4 Ways to Improve People Skills
How advantageous is it to increase your people skills? People skills can be defined by a broad collection of attitudes, thought processes, and levels of awareness, which allow you to relate well to others. In business, having great people skills is tremendously important.
People skills closely relate to business topics and training can improve upon those areas such as business leadership skills training, negotiation skills training, and training for sales. The world of business is full of relationships, and learning to form good relationships with the help of people skills will only serve to your benefit. Read the following four tips to help improve the way you relate to others.
Active Listening
It is highly important for others to be heard. Active listening is the process of presenting occasional and one-line summaries of what the speaker is saying. The process lets the speaker know you are listening and you understand their message. Active listening is advantageous for both parties. Imagine being a new employee taking directions from a boss. Anxiety or nervousness may influence the new worker’s ability to listen to directions, yet participating in active listening would prompt the worker to concentrate on the boss’ message, reinforcing the worker’s memory and letting the boss know the worker clearly understands.
Smiling is Okay
How serious are you about business? Could it be detrimental to be too serious? It can be possible to be successful and jovial at the same time. Many people who find themselves in a business leadership position struggle with implementing humor because humor has the reputation of being antithetical to business. Proponents of enhancing people skills would suggest that smiling is okay. Of course, it is expected to maintain professionalism at all times during the course of the business day, yet a professional can be successful and enjoy humor. Sometimes, success is facilitated by humor due to a businessperson’s charismatic personality.
Empathize
When we have a remote sense of what others are experiencing, we are sympathizing, but we are empathizing when we can truly relate to the experience of others. It is a great advancement in increasing your people skills when you can learn to put your self in another’s position or see things from their perspective. Oftentimes, people may not relate or cannot remedy a situation because they do not attempt to place themselves in the other person’s position. Empathizing increases awareness and can benefit business by helping people relate and inspiring workers to see various perspectives.
No Negativity
‘No negativity’ sounds cliche and obvious, yet maintaining a positive mindset is something to be conscious about each business day. Some business people repeat mantras or slogans throughout the day to help them maintain their positivity. Negativity has a bad influence on many business aspects such as negotiation skills, strategic selling, and people skills. It is important to distinguish negativity from being critical. The latter is needed in order to make business decisions, yet negativity is never ‘needed’ in business. Keeping a positive mindset improves morale and inspires others to seek you for input and advice.
