May 31, 2010

Good People Skills = Building Trust

This is a guest post by my friend Maria Dinu (Galca), who is an Effectiveness Coach. She works full time in HR for a Fortune 100 Company, and coaches in her free time. She blogs about how to better manage your life on LifeToolkit.net.

I pride myself with having worked with various types of people in my 10 year career in the NGO and corporate field of HR. I’ve seen young people who were very close-minded, 16 year olds who were wiser than 50 year olds, company leaders who mocked their people, or Finance leaders who could explain the business in 5 minutes to their kid. I’ve had bosses I loved, although they knew little business, and bosses I … well, didn’t like so much, although they were experts.

And there’s one thing I noticed, in all these cases.

In business, and life in general, you’re nothing if you can’t build trust.
Trust = Credibility.
Trust = Leadership.

If people trust you, they will ultimately follow you. As Stephen R. Covey puts it, in his very good book “The Speed of Trust”, trust can get people to accomplish things in a company much, much faster.

Relationships based on trust work faster, because there are no insecurities. There are no check-ups. There are very few fights. And, what’s a company, if not an intricate set of relationships?

How do you build trust?
The saying “It takes 10 years to build trust, and one second to destroy it” is very true. Trust is built through time. But I’ve seen results in months, if not days. Let me tell you a story.

Some years ago, I worked with a person for whom I made every day difficult, on purpose. I’m not proud to say that, and I did not enjoy that time. The reason I did it was that somewhere, in my mind, I had the feeling that new manager would spoil my career. She was new, and she had not established herself correctly in front of our team. So, I said, why not show her that this is not the way things work?
(Of course, things did not work. They only got worse)
What changed dramatically was that I found out she supported me. She talked to me openly about the situation, and showed me she cared. And things did happen. Turns out, I was wrong. And feeling ashamed.
Afterwards, she became, if not a good friend, an esteemed manager from whom I learned a lot, despite differences.

1. The number one way to build trust in your relationships, is show people you care. If your team feels you care, they will be there for you. Go out for coffee with them. One of the very good team leaders I know established excellent relationships with her people from Day 1, taking them out to beer, and saying openly “I’m here for you. I’m human, just as you.” A great HR Manager I worked with gained the trust of her 100+ people saying in an open meeting “I’m here to help.”

2. You don’t need to be a best friend. Only respect your word. OK, going out to beer with the team is a good way to build relationships. But I never went to beer with my previous boss – all the trust established was gained from respecting one’s word.

3. Transparency, even in the worst situations, can gain you more trust and support, than keeping “the bad news” a secret. In the time of crisis, many companies had to let people go. Imagine the number of business managers who had to go in front of their people and say “We’re not doing well.” Who would have the guts to do that?

Well, it turns out from various studies (including the reputed Mc Kinsey) that transparency gains you more trust than if you shove the dirt under the carpet. Going in front of the team and saying “We’re not doing well, and here’s why, and here’s what I’m doing about it” will get your people supporting you than ever. And, you know, it just might be THE thing to get the company out of difficult times.

Building a circle of people who trust you may be the best thing you do in your career. Not only will they recommend you, support you and encourage you, but they will help you reach your goals faster, and in a more productive way than ever before.

Filed Under: Career, People Skills Tagged With: , , , , 5 Comments
May 16, 2010

Empathy vs. Sympathy: The Big Distinction

Here is one distinction I make which I notice helps a lot of people. It makes it easier for them to take the best decisions in communication and in social interactions with others, and it assists them to improve their people skills. This distinction is between two similar sounding concepts.

Empathy: the ability to understand, perceive and feel another person’s feelings.

Sympathy: the tendency to help others in order to prevent or alleviate their suffering.

These are not exact, dictionary definitions and it seems there are no universally accepted definitions for empathy and sympathy in psychology. These are rather the way I operate with the two concepts, in order to emphasize a couple of key aspects. Here are these aspects:

1) Empathy is always good, sympathy is contextually good.

Understanding the feelings of other people means to access very precious information which you can use in multiple ways.

However, feeling the need to help others is something which from one case to another can be good or bad. Sometimes it can mean honor and building bridges, sometimes it can mean lying, being fake, sacrificing your own needs, not letting others learn on their own and other pointless people pleasing behaviors.

2) You can have one, without the other.

This is the most important part. You can have sympathy with only a vague understanding of the other person’s feelings. You can also understand exactly how bad a person feels and still be capable of not helping her.

