Greeting

When I got on the elevator at the Hotel in Hawaii, a gentle American couple greeted me with a smile, and I also greeted them with a smile and some words. Then they invited me to their suite room and I was treated by a very nice glass of wine.

I was just wondering whether it is common for American people to greet with a smile to the first met person, and asked about this to my American friend afterwards. He told me that a “greeting with a smile” is a kind of sign to show that they are not an “enemy” to the others and to protect them from the possibility of being attacked in a narrowelevator.

Some one told me that, “Greeting is one of the methods to express love to theothers”. As you all might have experienced, even in a family relationship, when there are no greetings such as “good morning” or “good night”, it could be a serious situation.

Because of my job assignment, I often changed my working environment, such as different offices and teams. And always, the first impression in the new office or to the new team member was very important to me. Sometimes, I joined a very dark and gloomy working environment and no one responded to me, even though I greeted them by saying “good morning”. In such a case, I tried to greet them with a smile and they gradually responded to me. But sometimes, there still were people who did not respond to me, so I walked closer to them and gazed into their eyes and greeted them with a smile, and then finally they responded to me.

I didn't know whether they were shy or just lazy to respond to me, but if one of the reasons was that they hated me, it could have been a serious problem so I needed to improve the relationship. When the working environment has changed to an environment that can exchange the “greeting with a smile”, the business performance of the team has increased. It might be too obvious that the business performance of the team will increase when there is a good human relationship between the team members and when they are enjoying their job.

And one might think that a mere greeting does not make that much difference, but please make an effort to greet by all means, if you are especially in an environment without greetings. I truly believe that many good things will surely happen, if you could change your environment by “greeting with a smile”.