April 9, 2010

How Having a Life Can Improve Your People Skills

People skills have an interesting dynamic, because in order to improve them, you sometimes need to dig in other areas, improve there, and then you will see your people skills go up as well. And if you only work on them directly, you will often just create a superficial result.

One such area is having a life. Every person I know who has not just good, but awesome people skills, also has a very reach and meaningful life. These people travel a lot, read a lot, meet all kinds of people, and try all sorts of hobbies. Not only does this give them a certain confidence and charisma, but it also eases their social interactions with others.

If you think about it, your life and your person are what you put on the table when you’re talking with someone. They create content and context for your social interactions. If your life is very repetitive and uninteresting, if you as a person are shallow and conventional, it’s like putting a bag of peanuts on the table and asking the other person if she wants to dine with you. Not very appealing for her.

One particular effect I value which having a life has on your social interactions is this: having a life allows you to relate to almost anything the other person says or does. This can be one of those key people skills, as it’s helps you greatly to break the ice, build rapport and make quality conversation with others.

Here’s on example of not relating effectively to what someone says:

You: “So, what did you do this weekend?”

Her: “I went to a tango festival. I’m taking tango lessons you know.”

You: “Aha, really? “

Here’s the same example with a twist:

You: “So, what did you do this weekend?”

Her: “I went to a tango festival. I’m taking tango lessons you know.”

You: “I have a friend who dragged me to a couple of tango lessons once. It was actually a lot more fun than I expected. I liked the fact I started learning how to be a good lead. I think that’s important. “

See the difference? In the second case, you are actually relating to what the person is saying, connecting your experience with hers. But in order to do that, you need to have taken tango lessons, known someone who has, or at least talked about it with someone who was into tango.

There is a huge link between having a life and having the skills to relate. Yet, people who live rich, meaningful lives are rare. Even if we live in a world where we have a ton of options, my experience is that most people have pretty dull and repetitive lives.

This being said, here are some starters towards enriching your life:

  • Consider activities you have never done before and try them out;
  • Make sure you vary your activities and don’t stop at just one or two;
  • Include some sports, and some social or group activities in your agenda;
  • Save money to afford some of the more expensive activities you can try.

When you have tried just about anything or you know just about anything, I believe you are in a place where you can make great friends, build great business relationships and influence people with ease. Having a life is one of the most important ways you can use to improve your people skills.

Filed Under: Lifestyle, People Skills Tagged With: , , , , 22 Comments
March 18, 2010

People Skills and the Philosophy of Honesty

In my view, you don’t have awesome people skills until you understand honesty and you apply it effectively in your social interactions. Which most people I believe, do not.

Yesterday, I was working with a client on improving one of those key people skills for getting a top job: his interview skills. He was asking me stuff like: What do I answer if they ask me about my career goals? What do I answer if they ask why I left me job? What do I answer if they ask me about my hobbies?

And I was answering: The truth. The truth. Yeah, still the truth. After about 3 questions like these, I started realizing a very common problem: my client was in a limiting mindframe about honesty, and the questions were coming from this mindframe.

Let’s do some theory. I think there are generally two mindframes (or philosophies) you can have about honesty in relating to others.

1. The mindframe that pleasing is the rule. These people believe that what comes out of their mouth must be what the listener wants to hear, must get the listener’s approval and appreciation.

Before saying anything, the people in this mindframe will ask themselves: what will please the other person? Then will say that thing, disregarding the concept of honesty. For them, honesty is only the exception to the rule, and they allow themselves to be honest only in a few cases, with safe people.

2. The mindframe that honesty is the rule. These people believe that integrity is the most important thing and what comes out of their mouth must be in correspondence with the facts.

Before saying anything, the people in this mindframe will ask themselves: what is the truth? Then they will say it, assuming the consequences of their honesty. For them, dishonesty is the exception and there will be very few cases where they will refrain themselves from being honest.

I’m not saying there are people who are liars all the time, and I’m not saying there are people who are honest all the time. I’m not saying lying is all bad, honesty is all good. That would be a bit extreme for my rational nature.

I am saying there are different philosophies in life, which will make you more oriented towards lying as you natural communication style, or towards honesty. And I am saying that the second one is a far better option.

