Part 15 - Eight Interpersonal Skills
This post is a lesson excerpt from the How to incrementally improve your Team course
Do you, someone you know or someone from a technical background need to brush up on interpersonal skills? Here are eight skills presented in a quick and easy manner to help with doing just that.
1. Open Communication
2. Conflict Management
3. Trust
4. Respect
5. Body Language
6. Persuasion
7. Charisma
8. Emotional Intelligence
1. Open Communication
Open communication means practising active listening and mutually beneficial honest communication.
Active listening requires you to fully concentrate, understand, respond to and then remember what is being said to you. You need to make a conscious effort to hear and understand the complete message being spoken, rather than just passively hearing the message of the speaker, it means reading between the lines and using:
Paraphrasing to show your understanding.
Nonverbal cues show understanding such as nodding, eye contact, and leaning forward.
Brief verbal affirmations like “I see,” “I know,” “Sure,” “Thank you,” or “I understand”.
If you have trouble listening without interruption, try using the index finger of one hand to draw a letter L (for listen) on the palm of your other hand.
Mutually beneficial communication is a higher form of communication-based on trust and mutual respect. This doesn’t just refer to discussions, meetings, keeping others appraised on important matters but also to sharing fears and seeking counselling from others. It means building trust with whom you are speaking by establishing a friendly, supportive rapport and by showing concern. Using active listening cues also do this for you as does sharing experiences and playing back what has been said to you.
2. Conflict Management
“Conflict is inevitable ... in fact, to achieve synergistic solutions, a variety of ideas and approaches are needed. These are the ingredients for conflict.” Susan Gerke, IBM, Leadership Development.
Conflict needs to be managed constructively and professionally as when appropriately harnessed it is a very positive thing. Did you know that a clash of ideas can be the beginning of innovative thinking whilst being overly dominant with your ideas; is being selfish and diminishes creative thinking. You must learn how to settle and decide between competing ideas by using both conflict and competitive thinking to your advantage. When you find yourself in a position of conflict or competitive ideas, try this:
Practice active listening to hear exactly what is being said, it doesn’t matter if you agree with it or not, what matters is that you understand as fully as possible what is being said to you.
The act of active listening on your part and using cues give you a more dominant position during the discussion as you have demonstrated that you are prepared to listen and without interruption.
When you do finally talk, insisting if necessary that you be given equal time without interruption (even the most hostile people find this hard to refuse) and at first aim to summarise the other persons point of view. Doing this shows that you did in fact listen and that you understand their point of view. (Many people get angry simply because they are used to not being listened to).
After the summary state your own viewpoint and try to do this as if you were reading out bullet points. This makes what you are saying easier to understand and remember.
Finally, merge the good points from the other person with your own to form a new point of view. Try to stress that the answer to the dilemma is somewhere in the middle, or a merger of both of your ideas, in other words, a compromise solution.
The compromise solution is often the start of innovative thinking that you can both share as your own idea.
Also, it is worth remembering that often it is not what you say but how you say it.
“In surveys of European and American executives, fully 85 per cent of them acknowledged that they had issues or concerns at work that they were afraid to raise. Afraid of the conflict that would provoke, afraid to get embroiled in arguments that they did not know how to manage and felt that they were bound to lose. So how do we develop the skills that we need? Because it does take skill and practice, too. If we aren't going to be afraid of conflict, we have to see it as thinking, and then we have to get really good at it”. Margaret Heffernan.
Says Keith Ferrazzi, CEO of Consulting firm Ferrazzi Greenlight. “Ideas do not progress when conversations are too polite, people are not challenged, ideas are not questioned. A lack of candour will inevitably diminish decision making, creating a hierarchical culture where people only speak their minds in private.” The firm studied 50 large companies and found the highest-performing teams were the most forthright.
3. Trust
To build trust, the approach is to strike a balance between appearing as warm and competent so that you come across as credible and human.
People are generally aware of your background, namely, the credentials that gained you your current position. With credibility established, it’s now time to demonstrate some vulnerability and show that you are indeed a fallible human being. The combination of competence and warmth makes you seem more trustworthy. Counsellors often employ one of three tactics when meeting a new client, they spill their coffee, drop their pad or embarrass themselves somehow to show they are fallible. By making yourself vulnerable, it is possible to build trust quickly. You must demonstrate your credibility first before you exhibit vulnerability; otherwise, it doesn’t work.
Commitment is the flip side of trust. (You give me a commitment; I trust you will do it).
To earn trust, you must demonstrate trust.
Trust means making yourself vulnerable.
Trust must be accompanied by accountability.
Trust someone until such time as you have evidence that you can’t.
Set your expectations of someone based on trust.
Learn to trust your intuition. (If something doesn’t sound right it probably isn’t).
Sometimes we accidentally say or do the wrong thing and can lose the trust we have built up; here is a quick solution:
Act quickly.
Be candid.
Accept responsibility.
Apologise.
Outline a remedy.
Don’t blame.
4. Respect
Experienced managers know that respect isn’t an entitlement linked to a job title, rather it is earned by:
Leading by example. Demonstrate the qualities and characteristics you expect from the people you manage. It is essential to exhibit the traits you want others to adopt, such as honesty, creativity, being forthright and industriousness.
