financial
institutions; we need ethics in our public lives; we need
ethics in our private lives; we need ethics everywhere we
go and we need ethics in everything we do. We need ethics
in systems, in policies, in regulations, in conventions for
fostering the stability in the lives of mankind. It is believed
that ethics can be inculcated into the ethos of each
individual to such a degree that ethics becomes proprietary
principles in each individual. With these proprietary
principles it could become second nature to the individual,
in the sense that, these rules may be incorporated as
personal attributes such as principles of honesty,
truthfulness, honor, trustworthiness, veracity, reliability,
uprightness, by establishing the moral fiber in character and
integrity, by letting the rules encompass our personal lives
whether in private or whether in public. These rules with a
little “r” are the same rules with a big “R” that started as a
penmanship exercise for young George and ended up as a
way of living for an older George.
The way of living in today’s world of fast food and of
free goods gives us cause for reflection to remember the
15
Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. VI, p. 97.

importance of the role that ethics plays in our technology-
driven lives. One of the things that make us a great nation
is that we encourage creativity; and, also, it is that we
encourage individuality. We reward people for their
creativeness; our free-market economy rewards people for
their innovative creations; and we have intellectual
property laws that protect that. When someone steals
another person’s intellectual endeavor, it is not unlike
stealing a tangible object from them. For example, one of
the great gifts of the Internet is its egalitarian nature; it
avails itself to anyone, it avails itself for anyone, it avails
itself from anyone. By taking someone’s work from a book
or by taking someone’s work from the Internet or by taking
someone’s work from someone’s computer, it is all the
same; without authorization and without proper crediting, it
is illegal. Also, it is plagiarism. When you steal someone’s
intellectual property, you are cheating them; but, you are,
also, cheating yourself, because you have cheapened your
sense of morality, you have compromised your honesty;
perhaps, without even realizing it, you have allowed
yourself to become unethical by conceding your principles.
In a case like this, the person who really gets hurt is the one
who hurts himself, for when you take something from
someone, at the same time you are taking something from
yourself: your reputation, your good name. So, as much as
you take, you are actually taken from; and, systematically,
you can be harmed more than they are harmed. A good
opinion of one is something that all would agree is to be
held in high esteem. When being considered for service in

the highest office in young America, George Washington
said, “The approbation of my country is what I wish and, as
far as my abilities and opportunities will permit, I hope I
shall endeavor to deserve it. It is the highest reward to a
feeling mind; and happy are they, who so conduct
themselves as to merit it.”16
Although people take from the Internet all the time,
that does not make it right; that is not the legal thing to do;
that is not the ethical thing to do. Just because information
is there on the Internet does not make it free; what makes it
free is the pay back in the form of recognition, in the form
of giving credit to the author. You should honor the author
by giving credit to the author;17 others will do it for you.
But by deliberately avoiding such unethical Internet
activities as plagiarism and as copyright infringements, as
peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, downloading music,
downloading videos, it is to be ethical.
History favors reputable people and history favors
repeatable phrases such as with George Washington,
according to “his most popular biographers, Weems”18 and
his comments about the cherry tree. However, history
remembers the famous as well as the infamous. Archie B.
Carroll, a professor of Business Ethics at the University of
16
Richard Norton Smith, Patriarch, Washington and the New American Nation, Houghton Mifflin
Company: Boston, 1993: vii.
17
Consultant Gary H. Becker’s Copyright, A Guide To Information And Resources, 3rd Edition, 2003,
ISBN: 0-9666594-2-2, is the best, most up-to-date resource “to provide day-to-day copyright references…”
and as a “guide is a product of extensive research into the law, court cases and respected legal opinions…
with interpretation of the law…based upon the House and Senate versions of the Copyright Act prior to its
formal adoption as well as the Congressional discussions that have led to amendment/modifications since
that time.”
18
The New Werner Twentieth Century Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Edited by Professors
Spencer Baynes, LLD., and W. Robertson Smith, LLD., The Werner Company: Akron, Ohio, Vol. XXIV,
1901, P. 408.

Georgia who holds the Robert W. Scherer Chair of
Management in the Terry College of Business and a
columnist for the “Athens Banner-Herald,” clearly speaks
to the current issue of a lack of ethics and of its
consequences.19 He centers his article upon the nursery
rhyme “For Want of a Nail,” or for the lack of a nail, which
goes like this:

For want of a nail, the shoe was lost;
For want of a shoe, the horse was lost;
For want of a horse, the rider was lost;
For want of the rider, the battle was lost;
For want of the battle, the kingdom was lost;
And all for the want of a nail.

