I grew up in a town of 18,000, with farm land for 30 minutes in every direction. I took my wife there when we were dating and was driving her through my old neighborhood when someone waved from his front yard.
”Who is that?"
"No clue.”
This is where I should tell you that my wife is from the mean streets of inside the Loop Houston. The Big City.
”So he just waved at you?”
On a recent family vacation to London, I challenged my 5 year old daughter as we rode on the Underground: “I’ll give you a Pez for every person who waves back at you.”
(My children are overjoyed if they get a single Pez. Not a Pez toy, not a sleeve of candy, but just one piece. This is how I know that nurture matters. At my daughter’s age, I was closing the doors to the kitchen so I could climb on the counter and sneak sugar cubes.)
I realized quickly that I had set the bar way too low, as I soon owed her and my son 20 PEZ each.
So, of course, I upped the ante.
Now they got a Pez for every person who said hello back. For my 3 year old son, no amount of Pez was worth it, and my daughter took some prodding as well. So, I did what every gentle parenting book tells you to do: I modeled the behavior.
”Hello!"
"Hi, how are you doing?"
"Good morning.”
Shop keepers, tourists, the guy in the blue suit headed to work at 7 AM: no one escaped my smile and greeting. I was so enthusiastic that my daughter suddenly turned 15 and was holding my hand down so I couldn’t embarass her in front of any other English people. (I tried to tell her that my ancestors cared so little what the English thought that they took off for Nebraska, but that didn’t have quite the oompf that I had hoped.)
Of course, then we returned home and to only saying bonjour and au revoir as we entered and exited a store. Vacation you rarely lasts longer than it takes to put away your suitcase.
I remembered this all recently when I went to New York for a work conference where I was presenting. I had lived in New York for five years and, while I tell people “it never really clicked with me,” what never really clicked was the impersonality of the whole city. I could never accept that you could go to a grocery store, get in the line to pay, and the cashier would never look up or say a word. Why not just install self checkouts in that case? Why not just order on Amazon?
I had to get myself in “conference mode,” though. I’d have to talk not just to the people who came to my talk (relatively easy), but to people who were there for other reasons (much harder).
So, and I still don’t know why I did this, I started saying hi to random people on the Manhattan streets. To the police officer: “How you doing today? Thanks for everything you do.” To the guy in a floral shirt: “Hey, nice shirt!” To the woman with a mini-Trader Joe’s bag: “Did you know those bags are in high demand in Europe and Asia?” (This was the rare exception: 95% of the people I greeted were guys. First, men don’t get a ton of compliments day to day, especially from strangers. Second, a guy saying “hey, how you doing today?” to a woman has a slightly different charge to it, and I didn’t want to hold up my left hand and point to my ring finger while doing it.)
The most surprising thing, to me, was that out of all the people I said something to, only one single person didn’t smile and react positively. And even that guy seemed more caught off guard. Manhattan, the world capital of self-absorption, were full of people eager to engage in greetings with a stranger, so long as the stranger initiated it.
Back in Paris, I once again gave my daughter a challenge. We were on our way home from church, and I told her: a piece of candy if you get five people to say hi to you.
This time she wasn’t as interested. She wanted the candy, but not with a task attached to it.
”Okay, that’s fine, I’ll do it.”
And I did, with gusto. This time the embarrassment was there from the beginning, as she giggled and nearly jumped on my shoulders so I couldn’t wave at anyone. Which, obviously, just made me do it even more. My daughter, eventually, joined in.
This time, her childish charm was no match against people walking down the street. While you’re expected to greet people at stores or in the elevator, those same expectations apparently don’t apply on the sidewalk. Even with cherubic enthusiasm. Probably 90% of people kept walking.
But, hey, that’s okay. You’ve got to try.
If I were trawling for shares, this is the point where I’d share with you what I learned about putting yourself out there. How you have to be okay with looking silly, without a guarantee of success. Maybe even adding how it applies to Product Management or B2B sales.
That’s not what I took away, though. Instead, my lesson is that, sometimes it just feels good to say hi to other people.