In difficult times, observe your ability to relate to people
Why? Because professional relationship skills are the only thing you can rely on in a rapidly changing world, and the ability to relate to other people is the most critical skill you can have.
Now this may be the exact opposite of your first inclination. In times of uncertainty, our instinct is to defend what we have, even to be combative and disconnect from others, but that is a lost response. It doesn’t really matter whose end of the sinking ship it is; we must all take action to respond to the crisis.
In tough times, we need to up our game, both as individuals and as organizations, and even as countries, and a cost-effective way to safeguard our future is to be better and smarter at dealing with people. We’re probably already good at it, but nothing as good as we could be.
When we look around us, it is hard not to see challenges more or less everywhere, some of them international or even global in scope, others much closer to home, that directly affect our lives and our families. The ubiquity of these challenges and difficulties can lead us into a state of hopelessness, thinking that there is little we can do to help ourselves.
However, it doesn’t have to be this way…
When our lives seem difficult, we have a choice: we can sit back and wait for our future to happen to us, or we can up our game and take back control.
“But there’s so much to learn, things change so fast, we get outdated so fast…” you might think, “so what’s the point?”
Well, it’s true that learning in some areas quickly becomes obsolete, so it helps to choose an approach that lasts. The more fundamental the skill, the more likely it is to be true. One of those foundational skills is our ability to relate effectively to other people, because it just makes everything else easier. In other words, relationship skills are a good bet for investing time and energy in learning, and it’s affordable. These are skills that will never go out of style or be overtaken by new technologies.
I wonder if you know the principle of leverage…
Leverage means applying your effort at that point where you will gain the most advantage. Well, in many contexts, the point of influence is the quality of the relationships between the people involved. The results for the organization, the project, the family depend on how well the individuals relate to each other.
It is easy…
We come across elaborate reasons when organizations don’t perform very well, but the reality is often simply that the people involved didn’t work together properly. On the contrary, we all know that teams with strong internal and external relationships outperform those without.
When companies have to cut costs, it is often the people considered “difficult” who lose out, those whose weak interpersonal skills make working with them too difficult. The tragedy, of course, is that they often don’t realize they’re being seen that way until it’s too late. So to keep your job (or get a better one), develop your self-awareness and make sure you’re nice to people.
Relationship skills are essential. Although the medium for interpersonal relationships is moving online to some extent, the need to build effective relationships with other human beings doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon. In fact, the trend of social networks makes it more important to be attentive to what is happening on a human level.
“But I already know how to deal with people…”
Yes, and you probably don’t realize how much more effective you could be with an additional level of knowledge, or understanding you could have, and the benefit you could gain. Why? Because the skills to do these things, while well established, are not widely shared. In fact, they have been largely strayed from the mainstream for commercial purposes, or left the exclusive domain of psychologists, NLP practitioners, and the like. You could be missing out. Wait, let me be more clear: you’re missing out.
How can I be sure?
If the knowledge that exists were used widely, our results would be very different. There would be far fewer organizations with problems, unresolved disputes, broken marriages, international conflicts, and disgruntled employees.
Don’t make this mistake…
Some people rely on their employer to provide the learning they need, thinking they should be paid to learn, and if they don’t get paid, they won’t learn.
Instead, be self-sufficient…
Take your future and the future of your family into your own hands and be smart when dealing with people. Tools that make it easy are available. You just need to pick them up and use them. The first step is deciding to hone your ability to relate to other people.
Take it today.