Archives for August 2010

August 31, 2010

The Corporate Person’s Guide to Loosening Up

In my experience, there are a lot of stiff people in the corporate world. Their manner is so formal, their words are so contrived that they often give the impression of robots made on the same production line, having no people skills.

Whenever I find myself interacting with such a person, I have a somewhat hard time feeling relaxed and trusting them. And I find that most people feel the same way. Their conduct seems so fake and insecure that it’s hard to feel otherwise.

A Good Idea Gone Insane

Ask a corporate person about their manner which appears stiff to you and they will often tell you it is a business and professional manner: “This is how corporate people behave”. While there is some truth in this, I believe the formal corporate conduct has gone way beyond reflecting professionalism.

Dig a little dipper and you will discover a conduct which prevents people from enjoying their interactions and working well together. It is a conduct rooted in:

  • A false image of professionalism and the professional image;
  • A tendency to blindly follow traditions and conventions;
  • A fear of being authentic in business interactions;
  • Giving too much significance to clients, colleagues, bosses and their opinions.

My Top Ideas for Loosening Up

I think that loosening up as a corporate person is something anyone can benefit from and an excellent way to improve your business people skills. Here are my top ideas on how to loosen up:

1. Don’t wear a formal suit all the time. Nobody likes to wear a formal suit all the time. Not even James Bond. And the fact that official company policy may demand you wear a full-piece suit all the time is not a good excuse in my view. This is one policy you can bend. Try dressing in a way which still reflects professionalism, but is less formal.

2. Relax your body. Many corporate people I know have this really stiff posture and body language, which they force on themselves. A corporation is not the same as the army. It’s OK to relax your body and even slouch a bit, and you can do this while still marinating dignity in your posture.

3. Do joke once in a while. Some corporate people hardly make a joke in a business meeting or in a discussion with a client. They take their work and their professional image that seriously. Learn to have fun while interacting with others in the business environment and joke about things once in a while.

4. Do talk about other things besides business. It’s OK to be focused on results; it’s not OK to do so without adding a human side to your interactions. Make personal conversation with your clients and your colleagues; get to know each other as human beings. It is this human component which often strengthens the business side.

5. Avoid using clichés. The signature trait of a stiff corporate person is the fact they talk in clichés. They are so afraid to say the wrong thing and be improper that they end up only saying the old, over-repeated and predictable things which add no real value. Avoid this and speak your unique truth.

6. Do work you love. The more work you do which you are passionate about, the more you become passionate in your general conduct. The fact you enjoy what you do gives you more positive energy and more confidence to express yourself as you are. The most relaxed people I know are those who don’t care and those who are very fulfilled.

If you happen to be a somewhat tense and stiff person in your manner at work, I can tell you now that changing your ways and improving your people skills in this area will take a degree of persistence. However, you will see it happen.

As a final thought, consider this: you will be spending about 1/3 of your life working. Don’t you wanna express yourself and have some fun with it in all this time?

Image courtesy of DaveAustia.com

Filed Under: Attitude, Career, Communication Skills Tagged With: , , , 8 Comments
August 25, 2010

Get Off the Therapy Couch! Why Exploring the Past Is Nonsense

Client: “I’ve always been lacking the confidence to speak up. In childhood, my parents were very harsh with me and would always criticize me when I opened my mouth. There was this one time when I was 9…”

Me: “Aham (cough)… I don’t really need to know that. Give me an example of how this lack of confidence manifests itself NOW.”

The fascination many people have with doing a heavy, skilled analysis of their past is something I understand very well and in terms of practical benefits, I find pointless.

Coaches have traditionally been making a lot of fun of some types of therapists for focusing to much on the past and not enough on the present. I guess somebody forgot to inform the potential clients as well about this frequent weak spot of therapy.