Carroll uses this metaphor to say that, “‘For want of
business ethics, many corporations have gone into
bankruptcy or experienced gravely damaged reputations.”
Interesting enough, while the topic of ethics is earning
renown through the efforts of such people as Dr. Carroll
and of Dr. Michael Covington of the UGA Artificial
Intelligence Center, who, decades ago, “led a push for a
UGA computer ethics policy, as of today, there is no
required ethics class taught in the Computer Science
Department. Don Potter, Director of UGA’s Artificial
Intelligence Center, may see it differently, for he is quoted
as saying he thought a class in ethics would be a “good
course to have, and if the student wanted to take it, he or
she should take it. But, I don’t think most kids need a class
19
Athens, Georgia, December 14, 2003, “Bill George Offers Guide for Ethics” F1.

on how to live their lives. If I go to college, I ought to
know how to live my life.” 20 Some UGA students might
disagree with Dr. Potter and might agree with Dr. Carroll
for they are trying to form an ethical group called The
Academic Honesty Student Task Force. For this new
group, they are looking for members by saying that it
would be a great way to get involved with the policies that
affect students. They asked that applications be turned in
by April 9, 2004, and that those who are selected would be
notified by April 12, 2004. This appears to mean that they
are seeking students who are serious about being ethical
and that there is a selection process in order to get seriously
ethical students to join.21 One might know how to live one’s
life if proper courses are provided in college; and, Finishing
Touches points out that the mere act of attending college in
and of itself may or may not lead to knowing how to live
one’s life; thus, why not instruct proper ethics in order to
insure that proper ethics is taught and not just hope that it is
learned through osmosis. These UGA students may
possess character traits not unlike George Washington, who
at the age of 19 already had “impressed others with a belief
in his force of mind and character, for…when the first
indications of the French and Indian War appeared, he was
appointed adjutant of the Virginia troops, with the rank of
major. Otherwise, without ethics, it could be costly for all
involved, not least of which is the institution. As a
consequence of a lack of ethics in some major American
20
Ronnell Smith “For some, ethics courses compute,” Athens Banner-Herald, February 8, 2004: front
page. Ronell.smith@onlineathens.com
21
Email from Brittany Lynn Adams of Alpha Gamma Delta Sorority, Tuesday, 3-2-04, asking for
responses to the request to form the ethical group of The Academic Honesty Student Task Force at UGA.

corporations’ top management, leaders’ career’s can be
destroyed. When you mention the following names, it is
immediately recognized that these leaders’ careers were
destroyed: Enron’s Kenneth Lay, Arthur Anderson’s
Andrew Fastow, Tyco’s Dennis Kowslowski, WorldCom’s
[currently MCI] Bernie Ebbers, Adelphia’s John Rigas,
Global Crossing’s Gary Winnick, HealthSouth’s Richard
Scrushy, Citigroup Global Markets’ Todd Thomson, and
Martha Stewart’s Living Omnimedia’s Martha Stewart. It
is more than just the appearance of propriety; even though
it is after the horse has left the barn and the door is closed
that these corporations are adopting the implementation of
moral management, exactly what they realize they should
have been doing all along, which brings us back to Carroll
and the quote “And all for want of a nail,” the nail that was
driven into the coffin of many a career. Carroll’s thesis is
that, “More and more today, effective leadership needs to
be defined in terms of ethics and social responsibility.”
Exhibiting a moral character is a major component in
demonstrating leadership ability in its attempt to define the
terms of ethics and social responsibility. Apparently, for
George Washington, this occurred at an early age. Upon
the death of his brother Lawrence in 1752, Washington
became executor under the will, and he was only twenty
years old; and in 1753, he was named commander of the
northern military district of Virginia, and he was only
twenty-one years old; in 1753-54, he was made the agent
who warned the French away from their forts, and he was
only twenty-two years old; and it was Washington in