Being humble. No-one cares about where you went to school or past successes. Egotists are boring and turn people off they need to get over themselves and do it quickly. Avoid conversations that entail self-promotion; they are obvious and do damage to your reputation.
Showing commitment every single day. Get into the trenches with the troops and get your hands dirty with your team members as often as you can. Work alongside them. Work longer and harder than they do. Get out of your office and visit their workplaces. Talk to them, get to know their names so you can address them personally, ask them how things are going, ask what their top three issues and follow-up.
Sharing your expectations of others. People want to know what your expectations are of them; that way, they can work to meet or exceed them.
Helping people succeed and advance. Help team members gain exposure and give them opportunities for development and advancement. Be a mentor, focus on those people who are bright, hardworking, dedicated, reliable and creative, and have skill sets that you don’t or those who show potential. Mentor them with support programs that allow them to learn a new skill or certification.
Compromising. This is not a weakness; in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. A manager who can compromise comes across as caring and someone who puts others before themselves and who appreciates understanding a differing point of view.
5. Body Language
Nonverbal behaviour, or body language, is language.
So you need to think about it as a form of communication. Your everyday body language is often what determines whether people like you or not, and when someone has made up their mind about you it’s all but impossible to change, therefore, body language must be made to work for you. Here are five common mistakes you need to avoid:
A firm handshake. A firm handshake makes an essential first impression. A firm grip displays confidence and establishes you as someone to be taken seriously.
Not meeting someone’s eyes. A failure to look someone directly in the eye makes you seem shifty and untrustworthy. But too much eye contact can put some people off. If you want to hold someone’s gaze, look at the point just above their nose between their eyes. To the other person, it appears as if you are looking directly into their eyes and you can maintain the gaze for as long as you want. (A good negotiation tactic).
Fussy hand gestures. Your hands can be used to enhance words. But don’t fuss as this can make you look nervous, distracted, bored or rude.
Crossing your arms. This says you are on the defensive, it’s a sign of disinterest, being closed off and unapproachable.
Nodding too much. You can’t be taken seriously if you nod too much. Even when agreeing with what’s being said, nodding can be off-putting. It is, however, a very good active listening cue, but you need to be subtle.
6. Persuasion
A primary management activity is the ability to persuade people.
To do things they either don’t want to, have an unreasonable fear of or think they will fail at. The key to persuasion is motivation, when delegating a task consider:
Telling them that if you were doing the task this is how you would do it.
Telling them that you are not interested in the outcome of the task but rather that they have a go.
Talking about what they’ll lose if they don’t do the task.
Drawing on their past actions as examples of their ability to do the task.
Telling them that nearly everyone is doing it or soon will be.
Asking for a 100 when you only want 10.
Talking about the counterargument before they do, that is, the pros and cons of doing the task.
7. Charisma
“The transformational leader uses charisma, individualized consideration, and intellectual stimulation to inspire employees to make extraordinary efforts”. Bernard M Bass.
Charisma is believed to be an innate personality trait that cannot be learned, you either have it, or you don’t. However, a manager or team member that possesses gusto and alacrity is curious and always upbeat in front of others will be perceived as being charismatic. Putting forward a positive attitude also infects peoples thinking and feelings and this adds to the perception of charisma. In some workplaces, where the manager has charisma there is energy, a vibe, electricity or vibrations in the air. This is the result of the manager exuding a positivity that infects the workplace to the extent that everyone possesses it. You can demonstrate charisma by:
Demonstrating gusto (showing great energy, enthusiasm and enjoyment when taking part in an activity)
Demonstrating alacrity (doing an activity with speed and eagerness).
Being totally focussed on the present, in the moment.
Having emotional buy-in.
Exuding positivity - the glass is always half full.
An attitude of getting things done and that no problem is insurmountable.
By motivating others.
Your whiteboard is always covered in something new.
You can test if you have charisma by:
People feel energised, motivated, good after speaking with or just being near you.
Your speech or presence creates a sense of positivity in others.
A team member runs to your office.
8. Emotional Intelligence (EI)
Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify, assess, and control the emotions of yourself and others.
It is the ability to be able to identify and express feelings, perceive and evaluate others’ emotions and use emotions to facilitate thinking.
Daniel Goleman, the author of ‘Emotional Intelligence,’ researched models from 181 different job roles from 121 companies and discovered that 67 per cent of the competencies deemed essential for effective performance were ‘emotional’ competencies. We learn, develop and practice our emotional intelligence skills through real experiences. This is what you need to try and do:
Become more self-aware by paying attention to how your emotions are affecting your decisions and actions.
Pay attention to managing strong emotions such as excitement, anger, frustration and distress.
Improve your social skills by being ‘curious’, start a conversation by asking benign questions like:
“That’s an amazing tie, where did you get it?”, “Those are fabulous shoes, where did you buy them?”
Focus on being more empathetic by using active listening to look for ‘emotional’ cues and words.
Work on motivating yourself to do things you don’t like such as starting difficult tasks as early as possible. It’s most often a lack of confidence and self-doubt that stops you from doing such things. Breaking a difficult task into smaller chunks and just doing a bit at a time builds confidence and lessons your resistance to the task.