Why We Like to Explore Our Past

There are several reasons for which I believe that many of us put a lot of emphasis on exploring our past in our personal development:

  • We have a need to know ourselves, which includes understanding clearly how our past experiences left their mark on us. This is all fine but, do you really want to put a lot of effort and sometimes money in that?
  • We have this idea (probably induced by cheap self-help books) that there is this one negative experience in our past which is single handedly responsible for a certain flaw or fear we have. And we need to find it.
  • We think that in order to change our beliefs or get rid of our fears, we need to understand exactly their source in the past. And when we do and we embrace our past, the change often happens just like that.
  • We sometimes us it as a way of running from the responsibility of acting and changing ourselves. We focus on the past so we can forget about the person development work required in the present.

The Reality of Personal Development

I will sometimes read a psychoanalyst’s opinion on how our present problems are rooted in the past and we need to skillfully uncover the past in order to heal the present. And it will crack me up; because in all my research on this topic, I haven’t found a single convincing shred of evidence to support this.

Analyzing your past, digging dip and unraveling all sort of stuff may sound cool, but it is basically a useless process judging by the improvements it creates. The bottom line is this:

Exploring your past is not necessary or very useful in transforming yourself.

Why? Because our present ways of thinking and feeling may have their origins in the past, but it doesn’t really mater. Our beliefs, thinking patterns and emotions have a life of their own in the here and now.

Consequently, it is in the here and now that we need to address them if we wanna see results. Understanding the kind of experiences that created them may give us some extra clarity and help us discover irrational thinking, but that’s about all it can do. And we only need a small amount of past exploration to get this effect.

This is why I use principles and techniques from CBC (Cognitive Behavioral Coaching) when I assist my clients change their thinking and emotional reactions, in order to improve the people skills they aim to improve. CBC has a focus on the present and on getting real, quantifiable results.

If you’re looking for improvement, focus on the present. Identify those limiting ways of thinking you have now and combat them now. Do this repeatedly, systemically, and you’ll see some real progress. The answer to your personal development is not in the past, it is in this moment.

Image courtesy of geroco

Filed Under: Inspirational, Personal Development, Psychology Tagged With: , , , , 22 Comments
August 20, 2010

How to Deal With Toxic People

We’ve all met them: they are the people who drain you of energy instead of enriching you, the people who pull you down instead of pushing you up, the people who require more then they can provide; the negative, wining, needy, manipulative people who can turn a happy day into a living hell.

I call them toxic people. One thing I notice is that no matter how good our people skills are in general, most of us have problems with dealing effectively with this kind of people. Even those with really sharp people skills often get caught up in the polluting relationships (personal or professional) toxic people create.

The good news is that there are effective ways to deal with toxic people. Working as a communication coach, I came to realize there are certain patterns of behavior and communication which work really well with this kind of persons. Here are the most significant of them:

1. Avoid toxic people

I believe the best way to deal with toxic people is to not deal with them at all; to avoid them. In some cases it may not be an option, but more often than not, it is. This is why I encourage you to really think about the options you truly have with every toxic person in your life.

It is common to think you have to deal with someone, when you actually do not. It is also common to believe you can get a toxic person to change while interacting with them. My experience is that unless you are a professional, you will not get them to change and trying it simply is not worth it.

2. Anticipate toxic people

It is harder than usual to get out of relationships with a toxic person. Toxic people tend to have this ability to make you feel bad for avoiding them and to attach to you like a leech. This is why it’s important to be able to spot them quickly, and start avoiding them before the relationship truly develops.

The best way I know to do this is to come up with a list of clues which you believe might indicate a toxic person. Then, every time you meet a person and a significant number of these clues are there, distance yourself from that person.

3. Set firm boundaries

Toxic people will often use you, one way or another. The may complain to you all the time while you listen hopelessly (?), or they may constantly get you to get them out of trouble. This is where boundaries come in. Boundaries are reflections of what you are and are not willing to do.

Setting firm boundaries means not allowing toxic people to use you in any of these ways. It means refusing to listen to them complain, refusing to get them out of trouble. When you have firm boundaries, there is basically nothing bad any person can do to you.