When you live life with the mindframe that honesty is the rule with people, as well as the skills of honest communication, two very important things happen:

  • You don’t complicate and you don’t make social interactions a burden by trying to come up with what the other person wants to here almost every time;
  • You have credibility and you build much stronger relations with others, personal and professional, which are based on trust, respect and authenticity.

From some points of view, honesty with people is risky. Looking at things in perspective, I believe the gains substantially outweigh the loses. This is why, when it comes to people skills, I go for a philosophy of honesty.

Filed Under: Attitude, Inspirational, People Skills Tagged With: , , , 10 Comments
March 11, 2010

I Have People Skills!

At a recent training covering certain people skills, one participant kept asking why we’re talking about various stuff, because he’s an experienced manager who knows all this stuff and has good people skills.

Later in the training, this participant was involved in a role-play where we observed his people skills, especially those related to conflict management. The manager not only broke almost every rule for effective conflict management in the book, but even some which aren’t even in the book and now should be taken into account.

It didn’t surprise me, considering that in my work as a communication coach, I find it common for people with bad people skills to believe they have good people skills. When it comes to this area, it’s easy is to have huge blind spots, the size of the dark spots on the moon.

This particular experience though, reminded me of a scene in Office Space, a dead-on satire on the corporate life and one of my favorite movies. Here it is:

I constantly encourage people to put aside their presumptions about their skills and look at the facts as objectively as they can. Since our mind can fabricate our self-image to a great deal, by looking at the facts they will often discover unexpected things.

The line in the movie scene which names the title of this article gets me laughing every time: “I have people skills!“

Filed Under: Inspirational, People Skills Tagged With: , , 2 Comments
March 10, 2010

Ideas With A Kick Is Now People Skills Decoded

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the brand of my blog, in relation with my brand as a communication coach and my expertise in the area of people skills. And I realized it just doesn’t cut it. So I decided to choose a new name and a corespondent domain for my blog.

I am now proud to present People Skills Decoded: the reinvented Ideas With A Kick. I will continue to write on personal development in general, but with a stronger emphasis on people skills and communication skills, which are what my professional life is all about (not to mention a big part of my personal life).

If you are subscribed to Ideas With A Kick, either by email or RSS feed, have no fear, your subscription will change automatically to People Skills Decoded.

If on your blog or website, you have posts, pages or articles with links to Ideas With A Kick, please change the names of the links to People Skills Decoded and their targets accordingly. Thank you and enjoy the new blog brand.

Filed Under: People Skills Tagged With: , , , , ,
March 7, 2010

How Knowing Yourself Can Improve Your People Skills

Finding my niche as a communication coach and figuring the lifestyle that suits me was not a revelation, it was a process. One of the stepping stones in this process was knowing myself thoroughly and understanding what I have to offer.

An interesting side effect was how much I improved my people skills, as a result of improving my self-knowledge. There is an obvious link between knowing yourself and choosing the right career. I discovered there is also a strong but more subtle link between knowing yourself and your people skills.

It’s funny how the effective personal development in one area often starts in another, apparently far away area. Here are some specific ways I experienced myself how knowing yourself can improve your people skills:

1. More social confidence. When you know yourself well, you know what you are about and you understand your strengths. From this place, confidence to put yourself out there often comes naturally. Knowing yourself often pushes you to meet people and to express yourself socially.

On the other hand, people who have a blurry image about themselves are more reluctant to put themselves out there. They don’t even understand who the person they put out there is, so they often have superficial interactions with others.

2. Building comfort. I realized one of the best ways to make people feel comfortable with you is to give them the chance to know you as a person. And you do this by expressing your thoughts, values, passions, emotions, in a powerful way.

But of course, in order to do this, you have to know them. As you know and open yourself up authentically, it’s easier for other people to reciprocate by opening themselves up. This two-way process is essential in building strong relations.

3. Investing in the right relations. How often have you heard people complaining about how they have the wrong friends or relationships? It’s easy to get caught up in time and energy consuming relations with people who are not a good fit for you when you don’t know yourself.

However, when you understand yourself, your intuition and your logic will better tell you who is a good fit for you. This will help you invest time and energy in maintaining and growing the relations with the right people for you, and letting the other ones fade.

There is a very simple lesson here: if you want to improve your people skills but you don’t know yourself very well, forget your people skills for a while and focus on this aspect. Get to know yourself better and as you do, you will improve your people skills and you will also create a solid foundation for them.

Filed Under: People Skills, Personal Development Tagged With: , , , , 13 Comments