|
Four tips for improving people skills |
|
In The Workplace
|
By Bob Weinstein
HR professionals and headhunters classify skills into two categories, hard skills and soft skills. “Hard” skills are easier to define because they apply to a specific function – computer programming, database management, driving a truck, piloting a plane, designing a house or office building (architect), building a cabinet (carpenter) or wiring a building (electrician).
Soft skills, on the other hand, embrace all the interpersonal relationships vital to selling a company’s products or services. In the past, many organizations considered hard skills more important than soft ones when considering job candidates. While an IT or engineering company may initially put more weight on technical skills when evaluating job candidates, they look for candidates who have both. They’re ultimately the most valuable because they have the potential to go the furthest.
People skills open career doors
Quality of interpersonal or people skills is one of the important reasons rank-and-file employees are promoted to management positions,” according to John Agno, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based executive coach and career counselor. “As they move up the organizational ladder people skills become even more important. “Executives are promoted for their abilities to ‘bring in the numbers,’ take tough stands and create strategic plans,” says Agno, “But when they bomb, it is usually because of poor or mediocre people skills.”
To improve people skills, Agno offers four tips:
1. Learn to conduct productive conversations. Comfortable people skills open the door for easygoing conversation, says Agno. Excellent rapport between people is built through conversation. Initially, conversation may be hard to start. That’s why it’s important not to think about the structure of a conversation, says Agno. “Be open to conversations that you are unprepared for. Focus on the interests of the other person rather than your own. And look for opportunities to ask non-threatening questions.”
“It may seem awkward at first, but it sets the stage for a respectful exchange,” Agno adds. Good decisions are usually made when the right questions are asked.
And don’t let anxiety or tension stand in your way. It’s normal to be nervous when interacting with people for the first time. Most people mistakenly dwell on discomfort, failing to realize that the other person is nervous as well. So take it as a given and use small talk (the weather, the economy, sports) as a bridge to relaxed and comfortable rapport.
2. Read body language. Successful salespeople have learned how to get a reading on people based upon their facial expressions, gestures, posture and eye contact. Once they read the body signals in others, they can apply it to themselves. A relaxed expression and constant eye contact communicate a sense of self-confidence and poise that relax the person you’re dealing with, making it easier to sell a product or rally support for a position.
3. Seek feedback and criticism. It takes time and hard work to build strong people skills. Learning can only take place if you’re constantly seeking feedback and criticism. Open yourself up to the notion of lifelong learning and bettering yourself.
4. Master listening. Masterful communicators have learned that building a comfortable rapport is finding the divine balance between speaking and listening. Most people are too intent on speaking. They don’t realize that the only way to get a true reading on another person is to listen to what they have to say. It sounds obvious. But listening often involves learning how to be silent and waiting for the other person to express his viewpoint. Silence often opens the door to active, fruitful conversation. In time, you’ll learn to be an empathetic listener.
Empathetic listeners are listening not just to be polite, but because of a genuine desire to understand the person they are speaking with. As soon as honest concern is sensed, the door is opened to sharing information. It’s a simple concept that leads to winning contracts, solving technical and business problems and mediating interpersonal conflicts – even saving lives.
SOURCE: Troy Media
|
|
Afraid to take hard-earned vacation? |
|
In The Workplace
|
By Catherine Ford
It’s August. September looms. Where is your vacation, and why are you not on it?
The only acceptable answer to that rhetorical question is to say that you’re working in the heat of summer because taking time off when everybody else’s children are clogging up the lakes, campgrounds and resorts. You’ll take your much-needed annual vacation when the little beggars are back in school. Or in the dead of winter, when Mexico or Hawaii beckon.
Except, here’s the rub: If you’re a North American, you’re likely not taking all of your allotted time off. It’s not as if employers are giving away so much vacation to their employees that it’s impossible to take so much time away from work. Nope, you, the employee, are letting your vacation time lapse and expire at the end of the calendar year. (Rare is the company that allows its employees to “bank” their vacation time, except in exceptional circumstances.)
One is tempted to blame this on overinflated egos who believe two weeks without their presence will result in company failure.
Can you handle the truth?
Fact is, not only are you irreplaceable, but even if you vanished off the face of the earth in the next 10 seconds, your employer will find someone to do your job by the end of the day, and life would continue unabated at your workstation.
This reluctance to go on a holiday is a peculiarly North American condition, and at no other time is it so obvious as in August. In Europe, half the continent takes August off to visit the other half. Paris is open during August only in order to keep unwary tourists happy, those people who don’t know no one goes to Paris in August. (Blaming the current European economic problems on the generosity of the European Union, whose employers are required by law to give each full-time employee a minimum of four weeks vacation, is another conversation entirely.)