4. Get over your guilt

Most toxic people are very skilled at making others feel guilty when they don’t do what they want. This makes it particularly hard to set and maintain firm boundaries with them. But, there is a way out of this dilemma: getting rid of your guilt. It is your own guilt which toxic people use to break down your boundaries.

When you can set and maintain boundaries with them without feeling guilty, the weapon they have against you is gone. Realize that your guilt is irrational, pointless, and it is used against you by toxic people. This is the best way to get over it.

5. Do not defend yourself

When you avoid toxic people and you set boundaries with them, they frequently resort to accusing you, complaining and playing the victim in an attempt to get you to change your behavior.

One of the worst things you can do when this happens is to defend yourself. It is usually a futile action and it only keeps an immature dialog going which eventually helps the toxic person get what they want. You won’t get anywhere with them by defending yourself and your actions.

Unfortunately, toxic people are everywhere. And they tend to attach themselves to those persons who are kind and have the most to offer. When you have the people skills to deal effectively with toxic people, you have the option to respond to their attaching in the best ways for you.

As for helping toxic people change their ways, I encourage you to leave/pass this task to the professionals in this area.

PS: I now blog and share advice over here. Connect with me.

Image courtesy of Jesse Drapper

Filed Under: People Skills, Psychology, Relationships Tagged With: , , , 95 Comments
August 15, 2010

Beyond People Skills: My 3 Life Lessons

This article is written at the invitation of fellow blogger Abubakar Jamil, as part of the Life Lessons Series. You can find out more about this project and the people involved on his blog.

It’s a very enjoyable activity for me to look back at my life so far, at the experiences I had, to reflect on them and to draw lessons. It’s something I do periodically, in a systematic, pen & paper way, and something I encourage everyone to do.

As I’m doing this process now, there are 3 very valuable life lessons which stand out. They go beyond improving people skills and they’re the lessons I want to share with you.

Life Lesson 1: Your weaknesses are your strengths.

When I was a teenager, I was frequently described as ‘annoying’ because I asked a lot of questions and always wanted details about things I didn’t quite understand. The result of this was that I started asking questions about why it’s bad to ask a lot of questions. I never got a satisfying answer, but I also didn’t want to annoy people so I ended up shutting up a lot more.

As time passed and I got seriously into psychology, I began to see all the potential benefits of my tendencies to ask a lot of questions. I was basically an analytical person, which enjoyed decoding various phenomena. So instead of repressing this side of my personality, I decided to express it and find the best ways to do so.

Now, the fact I ask a lot of questions is what makes me have a good understanding of how people skills work; get a good grasp of my clients’ needs and provide real results through my coaching services. I still annoy some people, but I don’t mind that anymore. I know that if I look in perspective, my weakness is my strength.

Life Lesson 2: Perfectionism kills productivity.

I started writing at the same time I started coaching. I remember that it took me then almost 4 hours to write a one page article related to people skills which I now write in less than 2 hours. Part of this visible increase in my writing speed is due to the fact my writing skills have improved a lot in the passing years, and part is due to the fact I stopped being a perfectionist about my writing.

When I was writing articles for the first time, I felt this need to make them look perfect. I wanted the perfect structure, style, words and ideas every time. Later, I realized that perfection was not necessary. My readers wanted very good writing and high quality ideas (this made them read my stuff and buy my other services) but they did not require perfection.

By being a perfectionist about my writing, I was using a lot of time for each article, without a significant increase in the benefits to justify it. So, I gradually started to tolerate imperfection and give less time to each article. I continued to have a high standard in my writing, but I no longer sought perfection. Because perfectionism was killing my productivity.

Life Lesson 3: Hope is not enough, you need a good strategy.

This is a lesson which fortunately for me, I’ve learned mostly from the experiences of other persons around me. I say fortunately because it was a lesson learned mostly through big failures and loses.

