Why are first impressions important?

When you walk into a networking meeting what messages are you giving out to other people and what judgements are you making about them?

However much we say we are going to keep an open mind, it’s impossible to do that in the first few seconds of meeting someone.

We all make snap judgements based on the tiniest amount of information. We may be able to put those to one side and open our minds later but because the first judgement we make is an unconscious one, we’re often not aware of it at all so it’s really difficult to take it apart and analyse it later.

This means that we erect barriers between us and other people without even being aware of them. What’s worse is that, because of the way our minds work, if we do become aware of them, instead of telling ourselves it’s ridiculous to dislike or distrust someone based on a snap judgement; we look for reasons to justify those feelings. (For more on this read Malcolm Gladwell’s fabulous book, Blink)

How many potentially really great relationships never get a second chance? Making judgements without being consciously aware of them means that we may just get a feeling that we don’t like someone, or worse, that someone doesn’t like us so we tend to avoid that person in future and very rarely get a chance to revise our first impressions.

What are first impressions based on?

There is a set of statistics which are quoted in every book and article on First Impressions I’ve ever read. They come from Albert Mehrabian’s communication work in the 1970’s and are explained in his 1981 published book “Silent Messages”. They are probably the most abused set of statistics in general use, misquoted in all sorts of situations so here is what Mehrabian has to say about them:

“Please note that this and other equations regarding relative importance of verbal and nonverbal messages were derived from experiments dealing with communications of feelings and attitudes (i.e., like-dislike). Unless a communicator is talking about their feelings or attitudes, these equations are not applicable.”

The findings are that Total Liking is made up of 7% Verbal Liking + 38% Vocal Liking + 55% Facial Liking.

See http://www.kaaj.com/psych/smorder.html and http://www.kaaj.com/psych for more details on Mehrabian

So in the first few seconds of meeting someone we decide whether or not we like them based mostly on how their face, tone of voice and words appeal to us. If the words and the tone of voice are not giving us the same message e.g, “I’m pleased to meet you”, said in sarcastic tone, we check out the facial expression to see what is really meant. What Mehrabian’s study shows that where there is ambiguity we are more likely to trust the facial expression to get the idea of what is being communicated.

I’ve seen people walk into a networking group looking friendly, hopeful, wary, anxious, aloof and even bored or angry and I know I react to their expressions but I usually wonder what is going on in their heads too.

If you are one of the people who finds it hard to walk into a room full of strangers looking relaxed and open stop worrying about your elevator pitch or what you’re wearing. Get your smile right and most of the rest will follow.

Most of us are just like the iceberg. When we look below the surface its amazing what we find.

This post was written by Ann Hawkins http://theinspiredgroup.com More posts on First Impressions will follow.