How to improve your "people smartness." - Psychology - communication - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Dec, 2001

If super-sized burgers and fries are ruining our waistlines, then fast-food communication--e-mail, pagers, and other technologies--are making us "interpersonally flabby," maintains psychologist Mel Silverman, coordinator of the Adult and Organizational Development Program at Temple University, Philadelphia, Pa., and coauthor with psychologist Freda Hansburg of PeopleSmart: Developing Your Interpersonal Intelligence. Now, more than ever, he says, good people skills are essential for success at home, in the business world, and in relationships.

"People smartness is something that every person in society has to think about. We rely on fast-food communication shortcuts instead of learning how to talk with people and work things out with them. People are becoming less `people smart' because we do things at a much faster pace. Time is the big currency and, with this pressure, we just don't get involved with each other. But our success, health, and security in the new millennium will increasingly depend on being people smart."

According to Silberman, people skills are essential for everyone, in every relationship, and in every job. "More people complain about the people they work with than the work they have to do. If people like their job better, they are more likely to remain. And 90% of firings are the result of poor people skills. While people can be trained or coached in how to do their job, poor people skills are a greater liability."

He breaks people smartness down into eight essential skills: understanding people; expressing your thoughts and feelings clearly; speaking up when your needs are not being met; asking for feedback from others and giving quality feedback in return; influencing how others think and act; bringing conflicts to the surface and getting them resolved; collaborating with others instead of doing things by yourself; and shifting gears when relationships are unproductive.

"People tend to say, `This person is an idiot,' Or, `This person has no people skills.' But the whole idea about being people smart is how you're going to bring out the best in a person in any situation, rather than the worst."