4.3. A HELICOPTER MISSION FAILURE

Many companies wish helicopter parents had become more involved in one workplace issue: how to behave in the office and at social events. Remember Mom's lectures about standing up straight, using the proper fork, eating slowly—and with your mouth shut? Well, a lot of millennials don't seem to have received such pointers.

Ironically, helicopter parents haven't been vigilant enough when it comes to practical but important life lessons. In their zeal to instill self-esteem and heap on the praise, they have neglected to teach millennials some of the basic etiquette rules that could give them polish and help advance their careers—such as keeping iPods and cell phones turned off during meetings and, oh yes, showing up for work on time.

Now colleges, business schools, and employers are trying to make up for parents' failure to teach their kids proper workplace and social etiquette. During orientation for new employees, some employers must tell millennials that it's rude to answer their cell phones when they're with clients or customers.

Gretchen Neels, a Boston-based consultant, has seen or heard it all in her experience teaching etiquette to business school students and young law firm associates. Get her going and she'll tell you about the law firm associate who went to lunch with a partner and ordered the salade niçoise, pronouncing it "ni-cozy." He proceeded to gobble down much of it—green beans, boiled eggs, and olives—with his hands. Then she'll tell about the time a law firm asked her to help prepare 30 new associates for a black-tie event. She had to field such questions as, "Do I have to wear a tie?" and "What's with all the forks and glasses on the table?"

Where were the helicopter parents for these uncouth millennials? Neels traces it back to their unwillingness to act like a parent when it came to dishing out discipline or criticism. "Their attitude was let's all be pals and have a nice time," she says. "If they tried to correct their kids for eating with their mouths open and holding their forks the wrong way, the kids told them they were being mean and critical. So the parents just said, 'You know what? Eat any way you want.'"