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3. MEET AND GREET

Get Off to a Great Start with Handshakes and Other Greetings

My friend Jerry has been a customer service trainer for more than a decade and repeatedly gets high ratings from his audiences. But early in his career, Jerry found that it took what seemed like an eternity to get the audience to warm up to him and give him their full attention.

One day, a fellow trainer invited Jerry to watch her teach a course. Jerry sat in the back of the room and observed as his more experienced colleague made sure to greet each person who entered her workshop. She shook each person’s hand, introduced herself, asked for the person’s name, and then repeated the name. She personally welcomed each person to the program.

When the workshop started, Jerry’s colleague seemed to have immediate rapport with her participants. He vowed to try her “handshake technique” at his next presentation.

He did and the difference was astounding. By the time the workshop started, Jerry felt that he’d already made a personal connection with each person in the room and they with him. People started participating within fifteen minutes of the class starting, whereas it used to take at least a half hour to an hour to get them all involved and contributing to discussions. He could not believe the difference.

The average person shakes hands fifteen thousand times in a lifetime.¹ But the choices of where, when, and with whom to share a handshake, and whether to shake hands at all, have changed over the past few years as the business culture has grown more casual. We are also exposed more often to people who have different religion- and culture-based touch and greeting norms, and to members of the germaphobic Purell generation as they enter the workforce or step into leadership roles. Shaking hands remains an important ritual for us to understand, use with ease, and appreciate as a source of first-impression information. Recent studies indicate that a firm handshake — held with a complete grip — showing strength and vigor, along with eye contact of an appropriate length, creates a favorable first impression in North America. In fact, the handshake is the quickest, most effective way to establish rapport with another person.

Instant Rapport with a Handshake

When I was in graduate school and read the study that concluded it takes an average of three hours of continuous face-to-face interaction to develop the same level of rapport you get instantly with a handshake, that fact stuck with me. Feedback from audiences at my talks and seminars has validated that finding many times, but I can no longer find the original research. It seems amazing and yet perfectly believable that a handshake can make someone feel as comfortable with you as talking with you for hours. Try it out yourself. Shake or don’t shake, and see what happens.

Research in the United States also shows that it takes an average of three hours of continuous face-to-face interaction to develop the same level of rapport you get instantly with a handshake. Yes, a handshake is equal to three hours of interaction. It’s amazing that you can shake hands with someone and, in that moment, make him feel as safe and comfortable with you as if you’d been talking for hours.

Handshakes Come First

So many of my clients and audience members have asked about handshakes that I have been conducting survey research on the topic for many years. Not surprisingly, my survey research shows that the handshake remains the generally preferred greeting for initial meetings by 84 percent of women and 98 percent of men.

Many cultures have greeting rituals — from handshakes to bows to namastes. They all create a stop position that puts greeters at a safe distance and gives each person a full view of the other’s body from the feet to the top of the head. Basic handshake rules in North America: walk up to a person, stop approximately sixteen inches away, and shake hands. In business, we greet someone in this manner and then step back to stand a minimum of two and a half feet away to talk.

Often there is no other form of touch in the critical first four minutes of an interaction. If you don’t shake hands, you miss out on so much. In my experience, many awkward first encounters that end with miscommunication occur because the parties did not have the safety check of a handshake. I’m not sure why this is true, but if you think back through your own encounters, you will likely find that those without handshakes did not go as well as those with handshakes. Shaking hands provides vital information and an opportunity to connect, so don’t skip this important greeting.

When Do You Shake Hands?

This is one of the top questions asked by my audience members. The general guidelines for when to shake are as follows:

• When you are introduced

• When you say good-bye

• When an outsider visits you in your office or place of business

• When you seal a deal or finish signing a contract

• When you offer congratulations

• When you encounter someone you know from a business or social relationship outside the confines of your office

• When you first enter a business or social setting and greet people you already know

• When you exit any business meeting, especially those attended by outsiders

• When you want to signal that your interaction with a stranger has become more significant than it was when you first began. (If you’ve ever had a conversation with a stranger on an airplane, you probably didn’t shake hands until you knew you wanted to talk further. Sometimes people won’t shake hands until the end of the flight; they shake then to indicate that they enjoyed the conversation and would like to speak again.)

• When you want to show others in the room that you respect and accept a certain person, and to demonstrate that you regard that person as safe

• When you want to show another person that the space she is entering into, and the group she is joining, is safe.

There are many opportunities to shake hands, and each one offers a wealth of information.

The Body Language of Handshakes

We subconsciously read open, empty palms as indications that a person will be honest, open, and trustworthy. It is not surprising that religious leaders and religious figures throughout the ages have been depicted with open palms facing forward.

Biologically, the hands’ temperature and the moisture of the hands, too, communicate important information. Hands get cold under stress. When we shake hands with someone whose hands are cold, our primal brain reacts with a danger response — “This person isn’t calm; is that because he’s nervous, afraid, or about to attack?” The palms of the hands sweat in response to stress; so if you have sweaty palms, this will signal to others that you are nervous and may be dangerous.²