.bodytext {float: left; } .floatimg-left-hort { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right: 10px; width:300px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 10px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} As a college dean, I’d like to think that we could teach students everything they need to know to make it in the business world.

So much has changed since the war stories I often catch myself regaling students with from my own 35 years in the business world – things are more global, more competitive, more driven by technology – and at our university, we take great effort to keep pace with those currents.

Yet truth be told, no matter how much time passes, one ineffable credential remains unchanged, one that can prove harder and harder to build these days. It’s something that I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t quite get when riding out to small-town Iowa as a 20-something new circulation manager of The Des Moines Register in a flashy red sports car.

Looking back on several decades, I see how the many community leaders I’ve had the privilege to know truly gained success. Often it owed more to how they managed business relationships than to the extent of their technical knowledge of a subject area (finance, real estate, journalism, public relations, accounting, etc.). How they related to and influenced one another, and the images their behavior projected, were a common denominator of their success. Each had personal qualities impossible to measure, instincts impossible to ignore.

As for my fancy car … well, thankfully, such appreciation for finer things brought me into the shop of Bill Reichardt, former clothier and one such community leader. Some might recall his use of Reichardt’s Clothing in the Roosevelt Shopping Center as a bit of a bully pulpit, counseling countless youths and adults for 40 years about the importance of making a positive first impression for success.

Naturally, as a 1960s middle school student at nearby Roosevelt High School, I was warned by friends not to walk into Reichardt’s with my shirttail hanging out or in need of a haircut. Bill expected the young people who worked AND shopped in his store to look sharp and be conscious of the impression they were making on others.

But, like most, I couldn’t avoid Mr. Reichardt for long. My father found my seventh-grade year the ideal time to shop for my first blue blazer and slacks to wear on an upcoming family trip.

It was a Saturday morning in September; the store was jammed. Bill spotted my father (whom he knew quite well) as we walked in, and with one eye on my father, greeted me with a handshake. Just like in his ads, he said, “Hello, I am Bill Reichardt and I own the store.” I returned his handshake with a limp wrist and a hard gulp, which apparently made an impression (the wrong one), because he spent the next 10 minutes teaching me how to give – and expect – a firm handshake.

A quarter-century down the road, I brought my own daughters, Hayley and Emily, into Reichardt’s, where they learned the same lesson from the master.

Emily, now an advertising account executive, was only 12 at the time, yet she insists the memory is vivid. According to her (and Bill),”there’s nothing worse than a weak, noodle-handed shake.” Hayley, a successful fund-raiser, confirms: “I’m frequently complimented on my firm handshake and the fact that I look people directly in the eye when I meet them.”

There’s just something about a shake like that. It means putting your hand in theirs, not just dropping it there (what our students call “the noodle”); not wringing another’s hand so hard it leaves wrinkles (“the crusher”); or even worse, doubling up with a condescending clasp (“the hand sandwich”). Instead you’ve got to set your eyes on theirs and hold firm, yet keep the arm flexible. In other words, a shake up to Bill’s standard means you have to mean it.

But is it right not to hire someone based on a handshake? In the focus-group-minded, outside-consultancy-based business world of today, we’re so often focused on managing risk rather than taking one. The impression made with a handshake is a reminder that there’s no substitute for the strength of pure instinct.

I’m glad my daughters have the mind to trust their evaluation of a shake. What more could one say about the power of the late Bill Reichardt’s example than the pride we can take in seeing our own children approach the world with that kind of grip.

Charles C. Edwards Jr. is dean of Drake University’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication and the College of Business and Public Administration and a former publisher of The Des Moines Register.