1755who was commissioned commander-in-chief of all the
Virginia forces where “he served in Braddock’s campaign,
and showed for the first time that fiery energy which
always lay hidden beneath his calm and unruffled
exterior….In the campaign he was one of the few
unwounded officers, although he had kept a high profile on
the battlefield,” and he was only twenty-three years old.
Indeed, it was Washington who “commanded the advance
guard of the expedition which captured Fort Du Quesne
and renamed it Fort Pitt,”22 and he was only twenty-six
years old. Thus, Washington found out at an early age that
ethics is integral to effective leadership.
That “business ethics is integral to effective
leadership” is the point that Archie Carroll is making. In
fact, he states that it is the responsibility of top
management not to delegate ethics, but to “set the moral
tone,” otherwise, as these top executives found out too late,
they are held responsible for their “active involvement and
personal complicity of organizational leaders’ unethical
actions which led to many people losing their life’s savings,
which led to many people losing their jobs, which led to the
[disastrous] economic stock market’s decline.”
In an earlier article, Carroll writes that, “Whether it is
the establishment of formal policy, a casual statement made
in passing, or the leader's personal actions, forceful
messages about what constitutes ethical behavior are

22
The New Twentieth Century Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Edited by Professors Spencer
Baynes, LLD., and W. Robertson Smith, LLD., The Werner Company:Akron, Ohio, Vol. XXIV, 1901:
409.

transmitted.”23 In a July 2003 EMC2 White Paper, entitled
“Business Continuity and Ethics: Minimizing Future
Risks” which “explores the connection between ethics and
business continuity,” it shows how considerable risks are a
major component, especially for senior executives in
publicly held companies due to legislative initiatives, such
as due to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act [2002]…which, as far as
to the significance of consequential liabilities is concerned,
is one of the many recent legislative initiatives that create
personal liabilities regarding ethics…. It is the thesis of the
paper that since “corporate culture determines ethics,” that
“effective business continuity solutions protect against even
internal ethical lapses.” The White Paper continues to say
that if, from the top down, corporate executives
“aggressively enforce…and vigorously promote [proper]
employee conduct,” a strong corporate culture will be
adhered to and will be respected. 24
The White Paper cites Jim Collins’ book Good to
Great as explaining that “successful companies…
establish…a strong ethical culture that helps to self-govern
every activity of the organization. As a result, “when
presented with a choice, employees usually make decisions
that favor the interest of the company over those of the
individual in the presence of that culture…. When the
culture isn’t present however, negative forces act on
individual employees to lead otherwise good people

23
Online Athens Banner-Herald, Saturday, November 30, 2002, Carroll: “Four spheres should guide your
ethics.”
24
Sarbanes-Oxley Act [2002]: 3, 4, 5.

occasionally astray.”25 According to the White Paper, the
following is a list of rationalizations used as excuses for
unethical behavior:

I have to cut corners to meet my goals
I lack the time/resources to do the right thing
My superiors want results not excuses
No one will ever know the difference
I am afraid to do what I know is right

The summation is that “only a strong cultural bent towards
integrity and a disciplined ethics management program can
counterbalance these rationalization forces” (4).
The American Association of Certified Public Accountants
would agree, for they have drawn up Principles of
Professional Conduct. Among them are the following four
principles that are centered upon integrity:
Section 52 - Article I: Responsibilities

In carrying out their responsibilities as professionals,
members should exercise sensitive professional and
moral judgments in all their activities.
Section 54 - Article III: Integrity

25
Jim Collins, Good To Great, Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t , Harper Collins,
New York, 2001:


To maintain and broaden public confidence, members
should perform all professional responsibilities with the
highest sense of integrity.
.01 Integrity is an element of character fundamental to
professional recognition. It is the quality from which
the public trust derives and the benchmark against
which a member must ultimately test all decisions.
.02 Integrity requires a member to be, among other
things, honest and candid within the constraints of
client confidentiality. Service and the public trust
should not be subordinated to personal gain and
advantage. Integrity can accommodate the inadvertent
error and the honest difference of opinion; it cannot
accommodate deceit or subordination of principle.
.03 Integrity is measured in terms of what is right and
just. In the absence of specific rules, standards, or
guidance, or in the face of conflicting opinions, a
member should test decisions and deeds by asking:
"Am I doing what a person of integrity would do?
Have I retained my integrity?" Integrity requires a
member to observe both the form and the spirit of
technical and ethical standards; circumvention of those
standards constitutes subordination of judgment.
.04 Integrity also requires a member to observe the
principles of objectivity and independence and of due

care.

