17.2 Developing Interpersonal Skills Is Key to Your Success

17.2 Developing Interpersonal Skills Is Key to Your Success

A degree in business can offer you many great career opportunities. Once you take your first job, how rapidly you move up the ladder is up to you. People with strong interpersonal skills can do better both on and off the job. It has been estimated that 85 percent of workplace success is based on interpersonal skills.² If you aspire to be in a leadership position in your career, here are some ways to enhance your interpersonal skills to help get you there:

1. Build your people skills. Learn to build alliances in a group and foster an environment of collaboration. That is not to say that you have to be friends with all of your coworkers, but taking the time to get to know them and to build a strong rapport can go a long way toward establishing strong team collaboration and effectiveness. Make a concerted effort to know what is happening in the lives of your colleagues. Skills such as being open to constructive criticism, listening, problem-solving, collaboration, empathy, being trustworthy, and reliability are all useful abilities in the workplace. Offering praise and thanks are also important aspects of strong interpersonal skills.

   Become a good listener. When you listen well, you are in effect telling the other person that they are worth listening to. Listening well includes listening to both what is said and what is not said. Learn to read unspoken gestures and expressions. When giving feedback, plan what you will say in advance. Be positive and specific. Ask the person receiving the feedback if they would like to discuss your comments further.

2. Understand how to persuade others. Remember: we all must sell ourselves and our ideas to get ahead in life and in business. Influencing others means overcoming objections, igniting passions, or changing minds. First, help establish a culture of shared enthusiasm and buy-in to the company or group goals. Using strong communication and listening skills can build a culture where everyone is working toward shared goals, while recognizing the unique contributions that each member brings to the table. Recognize team members for their contributions and celebrate successes.

   Persuasion rests on trust. You can build trust by being honest, fulfilling your commitments, being concerned about others, and minimizing problems and pain for others whenever possible. In short, if you have integrity, building trust becomes a simple task.

   When people raise objections to your plans or ideas, try to fully understand their comments and the motivation for making them. For example, if there is an objection to an idea presented, you can follow up with rationale based on facts and data to support your position. Be willing to compromise, realizing that your ideas might not be the only solution to achieving the goal. Determine your persuasion skills by taking the quiz in Table 17.1.

3. Learn to think on your feet. Top executives say that thinking and speaking well on your feet while under pressure is the best thing that you can do for your career. An important skill to practice is being able to clearly express yourself with confidence, even when under pressure. If you display confidence in tense situations, you will be more likely to get others to listen to your perspective. ³

   Self-Test—Can You Persuade Others?
   Rate your level of agreement with the statements below using the following scale:
   Strongly Agree	Agree	Neither Agree nor Disagree	Disagree	Strongly Disagree
   I prefer to work in a team rather than individually. I enjoy motivating others to help accomplish objectives. I avoid working with difficult people or trying to resolve group differences. I can learn more working in a team rather than working by myself. I would prefer to work with individuals I have known previously. I give up if my team members do not agree with me. I may not always convince my team members to agree with my opinions, but I will go ahead and do what I feel is correct. I think people who can persuade others always possess sound judgment. I will do the work myself if others do not agree to do it. To get the work done, I will listen to a person to understand how they want it to be done. I can get people to voluntarily make commitments and get the work done.4
   See the scoring guidelines at the end of this chapter to obtain your score.

   Table 17.1

   It will not happen overnight, but you can become a skilled and confident thinker and speaker. Consider practicing your public speaking skills with a friend. You could ask this person to speak on a topic for a few minutes. During this time, you should be carefully listening to understand the concept they are discussing. When they are finished, the challenge for you is to use their main topic to set the stage for your speech. Another technique is to have someone "interview" you asking you specific questions about yourself and your experiences. You might also consider recording yourself during these activities. We often are unaware of habits such as certain body language or speech patterns until we see ourselves on video. Replaying the recording can reveal areas in which you can improve your communication skills.

4. Empower yourself. No matter who you are, what position you will hold, or where you work, you probably will have to report to somebody. If you are fortunate enough to work in a culture of empowerment, you are allowed control over your job (not complete control, but enough control to make you feel your opinion matters). Having the ability to provide input in the workplace is a key aspect of job satisfaction and motivation. When empowered, you have the confidence to do something to alter your circumstances. On the job, empowerment means that you can make decisions to benefit the organization and its customers.

   If you want to gain empowerment in your life and work, here are a few tips: be confident and do not be afraid to speak up, present your ideas to the group and your supervisors with solid rationale, link your personal goals to the goals of the organization, develop your leadership skills, seek out learning opportunities, reflect on bad situations and how you can manage or change them, give yourself grace when you fail, and celebrate your successes.

5. Understand office politics. Politics is often an integrated part of organizations, including schools and workplaces, and can have an influence on the inner workings and interpersonal relationships of the business environment. You should learn to navigate office politics to understand what is going on behind the scenes. At times, you may need to form alliances with key players in the organization to facilitate getting a job accomplished. For example, sometimes those employees that are not in a defined leadership position can have key information or skills that you will need to be successful. Collaborating with those coworkers can be invaluable to your career and overall the success of your work projects. Being political means getting along with others in order to move them toward accomplishing a specific goal. It does not mean maneuvering for selfish purposes, manipulating in order to deceive, or scheming so others lose while you win.

