A Vocabulary Of Hands

Your hands have a small vocabulary. Learn it and you can pick the right signal on purpose:

• Palms up: honesty and invitation — for requests or admitting a doubt
• Palms down: certainty and calm — for declarations or cooling a room
• Hands behind back: formal distance — for observing or being briefed
• Shaping the air: making an idea visible — for anything abstract

The one rule that ties them together: your hands and your words must agree. When they clash, the listener senses it and trusts you less, even if they cannot say why.