That Washington exhibited integrity is well
documented. Washington’s principles of professional
conduct, are illuminated by the President of the College of
New Jersey, Reverend Samuel, when he spoke of “that
heroic youth whom I cannot but hope Providence has
preserved for some important service to his country.”26
In comparison to the American Association of
Certified Public Accounts’ professional principles is a
summary of selected sections of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
2002.27 As shown above, there is a call for the ability to
communicate and there is a call for the ability to
demonstrate integrity. How these are accomplished may be
with a reference to this 2002 act. The following rules are
from four selected sections of the Rules of the Sarbanes-
Oxley Act:

Section 404: Management Assessment Of Internal
Controls
Requires each annual report of an issuer to contain an
"internal control report", which shall:
Direct the SEC to require each issuer to disclose
whether it has adopted a code of ethics for its senior
financial officers and the contents of that code.

26
Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. XXIV, 1901: 409.
27
(<http://www.aicpa.org/download/career/edu/communication-is-key.pdf>, downloaded 12/18/2003).

Direct the SEC to revise its regulations concerning
prompt disclosure on Form 8-K to require immediate
disclosure "of any change in, or waiver of," an issuer's code
of ethics.
Section 602(a): Appearance and Practice Before the
Commission
The SEC may censure any person, or temporarily bar
or deny any person the right to appear or practice before the
SEC if the person [:] does not possess the requisite
qualifications to represent others, lacks character or
integrity, or has willfully violated Federal securities laws.
Section 602(d): Rules of Professional Responsibility for
Attorneys
The SEC shall establish rules setting minimum
standards for professional conduct for attorneys practicing
before it.
Section 1102: Tampering With a Record or Otherwise
Impeding an Official Proceeding
Makes it a crime for any person to [:] corruptly alter,
destroy, mutilate, or conceal any document with the intent
to impair the object's integrity or availability for use in an
official proceeding or to otherwise obstruct, influence or
impede any official proceeding [making that person] liable
for up to 20 years in prison and a fine.


Imparting an ethical message is the intent of moral
consciousness. It was the intent of George Washington to
impart an ethical message of moral consciousness. The
Virginia Convention, in 1774, while appointing seven of its
members as delegates to the Continental Congress, named
Washington, at the age of 42, as one of them; and with this
appointment George Washington’s national career begins.
His associates in Congress recognized his previous military
ability at once…and most of the details of [the military
planning] were by common consent left to him.” The
future of the infant nation was in this one man’s hands –
would it become free or would it become subjugated to
colonial status, again. Maybe not as momentous as the
decisions Washington was forced to make, the decisions of
today’s executives’ still carry a tremendous amount of
responsibility. With these responsibilities come
tremendous liabilities, as well, because the decisions
today’s executives make affect the livelihood of thousands
of employees and tens of thousands of stockholders.
Therefore, there is a “significant liability challenge for
executives,” 28 and the only way to meet that challenge is
with integrity and with an ethical message.
In the case of corporate ethics, intent is associated
with comprehension, and comprehension is associated with
communication. What is at stake is the ability of
management to communicate an ethical message. George
Washington communicated his ethical message; “even in
28
Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. XXIV, 1901, P. 409.


the intervals of his Congressional service he was occupied
in urging on the formation, equipment, and training of
Virginia troops, and it was generally understood that, in
case of war, Virginia would expect him to act as her
commander-in-chief.”29 This is how junior executives
become senior executives, by communicating their
objectives, their intent, their ethical messages. As the 32nd
Rule says, “To one that is your equal, or not much inferior
you are to give the chief Place in your Lodging and he to
who ‘tis offered ought at the first to refuse it but at the
Second to accept though not without acknowledging his
own unworthiness.” This Washington did. “When
Congress, after the fights at Lexington and Concord,
resolved to put the colonies into a state of defense, the first
practical step was the unanimous selection, on motion of
John Adams of Massachusetts, of Washington as
commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the United
Colonies. Refusing any salary, he accepted the position,
asking ‘every gentleman in the room’ however, to
remember his declaration that he did not believe himself to
be equal to the command, and that he accepted it only as a
duty made imperative by the unanimity of the call.”30
If corporate leaders are already complaining that even
some of their new Ph. D.s “too often fail as communicators
and cannot advance their own careers or contribute to the
success of their companies,” as is presented in the April 21,
1998, Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates, it
29
Encyclopedia Britannica, P. 409.
30
Encyclopedia Britannica, P. 409.