   Here are some tips and techniques to be effective at navigating office politics:

   • Think about what you say. Understand the effect your words will have on others before you say or write them.
   • Empathize. Try to think of a situation from the other person’s perspective.
   • Suggest a trial period if you meet opposition to an idea you’re proposing. If you are as successful as you are confident, you can then ask to have the trial period extended.
   • Learn about the political climate in which you are working. This means knowing, among other things, what actions have led to failure for others, knowing who is “in” and why, determining who is “out” and why, and learning what behaviors lead to promotion.
   • Volunteer to do the jobs no one else wants to do. Occasionally pitching in shows your willingness to get the job done, and being a team player goes a long way to building your credibility in an organization. However, care should be taken to not over volunteer for tasks far outside of your work duties. This could take away from the job you were hired to perform and that could reflect poorly on your evaluations.
   • Work hard to meet the needs of those in authority. Make certain you fully understand management’s requirements; then go out of your way to meet them. If in time you do not think you are getting the recognition or respect you deserve, make your own needs known.
   • Give credit to others. You never know who may be in a position to help you in the future, regardless of their position in the firm. Consequently, the best policy is to treat everyone with respect and dignity. Show your appreciation to everyone who has helped you. Do not steal credit that belongs to someone else.
   • Learn your supervisor’s preferences. The more you are aware of your supervisor’s style, wishes, and preferences, the better you can work together. However, try not to simply mimic your supervisor's style. Instead, understand how to work with the manager while maintaining your style and voicing your ideas and/or concerns.
   • Maintain confidentiality and privacy. Resist the temptation to spread rumors or share overly personal information in the workplace. Not only do you run the risk of sharing false information about others, but you also risk others viewing you in a negative light for spreading rumors. If you are revealing information told to you in confidence about a coworker or even the company itself, you risk losing the trust and respect of your colleagues. Try to avoid sharing too much about your personal life in the workplace and consider setting your social media profiles to private. Negative public information about your private life can reflect poorly on you in the workplace or possibly even on your employer.

   Find out how well you play the political game by taking the quiz in Table 17.3.

6. Become a team builder. Throughout your college and business career, you will participate on teams. You can expect some level of teamwork in nearly all organizations. An effective team is one that meets its goals on time and, if a budget is involved, within budget. It is important that the team have good communication skills, a culture of collaboration, and clear goals that are tied to the larger organizational goals. Table 17.2 lists the questions that teams should answer to ensure their success.

   Key Questions That Teams Should Answer before Starting a Project
   What are the goals? Who provides the mission statement? What are our limits? Where will support come from? Who will be our sponsor? Who will be team leader? How is that person selected? What are the deadlines we face? What resources are available? What data will we need to collect? For how long will our team exist? Who are the customers for our team results? What do they expect of us? Will our team responsibilities conflict with our regular jobs? What is the reward for success? How will decisions be made? How will our efforts be measured? Will our intended success be replicated? If so, how and by whom?5
   See the scoring guidelines at the end of this chapter to obtain your score.

   Table 17.2

   Self-Test—Are You Good at Office Politics?
   Answer “yes” or “no” to the following questions:
   To be successful, you should have a strong relationship with your boss, peers, and subordinates. Office politics is not very challenging. Tough people give you a tough time but also teach you tough lessons. Networking and observation play a major role in being good at office politics. There are no ethics or morals in office politics. Corporate politics is not about the individuals; it is about the survival of the corporation. Office politics is the only way; you gain real access to your boss’s ear. Those who avoid being political at work may not move forward in their careers, may find themselves resentful and frustrated, and run the risk of being isolated. If you do all of the work on a project, you won’t tell the boss because you don’t want your coworkers to get in trouble. When faced with gossip and rumors, you prefer to be silent but aware. To succeed in office politics, you should seek a win-lose situation. If a person in authority is out to get rid of you, a good tactic would be to establish allies and position yourself for another job in the company. If you have made any significant contribution to a project, you always make sure that others know about it, which, in turn, adds to your reputation.6
   See the scoring guidelines at the end of this chapter to obtain your score.

   Table 17.3

7. Handle conflict well. The world is not a perfect place, and there are no perfect people living in it. The best we can hope for is people’s willingness to improve life’s circumstances. If we are truly committed to the idea of reducing conflict in organizations, there is much we can do to inspire such willingness in others. Bringing conflict into the open has its advantages. Talking about conflict often helps to clear the air, and thinking about the possibility of conflict often helps to avoid it.

   When conflicts occur, try the K-I-N-D technique. The letters stand for:

   • K = Kind
   • I = Informed
   • N = New
   • D = Definite

   The technique involves your requesting a meeting with the difficult person, whether they are is having a conflict with you or with others. Start off with kind words, words that encourage cooperation, words that show your determination to make the conflict situation better. Next, demonstrate that you have taken the time to learn more about the person, what is important to them, what they prefers in terms of work. Show by your words that you have taken the time to become informed about the individual.

   The third step requires you to do something novel, something you have not tried before. Put your creativity to work, and discover a plan to which you can both subscribe (for example, document the main issues and possible solutions in a shared file).

   Finally, do not permit the exchange to conclude until you have made a definite overture to ensure future success. What can you promise the other person you will do differently? What are you asking them to do differently? Set a time to meet again and review your individual attempts to achieve collective improvement.