INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

“Interpersonal skills”refers to mental and communicative algorithms applied during social communications and interactions in order to reach certain effects or results.

The term "interpersonal skills" is used often in business contexts to refer to the measure of a person's ability to operate within business organizations through social communication and interactions.

The important skills include :

Empathy,

Building trust,

Active listening,

Communication styles,

Dealing with difficult people,

Assertiveness.

Conflict management.

EmpathyIt is valued currency. This

means the ability to put yourself in the other person's shoes, to see things from his or her point of view.

It allows us to create bonds of trust, it gives us insights into what others may be feeling or thinking.

Empathy is also particularly critical to leadership development in this age of young, independent, highly marketable and mobile workers.

Building trust

A shared belief that you can depend on each other to achieve a common purpose.

Building relationships requires the building of trust.

Trust is the expectancy of people that they can rely on your word. It is built through integrity and consistency in relationships.

Effective Listening: The Bottom Line of Trust

A conversation is a relationship, Both speaker and listener play a part, each influencing the other.

"You cannot establish trust if you cannot listen.

Trust-based Working Relationships

Trust has an important link with your organizational success. "Trust elevates levels of commitment and sustains effort and performance without the need for management controls and close monitoring."

Trust as a Source of Competitive Advantage

Trust-based working relationships are an important source of your sustainable competitive advantage, because trust is valuable, rare imperfectly imitable, and often nonsubstitutable. Trust is significantly related to sales, profits, and turnover.

Active listening

Active listening is a particular way of engaging in a conversation in which attention is focused primarily on one person, with the listener fully engaged in absorbing and responding to what the speaker is saying.

Having a direct, friendly, and relaxed expression on your face, conveys a message that you are listening attentively.

An active listener makes a variety of responses.

It is appropriate to reflect feelings as well as the factual content as they act as an expression.

Interrupting the speaker or changing the subject should not be done.

Mechanical responses should be avoided.

Redirecting the conversation should not be done.

Communication styles

Learn to improve your communication with people who use styles different from yours, enhances your effectiveness in many different situations. People differ on two scales:  whether they emphasize tasks or people more, and whether they usually ask questions or make statements. People who tend to focus on tasks and on telling thus are Drivers, while task-oriented people who focus on asking are analyticals.

People tend to get along well with others of their own type and one or two compatible types, whereas some combinations clash.

Culture also plays an important role in communication.

Gender can also play a role in shaping the ways in which we interact with each other.

Communication skills

Listening – consciously choose to do.

Consensus building - general agreement arrived at by all concerned.

Being responsible,

Conflict- Conflict resolution is the process of constructively mediating opposite points of view so that people can work together to reach a mutually acceptable compromise.

Dealing with difficult people

Think about the ways that you can respond constructively to difficult people when you encounter them, and ways you can avoid becoming a difficult person yourself.

The Chatterbox

Rather than risk insulting your colleague, put the blame on yourself.

Tell your coworker you have trouble concentrating while you are listening to her/his very engaging stories.

GossipGossip is that which carries both elements of truth and untruth.

Listen to your gossipy coworker quietly, but don't become a gossip too.

change the subject or say that you don't feel right discussing someone behind his back.

The ComplainerOffering an advice to the complainer probably won't do any good.

Change the subject whenever the bellyaching begins.

Make sure that your colleague should gets the hint after you do this repeatedly.

The Delegator Make the statement that managers are the only ones who have the authority to delegate.

Tell your coworker you have your own work with which to deal.

If team work is encouraged in your office and you have time to help your colleague, then it is good to help.

The Credit Grabber Mention it to your colleague and ask him/her to let others know about your participation.

Make sure you let others know .

unless you are mandated to work with this person, refuse to help out again.

Assertiveness

Inclined to expressing wishes and opinions in a firm and confident manner.

people confuse being aggressive with being assertive. 

Guidelines for refusing a request gently, yet effectively:

Review your priorities.

Determine who is best to do the job.

Work out your strategy and act right away.

Offer your faculty partner alternatives for getting the job done. 

Offer partial, rather than full, support of the task.

Conflict

It is inevitable in business relationships, just as it is in social relationships.

When looking at conflict resolution, the persons involved, the importance of the issue, emotional states, and desired outcomes may all come into play.

Resolving conflict has to do with one's willingness to be cooperative.

Ways People Deal With Conflict

Avoid it. Pretend it is not there or ignore it.

Accommodate it. Give in to others, sometimes to the extent that you compromise yourself.

Competing. Work to get your way, rather than clarifying and addressing the issue.

Compromising - Mutual give-and-take.

Collaborating - Focus on working together.

Dealing with conflict up front leads to open communication, conscious cooperation among employees, and increased productivity.

CONCLUSION

Interpersonal skills are highly essential to be incoorporated in each and every individual of our society so as to make life easy ,successful and a step towards our growth and transformation into a good human being.