could be said, “Houston, we have a problem.” It is not
surprising, then that at Southern Utah University, David
Christensen and David Rees31 administered a survey to
90,000 members of the professional accountant
organizations AICPA and IMA, who identified
communication as being important to an accountant’s job.
Of the 32 selected skills of communication, seven of them
are of interest to Finishing Touches tm as they relate to the
intent of ethics as charged by Congress to corporate
executives for them to relay to their employees. Four of the
seven selected skills of communication are: Listens
effectively, produces correctly spelled documents, asks
appropriate questions when talking with customers, and
uses an effective business vocabulary. However,
concerning the other three skills, the corporate executives
responded to the survey by stating their dissatisfaction with
the college preparation of new accounting graduates: in the
use of correct grammar in both spoken and written
communication, in the use of writing well – clearly,
concisely, correctly, completely, and in the use of
organizing information into effective sentences and
paragraphs. These seven communication skills are the
basis of communication; and yet, according to this survey,
graduating accountants lack the ability to write, to speak
and to organize their thoughts in a business environment.
These graduates obviously can manipulate numbers; but
many are unable to communicate the importance of those
numbers to the stakeholders of the company. Thus, there is
a need for the instruction of basic communication skills in
31
qtd. AICPA.org/communication

order for ethics to prevail.
The young George Washington learned what the older
George Washington found to be true, that there are
definitions of the topics of decorum. Although there are
some rules that apply to multiple categories; basically,
however, in the 110 rules, there are 40 references to
decorum, 24 to demeanor, 33 to deportment, 19 to dining,
40 to discourse, six to dress, and three to divinity.
The topic of decorum deals with conduct. It is good
taste in conduct; how one has a personal interaction within
oneself; how one has an inward manner; how one exhibits
bearing; how one has the appearance of good conduct; how
one utilizes the conventions of polite behavior; how one
has the appearance of politeness.
The topic of demeanor deals with behavior. It is
behavior toward others; a personal interaction with others;
one’s outward manner; one’s involvement of
accountability; one’s duty and respect toward obligatory
tasks; how one conducts oneself with parents and
supervisors; how one exhibits conduct of service; how one
conducts oneself at functions that arise from one’s position
in life or how one conducts oneself in a group; how one
conducts oneself at ceremonies.
The topic of deportment deals with walking. It is how
one carries oneself; how one behaves and comports oneself,
especially in accord with a code; how one walks; one’s
bearing; one’s behavior.
The topic of dining deals with eating. It is eating
properly; how one politely handles food and drink; how

one is able to be eating without it being obviously
distracting to others.
The topic of discourse deals with talking. It is
conversation, orderly thought, writing, or an interchange of
ideas; how one expresses oneself, especially in oral
discourse; how one talks and converses; how one extends
expression of thought into discourse.
The topic of dress deals with wardrobe. It is how one
dresses according to one’s silhouette; one’s appropriate
attire for a particular time and place.
The topic of divinity deals with God. It is relating to
or dealing directly with one’s God; it is how one worships.
As Brookheiser said, it is a pleasure to be “associated
with the idea of promoting the knowledge of manners and
of promoting the intention of “polish(ing) manners,
keep(ing) alive the best affections of the heart, impress(ing)
the obligation of moral virtues, teach(ing) how to treat
others in social relations, and above all, (of) inculcat(ing)
the practice of a perfect self-control.”32
Eleven year-old George Washington’s Rules of
Civility and Decent Behavior In Company and
Conversation is as follows and as referenced in George
Washington’s “The Exercises Of A School Boy” which
appears in a Colonial Life Almanack article, and which is
kept as true to capitalization and to spelling as possible. In
the presentation you are about to see, illustrations are used,
mostly from a contemporary of note of George
Washington’s, the British artist and illustrator William
Hogarth (1697-1764) who, too, was interested in manners
32
Brookhiser, 1988 page 1.

and portrayed that through the ever so popular 18th century
use of social satire. It is said of Hogarth that he “is
unquestionably one of the greatest English artists and a
man of remarkably individual character and thought. He is
the greatest innovator in English art. On one hand, he was
the first to paint themes from Shakespeare, Milton and the
theatre, and was the founder of a wholly original genre of
moral history, which was long known as Hogarthian
[Hogarthism].”33 For this Finishing Touches tm presentation,
the art work of William Hogarth, along with other’s, will be
used to illustrate these rules which are followed by a more
modern Finishing Touches tm translation after each
individual rule.

33
http://www.abcgallery.com/H/hogarth/hogarthbio.html

Finishing touches 42 minute speech

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Finishing touches 42 minute speech