You can be a highly empathic person and still have your freedom to act in they ways you think are best, whether they involve helping others or not. You can have empathy and have options at the same time.

Let’s say a friend of yours invites you to their birthday party. While you would like to go, in the very same day there is a conference in another town that you would like to go to even more than the birthday party.

Having empathy means that you understand this will make you friend feel hurt, maybe even a little angry. Having sympathy only as an option means that although you understand this, you can still say no to their invitation and go to the conference instead of the party, without feeling bad. This example is something that actually happened to me recently, and the conference was my choice.

Why is this distinction essential?

It’s essential because when it comes to people skills, many believe that the ability to be empathic and the tendency to have sympathy are the same thing: If you have empathy, you have sympathy. If you understand how badly a person feels then you can’t help but help them in some way, even if rationally you know it’s a poor decision.

As another implication, since many people believe empathy and sympathy can only go hand in hand, they also think that in order to not have sympathy, you have to sacrifice you empathy. You have to become ignorant and numb.

Also, they often believe that they automatically have a lot of empathy because they tend to help others all the time. All of these ideas… are incorrect.

When you have a good understanding of the fact that empathy and sympathy are related phenomena but they go in separate boxes, you can learn to have empathy without always having sympathy, and you take your people skills to the next level.

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

Filed Under: Attitude, People Skills, Psychology Tagged With: , , , 19 Comments
May 4, 2010

VIP Lifestyle – Get Your Free Ebook

Ladies and gents,

I am thrilled to present…

VIP Lifestyle: A People-System for Creating Your Ultimate Lifestyle. This short ebook is a practical guide at the intersection of lifestyle design (one of my biggest passions) and people skills (my area of expertise).

I’ve worked like crazy for a couple of weeks, conceptualizing, writing and editing to make this ebook as powerful as possible, while still keeping it an easy read.

In VIP Lifestyle, I’ll share with you some of the most valuable lesson I’ve learned about using the way you communicate and relate with others to create a rich, exciting and fulfilling life for yourself. These are lessons drawn from my personal experiences, as well as my experiences working as a communication coach.

The topic of lifestyle design is booming in popularity. However, you don’t hear or read a lot about people skills in relation with creating an extraordinary lifestyle. People skills are often ignored or treated superficially, tacking a backseat to topics such as productivity or financial planning.

After 8 years of helping people improve their people skills, I firmly believe that in this complex social system we live, people skills play a huge role in creating an exceptional lifestyle for yourself. They can make or break your lifestyle.

In VIP Lifestyle, you will discover:

  • Why and what people skills are an essential ingredient for creating your ultimate lifestyle;
  • How to communicate better and get the results you want;
  • How to promote yourself, your ideas and your services effectively;
  • How to build quality relationships with others and have a rich social life;
  • How to effectively take your learning one step further than reading this book.

The key concepts explored include: personal boundaries, confidence in communication, persuasion, being sociable and networking.

Here is the really good news…

I’ve decided to make this ebook (value $12.95) available for free. Yes, for FREE.

All you have to do is subscribe to this blog.

After subscribing, every article you will receive from People Skills Decoded will contain a download link at the bottom, which will take you to VIP Lifestyle.

You will need Adobe Reader to open the ebook, and to save a copy on your computer. If you’re already subscribed to my blog, have no fear: you too will be able to download VIP Lifestyle for free with every article you receive.

This is high value content that I’m basically giving away for free. I’m sure a lot of people will benefit from reading it and using it. Please help me spread the word.

Filed Under: Lifestyle, People Skills Tagged With: , , , 16 Comments
April 21, 2010

How to Rise Above Family Pressure and Live the Life You Want

The family: a traditional source for love, advice, kind words, emotional support and apple pie. Also, quite often, a real pain in the ass when it comes to living the life you want. Let’s face it: you probably owe your family a lot, but at the same time, there are at least one or two big ways you feel it’s sabotaging your dreams.

I know in my family, I constantly felt pressure, especially from my dad, to live a certain way. The more I found out what I really wanted, the more I discovered it was not that way, and the pressure grew. Until at one point, I decided to move out of the family house completely, set some firm boundaries in the relationship with my parents and live exactly how I wanted.

My dad is still not very happy with how I spend my time, what I eat, the fact I have my own business instead of a regular job. Despite that, we now get along pretty well, and at the same time I don’t succumb to family pressure. This is how I do it and what I also teach others.

