Dodge the hug, not the handshake
By Julia McKinnell - Monday, November 12, 2012 - 0 Comments
Palm-to-palm contact is crucial if you want to make a good impression
Photo Illustration By Taylor Shute
Patti Wood sees a disturbing new trend: the decline of the handshake. Germophobes are shunning palm-to-palm contact and it’s hurting their careers, says the author of Snap: Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma.
According to Wood, 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, it’s amazing that you can shake hands with someone and, in a moment, make him feel as safe and comfortable with you as if you’d been talking for hours.”
The handshake is so vital that Wood speaks up if someone refuses hers. “I say, ‘Put out your hand!’” the author said on the phone from Decatur, Georgia. “Even if you don’t get a good handshake, you can say, ‘Let’s try that again,’ and go in for a better grip.”
As she explains, first impressions are made in a split second. “We can form an accurate first impression in 100 milliseconds – less than the time it takes to snap our fingers.” Continue…
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Shaking all over?
By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 12:30 PM - 1 Comment
NO HANDSHAKE for the Dalai Lamai in Memphis; the mayor greeted him with a fist bump
There is a great deal of good news in Ottawa’s recent end-of-year report on the H1N1 flu. But would you want to shake on it?
According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, most regions in the country now report either sporadic or no evidence of H1N1. Hospitalizations have been falling sharply since mid-November and the flu threat appears to be in rapid decline in Canada, as well as the rest of the world. While any death from disease is a tragedy, the toll of the flu seems substantially less than the worst-case scenarios initially presented. Whether this is due to overstated risks or sound public health management is unclear. What is obvious, however, is that the most significant impact of last year’s H1N1 flu scare is the threat it still poses to one of our oldest and most recognized public customs—shaking hands.
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Did someone ask for issues?
By selley - Tuesday, September 30, 2008 at 4:45 PM - 17 Comments
Sigh….
Sigh.
