It’s obvious to most that the extremities of the handshakers are most undesirable with the middle ground making the best impressions. Most people would have experienced at least five of the ten types of handshakes listed here, hopefully being spared of the most traumatic, that is, the ones that cause pain such as the bone crusher or death grip. The worse I’ve ever endured was a combination of a short grabber combined with a bone crusher. Whenever I meet this person I tried to trust forward to get as much finger into this persons hand as possible or try to avoid the handshake altogether! Women also seem to be particularly prone to thrusting just their fingers forward and in turn receive an unwelcomingly firm handshake by a clutch of fingers and palms wrapped around their little fingers. They’d be best served to keep their fingers together and thrust the whole lot forward instead of just the tips.
Ingredients of a good handshake includes raising your hand when about three feet away from the other person, keeping your hand vertical with the thumb pointing upwards, making a firm grip of the other person’s hand, shaking web-to-web rather then finger to web, maintain eye contact and shaking for a maximum of three times then letting go. A firm handshake gives the impression of quiet confidence and says that “I’m happy to meet you” yet portrays a person as having a no “non-sense” attitude. As the other person releases their grip pressure be sure to let go of their hand rather than holding on for longer than necessary. Holding the hand at the completion of the handshake can convey added emphasis and intimacy, but it is also risky. This is especially important in business where first impressions can often set the tone for the entire relationship. Fortunately handshakes are learned behaviours and not inherent making it easily corrected when the proper formula is adopted.
Extremely dominant individuals will smile far less then subordinate people because their disposition requires them to do so. They don’t want to appear emotional, because emotions stem from feelings and dominant people have none! Of course this isn’t entirely true, they do show emotions, but the emotions they do disclose via facial expressions are limited and usually meant to show that they are reserved and in control.
Dominant people will use disapproving frowns, snarls or pursed lips. They might squint while in conversation, or avoid eye contact altogether, or even hold prolonged unblinking eye contact. Dominant people can also hold a blink for longer periods of time as if to temporarily shut the world out. To disarm this “extended blinker” try moving one step to the side while they are in mid blink. It is sure to freak them out!
To summarize, being social isn’t a huge priority to a dominant person, they are more concerned with maintain control of others around them instead of trying to make friends or maintain strong emotional bonds. Dominant people figure that whatever socialization is will find them so they won’t go looking for it. Obviously, in business and in life certain characteristics held by dominant people are important, but extremities in any facet is nearly always counterproductive. Showing confidence by holding eye contact is important, but maintaining too much eye contact such as what an extremely dominant person might do, such that it sends shivers down the spine, sends the reverse message. It can negate the existence of others as people, turning them into objects, and seem to cut through them.
Ways of responding to dominance is by using more open body language to disarm them. Cutting through their rigidity with jokes and light hearted humour is another great way to put them into a good mood and break their serious attitude. When trying to break dominant people it is important to avoid submitting from the start, instead try to build an equal footing to foster their respect. You can try to out-stare them by looking at the bridge of their nose instead of their eyes, which can really unsettle them. However, fighting fire with fire in this manner is risky, at best, and requires one to put on a possibly uncomfortable show. The safest alternative is to just ignore their negativity and play yourself up as even more friendly trying to find common interests to help build rapport.
Breaking down touch barriers can also help, but again, this is risky. Touching breaks shields down and the most dominant of people will be taken aback unless the touching is warranted and tactfully executed. When you touch a dog, be prepared for the bark!
Gregory Hartley author of I can read you like a book talks at length about how we are constantly at the whim of ‘Alpha’. As he states it we are either creating the social norms or we are following them. Think about this in terms of your work place and about who calls the shots. Is your body language free flowing or does it react to that of your boss and managers? Do you sit like you do at home? Is your body language relaxed? How does it change when you move from your private space, your cubicle, or your office? How does it react when you are being reprimanded? I suspect that more then you know Alpha’s, not just in your workplace, but in your environment at large and plays a big part in how you comport yourself. Hartleys says that “Unless we are alpha, we are emulating the alpha and overlaying it to our own catalogue of gestures to maintain identity while keeping alpha happy.”
