The year I graduated from college President Reagan had just finished his last term, the Berlin Wall had fallen, the economy was growing, and the cold war had thawed. There were no walls to stop me, and as far as I knew nobody was trying to build new ones.  It was my turn to introduce myself to corporate America, and the future was mine to write.

In 1990 we had yet to meet Siri or Alexa, and nobody had an online profile that you could look up to make a judgment on their character, or whether they were worthy of meeting at all.  Thank god. I can only imagine what my online profile may have communicated had a camera captured and documented every decision I made as a teen growing up in the 80s. That really was a clove cigarette.  Just saying.

If you wanted to know somebody, and determine if they were worthy of your time, you had to actually meet them in person.  You had to make a decision based on your face to face interaction.  You were required to both use interpersonal skills and interpret body language.

According to my father all I needed to succeed was a decent golf swing, a firm handshake, and a power suit and the world was my oyster. Frankly, in the pre-always-connected internet, social-media-crazed world there was truth in this. In the 90s perceptions were created real time. Meetings happened on the golf course, and first impressions really were first impressions.

My fighter-pilot father had a lot of advice, but he never mentioned there might be a little different set of rules and expectations for a daughter versus a son.  The generation of bra burners before me had already solved the question of whether women were equal, right?   Truth is, getting and retaining a seat at the table, and making sure my voice was heard in corporate America would require a little thicker skin, and at times significantly different body language than for the fellow in the office next to me.

Body language and interpersonal skills mattered in 1990, and they matter today. When somebody greets me with a “you’re a delicate woman”, finger-tip-only handshake, I am instantly put off.  Of course we are all familiar with the no grip, limp, dead fish handshake.  Eww.  Then there is the male to male power play women are typically left out of altogether, which is a handshake accompanied by a grab of the upper arm.

But the most egregious male to female power play was, and is, a hand-shake held too long paired with an eye-wander – specifically starting at eye contact and moving vertically down from there. Yes, I noticed, and wasn’t that the intention?  Of course, I ignored this blatant disrespect and learned to move on.

Until one day I didn’t.

Not too far into my career, and after a particularly creepy, lingering, eye-wandering handshake, I recalled another lesson my father had taught me in first grade. I had come home upset about being teased by the school bully on the play-ground. I was in tears and complaining about going back to school the next day. My father simply looked me in the eye and told me, once again with no acknowledgment that being a 6-year-old girl should in any way alter his advice, “If somebody comes at you with a stick, never run. Look them in the eye and pick up a bigger stick.”  As mentioned earlier, my father was a fighter pilot, so the “turn the other cheek and walk away” advice was not something that came naturally for him. For the record I believe both have validity.  The real art is knowing when to use which.  But what my dad had wisely shared with me was the guys rule book, and if I wanted to play to win it would behoove me to apply the rules accordingly.

I decided to give it a try.  I would not ignore and look the other way, but instead return the eye-wandering hand-shake, with a stronger right-back-at-you no-flinch grip.

This approach coupled with what I’d like to believe, my intellectual value, allowed me to gain confidence and respect by making it clear that I would not be intimidated. It kept me in the conversation, ultimately earning me a chair at the corporate table.  It was a lesson in interpersonal skills that would and did pay off.

Mastering these interpersonal skills was important in the 90s, and frankly I am convinced it is equally important today. But learning how to interpret body language and successfully communicate face to face takes a lot of practice and a bit of grit.  I often wonder how my i-Gen offspring and their peers are learning this as they spend their days primarily communicating behind a screen with their thumbs, acronyms, emoji’s, and carefully selected, sometimes edited or filtered images.  A meme or tweet might grow your audience and capture a few likes, but can it win a debate or lead to a compromise in a negotiation?  Can it make sure your voice is not just heard, but valued equally or more than another?  A text might get your idea on the table, but can it carry the emotion necessary to win somebody over and change a mind?

Millennials and i-Gen view life as a living meeting. They are accustomed to constant connectivity which does have significant advantages in a global connected world.  They are with their peers everywhere, all the time and on every device.  They are masters at creating viral messages and optimizing social media to get the word out.  All powerful tools in today’s mobile, borderless, business environment.

Gen-Xers have the unique advantage of having lived and learned to communicate in both a face to face only, and an always connected online world. We have had to learn the fine art of persuasive interpersonal communication that can alter opinions and create buy-in because when we launched our careers there were now screens to hide behind.  We were raised by the Boomers and we raised the i-Generation.  We can be the bridge.

We live in a global always on interconnected world.  This is a good thing as long as we remember that we are also human. Opinions can be strong, feelings can be hurt. At the end of the day interpersonal skills can make a difference, and human interaction face to face matters.

We’ve seen some pretty passionate young people recently, get some very important messages out to the public. Making it clear that they have their own voice and opinions. But are they changing minds?  If we couple their innate knowledge of the internet and ability to get a message out, with the interpersonal skills we Gen-Xers have practiced and know are necessary to create compromise and buy-in, the world just might be a better place for all of us.