Vacation is a North American word — the rest of the world calls it holiday — although the concept of taking time off is universal. Nonetheless, for people who fought long and hard for a guaranteed annual vacation, we appear to be profoundly uninterested in taking all of it, even as we get fewer days paid leave than most of the rest of the world. In the United States, it is employers and not the government who decide vacation allotments. In Canada, predictably – and sadly – we follow Americans’ lead.
American employers begrudge vacations
Studying this phenomenon, Jon Delano of Carnegie Melon University wrote: “While most foreigners view vacation as an essential part of a sane and civilized existence and an entitlement which all employees should share rather equally, the view is quite different in this country. For the most part, American employers begrudge vacation time and dole it out parsimoniously, based on length of service.”
Only about three per cent of the work force takes four weeks off at any one time. The majority of workers take their vacations – regardless of the time allotted – in one-week increments. A growing number (30 per cent) take extended weekends and laughingly call it a vacation.
That may account for the proliferation of ads extolling the weekend getaway and the growing number of articles on what is being called “mini-vacations,” a phrase only rivaling the “staycation” for abuse of the real meaning of a vacation.
Despite all the proof and studies to the contrary, we still harbour the Calvinist thought that taking time off is the devil making work for idle hands and taking a holiday is dogging it, wasting the moment, being lazy.
Sorry, your company can get along without you
There’s also the arrogance factor to be accounted for: those self-important employees who believe we can’t get along without them for longer than a few days.
Your company will happily accept your contribution to its bottom line, your donation of the time off for which you have worked all year. But don’t expect anything in the way of recompense or fulsome thank-yous in return.
Indeed, nobody will remember and nobody will care – except your spouse and your children — should you have successfully remained married. Consider that no one on his or her deathbed wishes he or she had spent more time at the office.
So tell me again, why it is you aren’t taking all the vacation time owed you?
You have too much work to do? No, you don’t, unless you own the company, it’s just getting off the ground, and you are its sole employee. In that case, you probably need time off more than anyone.
Now I’m going to tell you a secret about people who are loath to take all their vacation: I wouldn’t trust them as managers, and I wouldn’t want to be married to one.
If they can’t prioriotize their lives — work and families — so that time off is as important to their mental and physical health as time spent at the office, they cannot be considered efficient, effective or emotionally balanced — qualities as prized in spouses as they are for a vice president or comptroller.
So what argument can you offer in rebuttal? None. My case rests.
SOURCE: Troy Media
|
|
Conquer yourself to get ahead |
|
In The Workplace
|
By Bob Weinstein
War is a powerful metaphor for work.
So says Kay Hammer, author of Workplace Warrior, Insights and advice for winning on the corporate battlefield.
The real enemies aren’t bad bosses and inefficient management, it’s also yourself. The toughest battles we fight are often with ourselves.
Hammer should know. She fought all the way to her former job as president and CEO of Austin-based Evolutionary Technologies International, Inc. (ETI), which she launched in 1991. The 180-person company designs software that automates the task of keeping data consistent across an enterprise’s supply chain. Hammer
A circuitous route finally landed Hammer in her job. After getting her Ph.D. in linguistics, she taught the subject and literature at Washington State University for six years, followed by a decade of working as a systems programmer for Texas Instruments and Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corp. (MCC) before she decided to strike off on her own.
Bungled through life
Self-deprecating and shy about her accomplishments, the veteran techie turned entrepreneur says she kind of “bungled through life.”
“I’ve been wildly lucky and pretty stupid when I look back on my career and personal life,” she admits. “No advance has come without periods of frustration, anger and depression.”
If there is an underlying theme behind Hammer’s success, it’s intense, almost brutal introspection. “There is no better place to discover yourself than the workplace,” according to Hammer. “Work is the ultimate seduction, but it’s also an incredible outlet for spiritual growth.”
Because so much of our energy is channeled into our work, conflicts with ourselves and others are inevitable. “It’s the process of overcoming these conflicts that offers opportunities to grow and change,” says Hammer.
Hammer sees her entire career as a series of battles and skirmishes that had to be conquered. The first was deciding to leave academia and get a corporate job. “My back was against the wall before I started to move,” she says. “I had to endure double digit inflation, single digit raises, two children and an ex-husband to support before I realized my situation wasn’t going to get better.”
