A few weeks ago we were lying in bed listening to the BBC World Service, as we often do. It was a Saturday morning. We had nothing major on our agenda for the day, so were able to give our full attention to the major items of world news the newscaster was reading.As we listened to the headlines we were surprised to hear that one of the items concerned handshaking. Handshaking is something of an art form in much of Africa, West Nile included, so we were interested to hear what the report would have to say.
In fact it concerned a piece of research that had been commissioned from the University of Manchester (UK) by a major car company. The company wished to
improve their customer relations and was preparing a ‘handshake training guide’ for some of their customer services employees.It seems that 19 per cent of people researched hated shaking hands and were unsure how it should be done properly. Major questions surrounded how hard you should squeeze someone’s hand, how long you should hold it for and what could be done about sweaty palms. This was serious stuff.
Fortunately the professor responsible for the research had come up with a lengthy formula to describe the perfect handshake. It includes such variables as eye contact, the nature of the smile accompanying the handshake, the position of the body, temperature and texture of the hand, and a number of others. If you have a chance to look at the formula it is worth studying. It even includes the value π.Reading a brief account of the research, however, I was bound to conclude that the main reason people in UK can find shaking hands challenging is
because they don’t get enough practice. If you are to develop any practical skill you have to practice. Ask any professional musician, actor, or even English footballer (?!).The research revealed that in Britain men shake hands on average 6.2 hands a week, and women 2.6 times each week. But seriously, how can you become truly competent at handshaking if that’s all the practice you get?
When I shared this piece of information in a sermon at the cathedral, everyone fell around laughing. They all knew a much better way of training the car company employees. Send them to West Nile for a week or two. Here the average frequency of handshaking is closer to 6.2 times every hour (at least), and at a much higher skill level than in the West.But now, if you can’t come to West Nile, at least you can refer to Manchester University’s research, although it won’t give you the same handshaking experience as you can get here!
