on the job


I


t’s all about image, image, image. Business is all about how you present yourself and the company you’re working for. And the most powerful means of communication are often non-verbal messages.


FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT Your dress, make-up and hair, posture, the way you walk, your body language, how you speak and even how your desk looks can matter more than any words you’re using. They all play their role in creating your first impression and in upholding this first impression. Whether you’re meeting a potential client for the first time or delivering your tenth project for a loyal customer, you want to impress them. Whether it’s your first day in the office or your third year, you want to show people what you’re capable of. Whether it’s your first meeting with the CEO who knows only as much about you as is written in your file, or you are old friends from school, you still want to make a specific impression.


DRESS TO IMPRESS It’s not as simple as wearing a comfy pair of jeans and a loose sweater to the office in anticipation of a bad day ahead. Your look can determine the nature of future interactions between you, your colleagues and your boss and can affect your chances of winning that potential client your boss is pushing you to sign. It can even influence your chances of getting a promotion. The most powerful people in politics, finance,


fashion, media, film and other industries all endeavour not to be seen in anything that is short of a perfect representation of their personal brand and a potential ticket to future success.


THE SCIENCE BIT Numerous studies have proven that it takes only three seconds to make a judgement about someone we see for the first time – as a recent study by Dr Karen Pine and her colleagues demonstrates. In her research Pine asked participants to judge a photograph of a person only by the way they were dressed, by concealing their faces.


Participants responded far more positively to those dressed in smarter or better fitting clothes – demonstrating just how important our personal style is. Research has proven over and over how hard it is to


change a first impression. A recent study from a team of psychologists from Canada, Belgium and the US found that no matter how constrasting subsequent meetings with people are, once a first impression has been made, any other meeting – however positive – is associated only with the specific context in which it takes place, ie. first impressions stick.


LOOK GOOD, FEEL GOOD And if that hasn’t persuaded you that style matters, then you should also consider that what you wear can affect how you feel – and even how you think. Recent research on ‘enclothed cognition’, a phenomenon suggesting an effect of clothes on the wearer’s thought processes, showed how wearing clothing with a particular symbolic meaning can influence our thinking. Researchers asked one group of participants to wear white coats they were told were lab coats worn by doctors. The other two groups were either wearing white coats that they were told students used as protective clothing, or their own clothes. As a result, the group wearing ‘doctors’ lab coats made half as many errors as other participants on the test, suggesting that the clothes they were wearing had a positive influence on their work. So, what you wear and how you present yourself is


extremely important is a crucial element to how people form their first impressions of you. It also has an effect on the everyday impressions you make in the office and therefore on how people behave towards you. Last, but not least: it influences your emotions, moods and thoughts.


For more information on Kate Nightingale’s consultancy services visitkatenightingale.com


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