Then, there were countless corporate battles Hammer won and lost. Being smart wasn’t enough, she also had to learn how to fight strategically. A hot temper proved an ineffective weapon. “It took me a while to realize I was missing out on opportunities because I was so intent on proving others wrong,” Hammer confesses. “Anger is a great messenger because it warns you that you are afraid of something. It’s gratifying to get angry, but it didn’t help me succeed.”
Intense introspection turned Hammer around.
The enemy? “Half the time it’s you and half the time it is something out there that needs fixing,” says Hammer. “If you don’t pull back and take your emotion out of situations and understand where they’re coming from, you’ll often make it a personal battle where everyone looses as opposed to figuring out how to reach your goals so you can avoid fighting. Often, the very thing motivating you is what is holding you back.”
But, if you have to fight, do it dispassionately. “You don’t necessarily have to crucify anyone,” she says. “The idea is to get what you want.”
The problem with techies is they often refuse to compromise. “Because they’re technical, they have a tremendous amount of discipline and often are extremely creative,” she says. “They have a model for the way things ought to be done and they don’t want to compromise in order to do a job they feel good about. But, on the real life workplace battlefield, compromise is part of the game, especially if you hope to move up.”
Secrets to success
Hammer’s four secrets leading to success? First, you don’t need permission to take risks or succeed; Second, while admiration and approval feel great, you have to be willing to follow your conscience and risk adulation; Third, to win your private war and achieve your goals, be prepared for periods of failure and hardship; And fourth, don’t read your own press. If you get good press, you‘re also going to get bad press, which is a kind of temperature gauge telling you how well you’re doing.
The idea is to stay the course, hold on to your vision no matter what anyone says about you.
SOURCE: Troy Media
|
|
You think it’s easy being a boss? |
|
In The Workplace
|
By Bob Weinstein
A promotion to boss changes relationships with everyone – especially co-workers. No longer one of the gang, you’ve joined the other side.
There is a boundary line separating bosses from the rank-and-file. Newly minted managers are saddled with responsibilities no one prepared them for.
Unlike musical or athletic abilities, which often have a genetic root, leadership abilities are an acquired or learned skill.
Most managers learn on the job. Predictably, they often make mistakes. In the career-building process, it’s important to understand your managers, their jobs, and the skills needed to manage others.
While many large and midsize companies provide training seminars and lectures for new managers, most organizations provide little or meager training for bosses. And most training programs are half-hearted attempts to teach specific managerial skills, such as how to delegate authority, get feedback and work with difficult employees.
MBA ranks still small
Some large companies aggressively promote the fact that they hire professional managers with MBAs. They’re promoted as the new breed of managers.
However, the MBA ranks are small, and 99 per cent of the bosses will never enroll in an MBA program. What’s more, most bosses don’t have a bachelor’s degree.
Consider the following givens about bosses:
Bosses have incompetent role models. Bosses are not trained to be managers, and most had inadequate or poor role models. How can anyone be a good boss if his role model was a high-strung megalomaniac who managed his department as if it were a military battalion?
Bosses misuse or abuse authority. It’s not hard to understand how bosses can abuse authority. One day, you’re just another worker taking orders and griping about the power chain; the next you’re a boss with people reporting to you. Not only must employees now take orders from you, but you’re also the one they must please. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in charge of one or 100 people – as soon as a worker has to report to and answer to someone else, you have a boss-employee relationship. Any first-time boss will tell you that the first surge of power is a heady feeling. The erudite former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger described power as “the great aphrodisiac.”
It’s easy to let power go to your head. Many bosses use it as a weapon to compensate for their inadequacies, frustrations and failures; others use it to cast a spell of fear and anxiety in the ranks. It happens in all companies, but especially in small ones. This is where you find the prototypical big fish in a little pond who couldn’t cut it in larger organizations with complex and strict reporting relationships. In small companies, however, these petty bureaucrats, many of whom have been victimized by tyrannical bosses, can be king of the mountain, wreaking fear, panic and emotional suffering on everyone in their charge. They take great pleasure knowing that they’re dreaded and that their employees’ jobs depend on pleasing them.
Here are more facts about bosses:
Bosses often operate with complete autonomy. Many bosses get away with tyrannical behavior because they’re allowed to rule with complete autonomy. They’re like feudal lords, free to run their fiefdoms as they please. They can be enlightened despots, vicious dictators or democratic leaders considerate of their troops. It’s the luck of the draw.
Most bosses don’t know about or care about progressive management techniques. Yet many untrained bad bosses would probably change if they were able to see themselves through their employees’ eyes.
The moral of this workplace saga: Cut your boss some slack. He or she is not perfect. Like all of us, they’re just people trying to do their jobs.
SOURCE: Troy Media
|
|
Resource 