I have seen people in my professional network lose a lot of money and fail miserably with all sorts of business ideas. And most of the time, these people had one thing in common: they weren’t applying realistic business strategies. They had a lot of hope and optimism, but no real understanding what it takes to make their business ideas work. They were very slow to learn from their mistakes, to develop their strategies, and so they’ve made businesses plummet.

I have seen this happen beyond managing a business, in managing a career or a life. And it’s the same pattern: hope is good but it is not enough. At the end of the day, you need to know what the heck you’re doing and have a solid strategy to reflect it. Hope is a good companion, but not a replacement for competence.

These are my 3 life lessons. What are your most important life lessons?

Image courtesy of Paco Alcantara

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, Lifestyle Tagged With: , , , 21 Comments
August 10, 2010

Rich Online Social Life and No Offline Social Life?

Social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter tend to have curious effects on people and their social lives. One thing I notice is how many of those who use them tend to fall into one of two opposite categories:

  1. The people who have a rich, active offline social life and use socialization through social networking sites as an extension of this one. Social media is for them an opportunity to communicate more, with more people, from more locations.
  2. The people who basically have no offline social life and use socialization through social networking sites as a replacement for it. Social media is for them a way to compensate a lack of face to face interactions, by spending a lot of time communicating online.

Now, can you guess the people from which category I believe have a problem? That’s right, the people in the second group. Those who don’t balance their online social life with their offline one. And I believe their problem is two-folded: it has a component related to impact and one to relationships.

Weakening your impact

The first side of the problem is that by interacting almost exclusively online with the people you could also be interacting with offline, you considerably diminish your impact. Offline communication may require more time and effort, but it definitely has its rewards in terms or the influence you can achieve.

This is why I’m a big supporter of things like public speaking, networking face to face and having good people skills for face to face interactions. Usually, you will get the best results by mixing and balancing online with offline communication.

Having superficial relationships

The second side of the problem is that by interacting almost exclusively online with people, your relationships often end up being very shallow. Face to face interactions can have a lot more depth and a bigger emotional charge than the ones on the Internet. They can make relationships develop easier and become much stronger.

Those who have few face to face interactions often feel lonely and a lack of real connection with other people. From an emotional perspective, they essentially have second rate, noticeably less fulfilling social lives.

In general, my experience as a communication coach is that too much of an online social life by comparison with the offline one is a sign of a shy, insecure person with not so good people skills. Not chronically shy, those people don’t even chat online, but still. Many of the geeks who a decade ago played Nintendo all day long are now represented by geeks with fake social lives.

Getting out of the shell

Do you have 2000 Facebook friends and only 2 live friends? Do you spend a lot more time interacting with people online than offline? Do you often feel lonely and disconnected? These are all different pieces of the same puzzle.

The first step to improvement as a person in this group is recognizing the costs of not having much of an offline social life. The second one is to fight your natural tendencies to compensate a lack of face to face interactions through stuff like chatting on MySpace, and instead going out there to socialize.

As you gradually push yourself to interact more with people, your people skills improve and your social confidence with it. You experience more social freedom and more fulfilling relationships. It is only when you have the option and skills to interact with people using a wide range of channels that you can make the best social choices.

Image courtesy of HckySo

Filed Under: Attitude, Lifestyle, People Skills Tagged With: , , , , 11 Comments
August 4, 2010

Top 10 Lessons Learned From Coaching 100 People

I have recently reached the number of 100 coaching clients, which I have worked with individually in just under 4 years. It’s been an awesome learning and development experience, not only for my clients but also for myself. I feel like one big chapter in my career has closed and another one is opening.

Like the end of any big chapter, it’s a moment for celebration as well as reflection for me. Looking back at these communication coaching experiences, there are 10 essential lessons I draw, which I want to share with you. The first part of the lessons is about the coaching process in itself, the second part is about people skills and how to improve them.

