Ten Ways to Improve Your Interpersonal Skills

 

Ten Ways to Improve Your Interpersonal Skills

Try these 10 helpful tips for improving your interpersonal skills:

1.      Smile. Few people want to be around someone who is always down in the dumps. Do your best to be friendly and upbeat with your coworkers. Maintain a positive, cheerful attitude about work and about life. Smile often. The positive energy you radiate will draw others to you.

2.      Be appreciative. Find one positive thing about everyone you work with and let them hear it. Be generous with praise and kind words of encouragement. Say thanks when someone helps you. Make colleagues feel welcome when they call or stop by your office. If you let others know that they are appreciated, they’ll want to give you their best.

3.      Pay attention to others. Observe what’s going on in other people’s lives. Acknowledge their happy milestones and express concern and sympathy for difficult situations such as an illness or death. Make eye contact and address people by their first names. Ask others for their opinions.

4.      Practice active listening. Actively listening is a way of demonstrating that you intend to hear and understand another’s point of view. It means restating, in your own words, what the other person has said. Your coworkers will appreciate knowing you really do listen to what they have to say.

5.      Bring people together. Create an environment that encourages others to work together. Treat everyone equally and don’t play favorites. Avoid talking about others behind their backs. Follow up on other people’s suggestions or requests. When you make a statement or announcement, check to see that you have been understood. If folks see you as someone solid and fair, they will grow to trust you.

6.      Resolve conflicts. Take a step beyond simply bringing people together and become someone who resolves conflicts when they arise. Learn how to be an effective mediator. If coworkers are bickering over personal or professional disagreements, arrange to sit down with both parties and help sort out their differences. By taking on such a leadership role, you will garner respect and admiration from those around you.

7.      Communicate clearly. Pay close attention to both what you say and how you say it. Being a clear and effective communicator helps you avoid misunderstandings with coworkers. Verbal eloquence projects an image of intelligence and maturity, no matter what your age. If you tend to blurt out anything that comes to mind, people won’t put much weight on your words or opinions.

8.      Humor them. Don’t be afraid to be funny or clever. Most people are drawn to a person that can make them laugh. Use your sense of humor as an effective tool to lower barriers and gain people’s affection.

9.      See it from their side. Empathy means being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and understand how they feel. Try to see things from another person’s perspective. You can help yourself with this by staying in touch with your own emotions, since those who are cut off from their feelings are often unable to empathize with others.

10.  Don’t complain. There is nothing worse than a chronic complainer or whiner. If you simply have to vent about something, save it for your diary. But spare those around you, or else you’ll get a bad reputation.

Miscommunication

Programmer to Team Leader :

"We can't do this proposed project.**CAN NOT**. It will involve a major
design change and no one in our team knows the design of this legacy
system. And above that, nobody in our company knows the language in which this
application has been written. So even if somebody wants to work on it,
they can't. If you ask my personal opinion, the company should never take
these type of projects."


Team Leader to Project Manager :


"This project will involve a design change. Currently, we don't have any
staff who has experience in this type of work. Also, the language is
unfamiliar to us, so we will have to arrange for some training if we
take this project. In my personal opinion, we are not ready to take on a
project of this nature."


Project Manager to 1st Level Manager :


"This project involves a design change in the system and we don't have
much experience in that area. Also, not many people in our company are
appropriately trained for it. In my personal opinion, we might be able
to do the project but we would need more time than usual to complete it."


1st Level Manager to Senior Level Manager :


"This project involves design re-engineering. We have some people who
have worked in this area and others who know the implementation language. So
they can train other people. In my personal opinion we should take this
project, but with caution."


Senior Level Manager to CEO :


"This project will demonstrate to the industry our capabilities in
remodelling the design of a complete legacy system. We have all the
necessary skills and people to execute this project successfully. Some
people have already given in house training in this area to other staff
members. In my personal opinion, we should not let this project slip by
us under any circumstances."


