Books on Happiness / The Definitive Book Of Body Language- 2 students

The Power Is in Your Hands

classes and taught them as business strategies, which, with a little practice and application, can dramatically influence any face-to-face meeting, as you will see.

Dominance is transmitted by turning your hand (striped sleeve) so that your palm faces down in the handshake (see below). Your palm doesn't have to face directly down, but is the upper hand and communicates that you want to take control of the encounter.

Taking control

Our study of 350 successful senior management executives (89% of whom were men) revealed that not only did almost all of the managers initiate the handshake, 88% of males and 31% of females also used the dominant handshake position. Power and control issues are generally less important to women, which probably accounts for why only one in three women attempted the Upper Hand ritual. We also found that some women will give men a soft handshake in some social contexts to imply submissiveness. This is a way of highlighting their femininity or implying that domination of her may be possible. In a business context, however, this approach can be disastrous for a woman because men will give attention to her feminine qualities and not take her seriously. Women who display high femininity in business meetings are not taken seriously by other business women or men, despite the fact that it's now fashionable or politically correct to say everyone is the

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same. This doesn't mean a woman in business needs to act in a masculine way; she simply needs to avoid signals of femaleness such as soft handshakes, short skirts and high heels if she wants equal credibility.

Women who show high feminine signals in a serious business meeting lose credibility.

In 2001, William Chaplin at the University of Alabama conducted a study into handshakes and found that extroverted types use firm handshakes while shy, neurotic personalities don't. Chaplin also found that women who are open to new ideas used firm handshakes. Men used the same handshakes whether they were open to new ideas or not. So it makes good business sense for women to practise firmer handshaking, particularly with men.

The Submissive Handshake

The opposite of the dominant handshake is to offer your hand (striped sleeve) with your palm facing upwards (as below), symbolically giving the other person the upper hand, like a dog exposing its throat to a superior dog.

The submissive handshake

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The Power Is in Your Hands

This can be effective if you want to give the other person control or allow him to feel that he is in charge of the situation if for example, you were making an apology.

While the palm-up handshake can communicate a submissive attitude, there are sometimes other circumstances to consider. As we have seen, a person with arthritis in their hands will be forced to give you a limp handshake because of their condition and this makes it easy to turn their palm into the submissive position. People who use their hands in their profession, such as surgeons, artists and musicians, may also give a limp handshake, purely to protect their hands. The gesture clusters they use following their handshake will give further clues for your assessment of them - a submissive person will use more submissive gestures and a dominant person will use more assertive gestures.

How to Create Equality

When two dominant people shake hands, a symbolic power struggle takes place as each person attempts to turn the other's palm into the submissive position. The result is a vice-like handshake with both palms remaining in the vertical position and this creates a feeling of equality and mutual respect because neither is prepared to give in to the other.

Communicating equality

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The Definitive Book of Body Language

How to Create Rapport

There are two key ingredients for creating rapport in a handshake. First, make sure that yours and the other person's palms are in the vertical position so that no one is dominant or sub! missive. Second, apply the same pressure you receive. This means that if, on a firmness scale of 1-10, your handshake registers a 7 but the other person is only a 5, you'll need to back off 20% in strength. If their grip is a 9 and yours is a 7, you'll need to increase your grip by 20%. If you were meeting a group of ten people, you'd probably need to make several adjustments of angle and intensity to create a feeling of rapport with everyone and to stay on an equal footing with each person. Also keep in mind that the average male hand can exert around twice the power of the average female hand, so allowances must be made for this. Evolution has allowed male hands to exert a grip of up to 100 pounds (45kg) for actions such as tearing, gripping, carrying, throwing and hammering.

Remember that the handshake evolved as a gesture to say hello or goodbye or to seal an agreement so it always needs to be warm, friendly and positive.

How to Disarm a Power Player

The Palm-Down Thrust is reminiscent of the Nazi salute and is the most aggressive of all handshakes because it gives the receiver little chance of establishing an equal relationship. This handshake is typical of the overbearing, dominant person who always initiates it, and their stiff arm with palm facing downwards forces the receiver into the submissive position.

