If you’re a manager, don’t think for a moment that someone else is managing your career. Those days are long gone. YOU are managing your career. What you do - not only in job skills, but also in what we call “Transition Skills” - will be the primary determinant of your career success. You’re not going to have the richest, most rewarding series of roles and opportunities by allowing someone in HR to know enough about you to get you where you need to be. And succession planning won’t save you either.

And one of the most important of the Transition Skills is Building And Maintaining Your Network. Most people are terrible at it. We know this because they have no network.

Now, notice that we did NOT say that the skill was “networking”. That term conjures up schmoozing, and cocktail parties, and too many people don’t like it. So, we’re not suggesting you do that.

We’re suggesting you Build and Maintain Your Network. It only takes THREE SIMPLE SKILLS, and we’ll walk through them.

Oh, yeah … and there’s a blooper in the show. Did you catch it?

The hand shake is the most important professional greetings in the world today. There are many cultures in the world, and there are places to bow, and places to hug, and places where cheek-kissing is perfectly appropriate. The handshake, though is the preferred greeting for most of our audience.

If you’re going to do business in the world, or if you’re a manager at a multi-national corporation, you need to know how to shake hands. This cast will teach you in excruciating (grin) detail.

The Ten Steps to a Great Handshake

Some No-Nos

I am sure it makes me seem terribly nerdy to break a handshake down this way… but it works, and we know lots of folks want to know, but don’t know where to go. This is one case where if you go to the world wide web, you’ll be reminded of why we started Manager Tools. What passes for training or guidance is almost always irreproducible.