The Basics
May 14th, 2008 by Lucille
I’m headed off to the Colorado Christian Writer’s Conference in Estes Park for 4 days. As I lay in bed this morning I was thinking about the folks I would interact with; the new friends I would make. This got me thinking about people skills. Many of them seem so simple, but I notice how many people don’t have them, so I thought I would start today with the basics:
Smile at people. Yes….even strangers. It is such a simple thing and yet it makes a cataclysmic impact. It’s like giving someone a gift and it costs you nothing. Everyone is crashing through life with their own worries. But a smile can turn the day around. And here’s the bonus: The smile muscles are the only ones in the body, which are connected to the limbic system in the brain. When you smile, it literally puts you in a good mood!
Pay attention to your body language: A nod, a cock of your head, unbroken eye contact. All these will endear you to the one with whom you are speaking. You might even mirror the stance or body posture of the other person. Crossing your arms puts up a barrier between you and the other.
Hold the door when someone is behind you. This one amazes me. Almost weekly, I will experience a person walking in front of me, oblivious to the simple act of holding a door. Some people are so rude, or so caught up in their own world, that they won’t hold a door. Whenever a door shuts in my face, I holler a sarcastic, “Thank you!” which snaps the person out of their stupor and embarrasses my kids to no end. Okay, so maybe I’m rude.
Listen, just for the sake of listening. What a gift you can give people, by not interrupting, or by thinking ahead to what you’re going to say. As a counselor, sometimes I wonder if people are willing to fork over large sums of money, just so they have a place to talk. Obviously we counselors hope to do much more, but in our fast-paced world, simply listening is a rarity.
Be interested in the person. My husband will attest to the fact that this is one of my all time pet peeves: to go to a social function and be chatting with someone who rattles on endlessly about his or her self. On and on they go, never once stopping to ask a question about me. I think it was in Norman Vincent Peale’s book (How to Win Friends and Influence People) that I learned that people like you based on how you make them feel. Did you notice I didn’t say it was based on all your impressive credentials? So…how do you go about making someone feel good? Look back at the previous suggestions.
I’ll add to this list, but please share your offerings with my readers!
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Those are all good ones. The other day I was talking to someone who was completely distracted by her cell phone which kept going off with text messages from someone who was apparently much more interesting than I. As I was trying to ‘help’ her with a business situation she was repeatedly saying “yes”, “uh-uh”, “ok”, “yes” but I honestly couldn’t tell if she was saying it to me because she was aknowledging what I said or if she was just trying to get on with it so she could go finish her text messaging duties. The irony is that what I was telling her could have saved her enough money to pay her cell phone bill for a year! So the people skill that I would suggest is to be attentive to one conversation at a time.