workplace touch through additional filters:
• physical safety,
• reputational risk,
• power imbalance,
• social conditioning to accommodate.
Men often ask:
“Why didn’t she say something?”
Because saying something itself carries risk.
Silence, for many women, is not comfort.
It’s strategy.
Culture Complicates Touch—Carefully
Touch norms are not universal, and they are not random.
Cross-cultural research links touch preferences to individualism vs collectivism, power distance, religious norms, and historical social structures.
A few examples—descriptive, not definitive:
• Japan: Low-touch professional norms. Physical distance signals respect. Touch at work is rare and often uncomfortable.
• Philippines: Higher-contact, relational culture. Touch often communicates belonging—but power dynamics still matter.
• India: Highly contextual. Same-gender touch may be common; cross-gender touch is regulated by region, religion, hierarchy.
• Poland: More reserved. Formal greetings are acceptable; casual touch less so.
• US, Australia: Moderate-touch cultures with strong emphasis on consent and personal space—though many employees still hesitate to assert boundaries.
The takeaway isn’t to memorise rules.
It’s to abandon assumptions.
Leadership Lens: Equality Is Not Sameness
Sameer treated everyone the same.
That was the problem.
Fairness in sensory experience doesn’t come from identical behaviour. It comes from choice, awareness, and responsiveness.
Sameer began noticing reactions instead of relying on intent:
• who leaned back,
• who stiffened,
• who smiled politely but disengaged.
He stopped defaulting to physical gestures. He allowed others to initiate. He normalised space.
The result wasn’t distance.
It was trust.
Assumptions & Self-Criticism: Where This Argument Can Fail
This article makes assumptions worth questioning.
Not all touch is harmful. Avoidance isn’t always healthy. Humans need connection.
There’s also a risk of cultural oversimplification. Individuals do not neatly conform to national norms.
And finally, there’s a danger in turning sensory awareness into rigidity.
Sensory intelligence is not about rules.
It’s about attentiveness.
The goal is not zero touch.
It is zero unexamined assumption.
Conclusion & Forward Look
People may forget what was said in a meeting.
They remember how safe they felt sitting in the room.
Touch reminds us that behaviour is sensory before it is intentional.
In the next article, we move from physical boundaries to perceptual ones—seeing and hearing at work.
Why some employees struggle with verbal-only instructions.
Why others disengage when everything is slide-driven.
Why attention drifts—not from apathy, but misalignment.
Because once we understand how people sense the workplace,
their behaviour finally makes sense.
Selected References (Light, Credible, Optional Reading)
• Hall, E. T. (1966). The Hidden Dimension
• Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s Consequences
• Sorokowska et al. (2017). Preferred interpersonal distances: A global comparison
• Remland et al. (1995). Interpersonal distance, body orientation, and touch
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and does not necessarily subscribe to it. will not be responsible for any damage caused to any person or organisation directly or indirectly.
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