When Bing Crosby sang Happy Holidays in the 1950s, nobody expressed any concern over its contribution to our national decline(or if they did, the event is unremembered). Times change. A flood of readers responded to this week's Keep the Joint Running, which asked why so many people (according to Newsweek nearly a third of all Americans) take offense when they hear the phrase. Several aspects of this controversy When Bing Crosby sang Happy Holidays in the 1950s, nobody expressed any concern over its contribution to our national decline(or if they did, the event is unremembered). Times change.A flood of readers responded to this week’s Keep the Joint Running, which asked why so many people (according to Newsweek nearly a third of all Americans) take offense when they hear the phrase.Several aspects of this controversy matter to professional IT managers and executives. One of the most important is the difference between what constitutes acceptable behavior when you’re acting as a private citizen and in your professional capacity. As a private citizen, it’s up to you to decide the boundaries of good taste. Some people consider it most appropriate to adapt their greeting to the other person – “Merry Christmas” if they’re talking to a Christian, “Happy Hanukkah” if it’s a Jew, a generic “Happy Holidays” if this isn’t a religious season for that person or if they aren’t sure. Others figure everyone should choose what’s significant for them, since it’s their good wishes they’re offering to the other person. So a Jew would wish everyone a Happy Hanukkah (presumably, Greeks wouldn’t take offense, even though Hanukkah celebrates the expulsion of the Greeks from Judea) and so forth. Christians would wish everyone Merry Christmas.Personally, if someone offers me good wishes in any form I’m happy to receive them, even if they don’t fit my personal metaphysical framework.This analysis is completely inappropriate when you’re acting in your professional capacity, though. As a professional, you’re the agent of your employer. With few exceptions – all either privately held corporations or non-profit organizations – businesses are intrinsically secular entities. You’re responsible for creating an environment in which nobody has any concerns that employees who are members of some religions or ethnicities will receive preferential treatment (I’ll leave affirmative action for another day). So as a manager, you have two choices when offering holiday greetings to your employees. If you happen to know what an individual celebrates, offer that brand of good cheer. If not, or if you’re addressing a group, offer a secular greeting. “Merry Christmas” is inoffensive. It should be inoffensive. If you’re talking about December 25th and not the whole season, it’s an accurate identification of the day.Nonetheless, from a manager it implies that there’s an assumption of Christianity, and that could cause Hindus, Moslems, Jews, atheists and other non-Christians to infer that you and they have less connection than you do with your Christian employees. (Equivalent cautions apply to everyone, of course.)If the entire issue revolved around the holiday season, this posting would be both too late and too trivial to worry about. It comes up in lots of non-December situations, too. For example, one reader described a devoutly Christian executive who, with nothing but the best of intentions, created a purely voluntary Bible study group that met over the lunch hour once a week. His intention was to promote good values and build morale. What he achieved was to create insiders and outsiders, along with a well-recognized opportunity for brown-nosing. A wise man, he spotted what was going on early, and dropped the whole thing.We live in a diverse society. Personally, I like it that way – it makes life more interesting. It does, however, create professional challenges that wouldn’t come up in a more homogeneous population. Pretending it doesn’t just means you’re more likely to step on a land mine.Happy Holidays! – Bob Technology Industry