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The Power Is in Your Hands

The Palm-Down Thrust

If you feel someone is giving a Palm-Down Thrust to you on purpose, here are several counters to it:

1.The Step-to-the-RightTechnique

If you receive a dominant handshake from a power player — and it's mostly men who do it - it is not only difficult to turn his palm back up into an equal position, but it's obvious when you do it.

This technique involves first stepping forward with your left foot as you reach to shake hands. This takes a little practice, as stepping forward on the right foot is the natural position for 90% of people when shaking with the right hand.

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The Definitive Book of Body Language

Next, step forward with your right leg, moving across in front of the person and into his personal space. Finally, bring your left leg across to your right leg to complete the manoeuvre (see below), and shake the person's hand. This tactic allows you to straighten the handshake or even turn it over into the submissive position. It feels as if you're walking across in front of him and is the equivalent of winning an arm-wrestling bout. It also allows you to take control by invading his personal space.

Walk across in front with your right leg and turn his palm up

Analyse your own approach to shaking hands and notice whether you step forward on your left or right foot when you extend your arm to shake hands. Most people are right footed and are therefore at a disadvantage when they receive a dominant handshake because they have little room to move and it allows the other person to dominate. Practise stepping into a handshake with your left foot and you will find that it is easier to deal with the power players who would try to control you.

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The Power Is in Your Hands

2.The Hand-on-Top Technique

When a power player presents you with a Palm-Down Thrust, respond with your hand in the Palm-Up position then put your left hand over his right to form a Double-Hander and straighten the handshake.

The Double-Hander

This switches the power from him to you and is a much simpler way of dealing with the situation, and is much easier for women to use. If you feel the power player is purposefully trying to intimidate, and he does it regularly, grasp his hand on top and then shake it (as below). This can shock a power player so you need to be selective when using it and do it only as a last resort.

The last resort

The Cold, Clammy Handshake

No one likes receiving a handshake that feels like you've been handed four cold breakfast sausages. If we become tense when meeting strangers, blood diverts away from the cells below the

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outer layer of the skin on the hands - known as the dermis - and goes to the arm and leg muscles for 'fight or flight' preparation. The result is that our hands lose temperature and begin to sweat, making them feel cold and clammy and resulting in a handshake that feels like a wet salmon. Keep a handkerchief in a pocket or handbag so that you can dry your palms immediately before meeting someone important so you don't make a poor first impression. Alternatively, before a new meeting, simply visualise that you are holding your palms in front of an open fire. This visualisation technique is proven to raise the temperature of the average person's palm by 3-4 degrees.

Gaining the Left Side Advantage

When two leaders stand side by side for media photographs, they try to appear equal in physical size and dress code but the one who stands to the left of the picture is perceived by viewers to have a dominant edge over the other. This is because it is easier to gain the upper hand when they shake, making the one to the left of the photograph appear to be in control. This is obvious in the handshake that took place between John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon prior to their television debate in 1960. At that time the world was ignorant about body language but, on analysis, JFK appears to have had an intuitive understanding about how to use it. He made a practice of standing on the left-hand side of a photograph, and applying the Upper-Hand position was one of his favourite moves.

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The Definitive Book of Body Language

World leaders approaching from the wrong side — the right side of the photograph — and walking into a dominant handshake

When Men and Women Shake Hands

Even though women have had a strong presence in the workforce for several decades, many men and women still experience degrees of fumbling and embarrassment in male/female greetings. Most men report that they received some basic handshaking training from their fathers when they were boys, but few women report the same training. As adults, this can create uncomfortable situations when a man reaches first to shake a woman's hand but she may not see it — she's initially more intent on looking at his face. Feeling awkward with his hand suspended in mid-air, the man pulls it back hoping she didn't notice but as he does, she reaches for it and is also left with her hand dangling in a void. He reaches for her hand again and the result is a mish-mash of tangled fingers that look and feel like two eager squid in a love embrace.

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