1. If you want hardcore results, go for coaching

You can read book and articles, you can go to trainings and seminars, but if you want to see the fastest, most powerful self-improvement, often in unexpected ways, choose coaching. The fact that it’s a 100% customized experience and all the focus is on you, provided that you work with a good coach, makes coaching one hell of a learning experience. I have rarely seen people improve and have such breakthroughs as they did in the coaching process.

2. Revealing blind spots is the key benefit of coaching

If there is one positive effect you can get in coaching better than through any other self-improvement process, it’s seeing your blind spots: revealing ways of thinking or behaving you had no idea that you had, or realizing their real impact. Often in working one-on-one with a person, the moment when she sees one huge blind spot she had is very meaningful and emotionally charged. It is an opportunity to make big decisions and create great change.

3. If you don’t follow-through, you are making a huge waste

One of the fundamental roles of coaching is to help you discover things which set the foundation for solid and effective future improvement. This is why strong follow-through is very important. If you don’t apply what you discovered through the coaching process and you don’t practicing between and after the coaching sessions, the results you’ll get will be considerably lower and less impressive. It’s like buying a Ferrari and only driving it at 50 mph.

4. Specialization is power

I don’t do coaching on anything. My niche is helping people put their best foot forward in communication and improve people skills; my approach is based on developing underlying attitudes just at much if not more than actual skills. This specialization helped me grow very fast as a coach and learn how to create the best result for my clients. After working with 100 clients, I feel that I am a true professional in communication coaching, and I have the real-world results to back it up.

5. Honesty is money

I once told a friend that one of the reasons a person or company is paying you in coaching is the fact you are willing to tell and show someone things others are not. For example, to the intimidating manager with poor listening skills that nobody is willing to give some honest feedback about. I am now even more convinced that honest feedback is one of the most valuable things you can provide as a coach. I think it’s a pity that such a scarcity of honest feedback exists, but that’s where a big coaching opportunity lies.

6. Communication skills are the thing to invest in

Sometimes I am asked why I chose to help others improve their communication skills instead of improving something else. It is because I believe that cutting edge communication skills are the thing worth having and worth developing. The right people skills in general and the right communication skills in particular can skyrocket your career, your relationships and your life. Everyday, I see the huge difference having and sharpening them makes.

7. The big difference comes from working on attitudes

You can’t really have awesome communication and people skills without the right attitudinal foundation. This is something which I think applies for many other soft skills as well. At the end of the day, your attitude will make or break your aptitude. This is why I put a lot of emphasis on attitude transformation and I work with many of my clients on changing beliefs, thinking patterns and emotional reactions. Often, it’s all downhill from there.

8. It’s about creating a unique social style which matches your strengths

I don’t believe there is one exact style of interacting socially which works best. I think there are multiple styles, with common patterns between them. This is why I don’t teach exact formulas for communication and social interactions, but rather principle and guidelines. The thing is to find a social style for yourself which capitalizes on your strengths instead of ignoring them or opposing them, and to develop that style.

9. A huge part of the improvement is expressing yourself

Most of us don’t really express ourselves authentically, outside of very specific contexts. We have learned to play games, to put on facades as a way to try and get the approval of others. This rarely works and it does a lot more harm than good in the long term. What we really need to learn more of is how to put our real selves out there, more and better: our needs, our dreams, our ideas, beliefs and feelings.

10. We need to teach people skills methodically from the age of 5

Well, we don’t really need to; we would definitely benefit tremendously from it however. Many of the problems our society has are the result of people not knowing how to relate to other people effectively. Even some of the problems which seem caused by poverty, corruption or crime at a first glance are often generated and maintained at a deeper level by people having bad skills with people.

For me, coaching others to improve their communication and people skills, combined with tuning my own skills is a very fulfilling process. One I will definitely keep at for many years to come. The journey continues…

Image courtesy of Voj

Filed Under: Communication Skills, Inspirational, People Skills Tagged With: , 28 Comments