subject: Perfman HR: Become Interpersonally Competent [print this page] Perfman HR: Become Interpersonally Competent
Treat people with kindness and respect. Help them enhance their feelings of self esteem.
Interpersonal competence is the one of the most important keys of career and life success. No matter how self confident you are, how good you are at creating positive personal impact, how great a performer or dynamic a communicator you are, you will not succeed if you are not interpersonally competent.
Pat Wiesner is a columnist. One of his columns compiled in a book is called "The Biggest Management Sin of All: How to Lose Your Job or at Least Deserve to Lose It."
The biggest sin? Demeaning people. Pat says, "My belief is that if we get caught shouting at people, demeaning them in any way, we should be fired. On the spot."
I agree. And this holds for everyonenot just people in leadership and management positions. Raising your voice and demeaning people is not only poor leadership, it is one of the hallmarks of interpersonally incompetent people.
Belittling, intimidating, or otherwise demeaning people is not only nasty, it is destructive to their self esteem and self confidence. Pat says, "Once you have made someone feel really negative about himself, how long would it take to reverse that feeling? Pretty tough to do." I believe that interpersonally competent people help others buildnot destroytheir self confidence.
Interpersonally incompetent people often seem to feel that the best way to feel good about themselves is to make others feel bad about themselves. That's why they often engage in demeaning and bullying behavior.
This is simply not true. The title of one of the first self-help books I ever readpublished by Thomas Harris, 'I'm OK, You're OK'says it best. Interpersonally competent people come from an "I'm OK, You're OK" place. Bullies and demeaning people come from an "I'm OK, You're Not OK" place.
Interpersonally competent people realize that we're all okay. They work hard to meet people where they are and to build strong relationships with all the people in their lives.
Treat people with kindness and respect. Help them enhance their feelings of self esteem. Do what you can to build their self confidence. If you do, you'll be known as an interpersonally competent person and interpersonally competent people are welcome wherever they go.
Interpersonal competence will help you create rich relationships that last a lifetime. In 'The Little Black Book of Connections,' Jeffrey Gitomer offers the best piece of commonsense advice I've ever seen when it comes to relationships:
"Everyone wants to be rich. Although most people think being rich is about having money, rich is a description for everything but money. Rich relationships lead to much more than money. They lead to success, fulfillment and wealth."
As you probably expect, there are a few commonsense points associated with interpersonal competence too. Understand yourself. Think about what makes you tick. When you are working with someone else, think about what makes them tick. If they are different from you, decide what you need to do to be better able to communicate with them. Second, do things for other peopleand don't keep score. Good things will come your way, often from unexpected sources. Build relationships by being willing to do for others whether or not they are willing to do for you. Finally, when you are in conflict, look for where you agree with the other person. Use these small places of agreements to build a mutually acceptable resolution to your conflict.
Sonal Aurora is director and co- founder ofPerfman HR.
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