Most of the time, close family members like your parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters have positive intentions in trying to push you in a certain direction. They mean well, they do it out of love. But, this doesn’t mean they also do the right thing for you. I think there are 2 major problems with how families often guide their children.

  1. They try to keep them in the safe zone. They don’t want them to do anything risky or unconventional. They encourage them to choose the career filed in which you can find the biggest salaries, and you can get a job even if you’re half retarded, ignoring what the children really want, can and like to do.
  2. They spread out-of-date wisdom. Because our society has changed so much in the last decade, it’s very probable that older family members like parents in their 50’s or 60’s have understandings of things which no longer applies. Yet they continue to believe in them firmly, and to guide their children using these understandings.

The results you get is a lot of family pressure directing you in the wrong direction. And this doesn’t apply just to teenagers, who are still kind of immature and financially dependent on their parents. Most mature, experienced and financially independent adults I know also get this kind of pressure from their families, and they often give in to it.

Family pressure can be a powerful, hard to ignore factor for most people, applied with incredible skills. The good news is there is way to effectively deal with family pressure and live the life you want. Here are the main things which can help you:

  • Put some distance between you and the rest. If you’re living in the same house with your parents or grandparents (which in today’s world is common even for married people) and you see them every day, it’s hard not to succumb to their pressure. Make moving out at priority, save the money it takes and do it.
  • Realize you don’t need to please your family. There is this false belief that because you family is, well… your family, you must get along perfectly with every family member. You don’t. It’s a myth. There’s nothing wrong with upsetting dad once in a while or not living up to mom’s dream for you to be a doctor.
  • Learn to communicate assertively. Assertive communication is one the most valuable people skills you can have. It allows you to express yourself in a clear, direct way, but from a position of respect for others, and it’s a great way to deal with all the criticizing and negative comments you can get from family members which are not happy with your actions.

But these points are really only a frame to set for rising above family pressure. The most important thing is action. This is YOUR life, not your parents’ life. And while they’re not to be completely ignored, it’s only naturally to live the way YOU want.

Filed Under: Attitude, Lifestyle, People Skills Tagged With: , , , , , , 28 Comments
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 15, 2010

The Smart Things to Do For Charity

In the realm of people skills, it seems to me that to do things for charity is generally a much appreciated set of behaviors. This gets me thinking about whether charity activities are truly that good by themselves, or it depends on how exactly you do them.

Some friends of mine recently got involved in some volunteer work, planting trees as part of an ecological project. I respect the intention a lot, but I started wondering about this kind of work in relation with myself: Is this the best thing for me to do for charity? Is using a shovel the best I have to offer?

Let’s look at some of the popular things to do for charity: planting trees, collecting garbage, handing-out flyers, building stuff and feeding people. They all involve a lot of hand work and a blue-collar type set of skills.

Now let’s look at the profile and skills of people who do things for charity: they are often smart, responsible, well educated, and financially stable. They have professional, white-collar type skills like accounting, sales, management, HR, training, PR etc.

Do you see an incompatibility here? These friends of mine I’m talking about, they have some very good professional and people skills. But they do not involve digging, moving heavy stuff or working in the cold. Yet, like a lot of people who do things for charity, they opt for this kind of stuff, instead of something which is connected with their skills.

Why? This, from my perspective, is impractical. If the point of charity activities is to help others as much as you can, then it makes sense to choose things to do for charity which you’re very good at. The smart way to do charity involves these steps:

  • Know your top strengths and skills, know how you can provide the most value;
  • Identify charity activities which make use of these strengths and skills;
  • Do those as charity instead of following the pack.

I know that a lot of times, skilled people end up volunteering in work that doesn’t mach their skills because they believe these are the kind of things which charity is about. But this is a false presumption. You can do charity and help other in a lot of ways.

Think of rock stars that don’t do charity by planting trees, but by doing charity concerts and using their top skills: singing, entertaining. And they raise a tone of money. Think of people who just give money for charity and they spend their time working in something they’re good at, making those money.

My version of doing things for charity is that every once in a while I coach, train or speak for free at different events, for various organizations, on topics gravitating around people skills. This is what I know best. But I don’t go out there moving sacks of cement from one place to another, which a 14-year old could do better than me.

In the area of people skills, doing things for charity is truly a mastered skilled if you do it in the right way, the efficient way. Then, you’re truly helping the people in need to a great degree, instead of just doing stuff so you can feel good about yourself. This is for me, what charity is all about.

Filed Under: Inspirational, Lifestyle, People Skills Tagged With: , , , 19 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: , , , , ,