He divides us further into three categories. They are sub-typical, typical and super-typical and places everyone on a bell curve of behaviour within a given culture. The bell curve has a shape of a bell and shows the frequencies of behaviour with most people having middle ground behaviour. The super-typical show extremities in behaviour and set the rules for our cultures and microcultures, they are the politicians and celebrities of our world. Within every sector of our lives there exists this bell curve of behaviour because each of the groups we belong to has a set of acceptable behaviour; at work, your social network, at school and so forth.
Think of the playground, where the super-typical are the popular kids whom everyone looks up to and the sub-typical as the losers, the rest are in the middle. We look up to the super-typical and try to be like them except in the case of the sub-typical who simply long to advance to typical. In our workplace, the super-typical are our bosses and managers, the typical are the average people and the sub-typical are those at the low end of the bell curve.
Naturally, no matter where we are, we all know who these people are because rank is part of our evolutionary history. The sub-typical are those that form part of the group but aren’t the norm and they are consistently dismissed even though everyone sees them as part of the group. In life, the sub-typical are the homeless or socially inept, they don’t take any part in creating our social norms and as mentioned our super-typicals are our politicians and celebrities. Everyone belongs to some sort of group so we all follow social norming and we all to one degree or another follow our alphas. This then triggers behaviours, actions and therefore body language which becomes typical within our groups. So next time you watch other people’s body language be sure to frame it in light of imitating alpha.
There are essentially two types of personalities that exist in the world around us. They are introverted and extroverted each type have a subset called “OK” and “Not OK” (which is discussed next). Introverted describes a personality that is inward thinking, they recover from life by being with themselves and reflecting. The will normally enjoy nature or a good book, prefer quiet areas where not a lot of people distract them. These people will often be found alone and prefer jobs that don’t involve a lot of people and that they can do independently. Being introverted doesn’t mean that a person is antisocial and it’s not a personality deficiency, it only means that someone is more comfortable being alone with their own thoughts than being in the spotlight. Extroverted people are the very opposite. They find social situations necessary and stimulating and “recharge” by hanging out with friends or going out. The like being in busy places like malls or city cores, in acting outwardly and garnering attention through telling jokes or acting funny.
Physiologists now believe that there is an actual physical difference between the nervous system of introverts and extroverts. Introverts are more easily stimulated by social interactions and quickly become oversaturated to the point where they become agitated and feel a need to withdraw. Extroverts can’t find enough stimulation and constantly need to find people to be around, and socialize with, and use social contact to feel satisfied. How you use your time most often will tell you which of the two personality types you are. With every classification, there are variants however, and people can be a mix of the two or can fall in at the extremities.
The body language of introverts in public places will be rigid; they will zone out more quickly or find quiet places and park themselves. They are at ease being alone even when at parties and might even take breaks away from the noise to ‘chill out’. They’ll spend more time at home and less time in nightclubs. The nonverbal language of the introvert will show more closed body positions. Their shoulders will pull in, they will orient their bodies away from others, they might be less animated and they will often be the first to stop speaking and resort to listening or observing others instead. They might even keep their distance more frequently, be soft spoken, initiate touch on others less and avoid eye contact. Extroverts are the opposite and tend to spontaneously turn toward people, they will start up conversations with random people, they will touch more in conversation and talk more frequently to keep the conversation going. They’ll use more gestures in speech in attempts to draw attention to themselves and generally take up more space. They will also tend to move about a room more and jump from person to person trying to get as much stimulation from others as possible. A quick test to verify extroversion from introversion is to watch how people break gaze. Generally speaking an introvert will break their gaze by looking to the right whereas extroverts will break their gaze to the left. This fact alone suggests that the differences we see between these two personality types has less to do with environment and more to do with how the brains are hardwired.
To work productively with the introverted, formulate groups as small as possible. For the introverted one on one represents the best scenario. Set up meetings in quiet areas with little distraction. Maintain as much space as possible, talk quietly, reduce eye contact, use touch infrequently or not at all. To work with the extroverted do the exact opposite. Talk louder with more expressions, touch frequently, be dynamic, move in closer, and give plenty of eye contact. Extreme extroverts and extreme introverts will be happiest at the end of their respective spectrum.
Above: Susan Cain on the power of introverts in TED talks.