CEO to Client :


"This is the type of project in which our company specializes. We have
executed many projects of the same nature for many large clients. Trust
me when I say that we are the most competent firm in the industry for doing
this kind of work. It is my personal opinion that we can execute this
project successfully and well within the given time frame."

 

 

 

Learning the art of conversation

Learning the art of conversation

Arun Maira

Thursday, March 20, 2008 (Mumbai)

Interviews: Arun Maira, Chairman, Boston Consulting Group India|

 

 Arun Maira was always interested in the art of conversation. He believes that innovation, change, discovery happen in conversation and conversation itself is a part of it.

 

NDTV: You have spoken a lot about conversation, what draws you to this theme?

Maira: Innovation, change, discovery happen in conversation and conversation itself is a part of it. It always attracted me because I have seen changes in other and in me in spirit, their expression of ideas as they are in conversation with others.

NDTV:You almost making it sound as if conversation are different to talk.

Maira: Sure. While I am in conversation with you, I am indeed in conversation with myself.

NDTV: So what you are saying is there are simultaneously two conversation, one that I am having with you and one with myself.

Maira: Absolutely. We are not aware of the conversation going on inside ourselves. When we become aware of it, we can become aware of the biases we have, someone saying something wrong surprises us.

NDTV: That means activating a very high degree of observer within.

Maira: Yes.

NDTV: There seems to be a deep and universal longing for real conversation. But it appears to have died over the years.

Maira: We are downloading so much shallow information that we should make rule for ourselves. We should devote some time in a day for it. Even it’s become difficult for me sometime.

 NDTV: You have written a lot about the need of public conversation on the big issues. What do you mean when you say public conversation?

Maira: By public, I mean million of people who are concerned about say, the future of the country. Conversation between lots of people does take place. The media enables lots of people to enter into conversation about issues, which matters to many people. We also create setting where thousand of people come together to have conversation on some important issues. We are spending a lot of time and fair amount of money in these meetings. Can we improve the character and the nature of the conversation that takes place in these larger forums? That is where the public conversation can be more effective.

NDTV: But how will you do that?

Maira: To recognize the structure of good conversation, a good conversation should enable diverse voices to express themselves. I will get some learning, provided I am hearing something, which I already don’t know. We would go to many of the seminars because the names of the speakers appeal to us. This results in a division of points of view in the society.

NDTV: What the key areas on which we need to dialogue publicly?

Maira: The first is in terms of vision and outcome; it is more now then ever before. The great desire to have a country in which everyone is included. I will be happy to see that. Second, we have a great desire for respect. People come to poverty and education. We would like to have conversation on water conditions and infrastructure. We come to law and order. When you talk about why the things have not been done, we noticed that in all these areas, collaboration between various people is required.

NDTV: What I am getting from you is first; diversity is essential for a good conversation. Then talk about the outcome that you would like to have happened, the conversation must be inclusive.

Maira:  Little bit of education is also required to what makes a good conversation.

NDTV: What are the rules of a good conversation; whether it’s in a public, work place or private?

Maira: If you keep on doing the same thing and expect a different outcome, you are a bit mad. You will have to listen, that’s a very big rule of conversation. We do know that we don’t listen to other people because something is going on in our heads. Then there is a step to ask people what do you feel; you need to have the conversation about the feeling.

So you create the space in which, people can express things to say things, which are in their minds.

NDTV: You have worked with many organizations in India. What are the kinds of conversation that need to happen in work places?

Maira: One is about people aspiration what they want to do in life and how these aspirations can be built for the organization. Second, in terms of fairness inside their organization and the rules of governance in the organization.

NDTV: With all these desires in offices, where people want to know whether they are getting a fair salary or appraisal, Why they are not talking about these things?

Maira: Yes, this can come only with focused conversation. We want to be a learning organization and responsible citizen of the society.

NDTV: What are the some of the ways by which we can begin to change our private conversation to be more real and meaningful?

Maira: People need to be aware that this conversation is not going anywhere. I remind myself that the relationship must win and not the individual.