(Bk Business) Carol Kinsey Goman Ph.D.-The Nonverbal Advantage_ Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work -Berrett-Koehler Publishers (2008)

124 The Nonverbal Advantage
person enters the room, he will often adjust his jacket, touch
his hair, or make other adjustments to how he looks. This lets
the person in power know subconsciously that the person
entering cares about how he presents himself. Senior staff
members often sit to the right of their boss at the head of the
table—perhaps the origin of the term right-hand man.
TRY THIS
In any meeting you might be hosting, keep the desired goal
in mind and choose the setting carefully. A boardroom will
probably have a large rectangular or oval table, creating space
for higher-status people to sit at the head, and thereby control
the agenda, and giving the meeting a formal and businesslike
feeling. But for a meeting in which you want collaboration and
participation, you probably wouldn’t want such a pronounced
hierarchical arrangement, nor would you want the rest of the
team sitting across from one another in adversarial positions.
The rule of thumb here is: if you want to foster a competitive
element, place opponents on opposite sides of the table; if you
want to stimulate collaboration, seat people side by side.
“Ladies! Gentlemen! Arm wrestling
never solved anything!”