One key area that you need to focus on when showing off your communication and employability skills is to demonstrate a range of effective interpersonal skills. These are key skills that will show your ability to communicate successfully at interview stage and make a good first impression. Developing your interpersonal skills whilst employed is important as it enables you to build excellent relationship with colleagues and customers alike.
Interpersonal skills can be categorised into the following groups: methods of communication; techniques and cues; use of language; active engagement and using effective questioning techniques. We will look at each of these and their sub-categories below to show how you can demonstrate a full range of effective interpersonal skills.
Methods of communication:
Developing good interpersonal skills involves becoming an effective communicator using a number of different methods. This helps increase your chances of being able to communicate with as many people as possible. Different methods of communication that we can use are verbal exchanges, signing and lip reading. Let’s look at each and how we can use it effectively.
Verbal exchanges: Obviously the key method of communication is verbal exchange whether it be face to face on the phone. You need to develop your technique to ensure that you are friendly, professional and polite and ensure that you are effective in terms of giving and receiving the information that you need. Normal face to face communication is easy for most of use but in a professional context you need to prepare in advance for meetings and be willing to make notes so that you can follow up effectively and record what was said. Doing this means that although the exchange is verbal then by taking notes or minutes then all parties can review what was said and minimise any confusion that there may have been. Verbal exchanges over the telephone in business also need to be concise and to the point. The chances are that you will need to record information from the call using a computer so this is a skill in itself being able to use technology to aid the verbal communication and make a record of what was discussed. In business these days, you need to be wary if anyone states that they want to have an off the record chat as this is rarely the case. You should always remain professional and be aware that anything that you say may be recorded.
Signing: Another important skill to develop to demonstrate your interpersonal skills and the fact that you are aware of opening up communication channels with as many people as possible is using sign language. To stand out amongst the crowd taking any opportunity to train as a signer shows that you are aware of everyone’s needs. There may be opportunities to use your signing skills to engage with a potential customer who otherwise was finding it difficult to communicate with anyone at your company. Whilst research shows that between 0.1% and 0.4% of the global population are deaf. Imaging if that 1 person in a thousand was someone that you were able to communicate with and this led to a multi-million dollar contract for your company. You also need to consider the wider stats on the fact that 2% of 45 to 54 year olds have disabling hearing loss, 8.5% of 55 to 64 year old and up to 25% of 65 to 74 year old. Imagine working for a company whose target audience falls into this age bracket, then having sign language skills is important and it could increase your chances as an employee to progress within the organisation.
Lip Reading: To further demonstrate another communication method and this is very much linked to signing, being able to lip read can open up more doors to effective communication. Whilst, the global percentage of the population is small, you can see that with increased age skills like signing and lip reading become more important. It is not absolutely essential to have these skills but given the opportunity to train in the art of signing and lip reading you should consider this. It shows that you are open to working in an environment where you want to make communication accessible to all and that you are aware of promoting equality and diversity for all. Skills like these are highly sought after by employers and demonstrate your willingness to develop your communication methods.
Techniques and Cues:
To further demonstrate effective interpersonal skills you need to be aware of the different techniques and cues that you can use to aid communication. These are something that we need to demonstrate in as natural a manner as possible but you should also be aware of them and ensure that you are using in a positive way. Techniques and cues that we will look are body language and use of intonation.
Body language: In the workplace it is important to remember that you are always communicating. Even when you are not talking you are still communicating through non-verbal communication. Being aware of your body language and projecting a calm, assertive and confident demeanour is an important part of communication. By doing this you are naturally reassuring people that you know what you are doing and are confident in your own ability. Body language is a key technique to use as an effective interpersonal skill and many people practice this for business. For others confident body language comes naturally but you would be amazed by the number of people who work on this to improve all of the time. Maintaining a good upright posture with your head up and looking at people when talking to them is all part of using body language effectively. Using supporting gestures and hand/arm movements without looking fidgety or nervous projects a confidence that is picked up by observers and sends out a positive message. Some of the least confident people have been able to fake this confidence by developing positive body language skills over time to enable them to succeed in business. Obviously if it is a natural thing, then great, but if not it can be practised like anything else in business.
Use of intonation: Intonation is defined as the rise and fall of the voice when speaking. Being aware of this and using your voice effectively to engage with people that you are communicating with is an important skill. Think of a story teller that uses their voice to show a range of different emotions, now compare this to a text to speech app that you use to read a large extract of text from a website. Which one excites you most? Does the monotone pitch of the text to speech reader bore you? The chances are that you will agree that it does after a while whereas you will hang on the words of a story teller as they make the communication interesting and engaging. When communicating in the workplace it is important to vary your pitch to keep your audience interested in what you say. Remember the old saying, ‘it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it’. This is true in so much that showing excitement and emotion in your communication is effective in holding the attention of the other parties and goes a long way to demonstrating excellent interpersonal skills.
Use of Language:
The use of language is another interpersonal skill that you can use to develop your communication skills. Being educated and positive about what you are saying sends out all the right signals to your audience. Using positive terms and phrases and having a positive outlook will always have a greater impact than using negative language. Let’s look at both positive and negative languages and see how they should and shouldn’t be used to communicate effectively.
Positive language: When addressing any audience on any topics it’s important to be aware of how you say things. Saying things in a positive manner and using words that show you are confident can be used effectively. Using words like definitely, certainly, brilliant, absolutely, fantastic can really portray a can do attitude and engage your audience to believe that you are genuinely interested in what you are talking about and show your enthusiasm. Using positive words and phrases also shows that you are willing to help if used in the correct way. Other things to look at are being respectful of your audience and whilst showing enthusiasm not being overly assertive or patronising. For example, saying something like ‘the best thing for you is…’ might come across as patronising in a customer support role. However, if your rephrase this to something like ‘what might work best for you is… and I will also suggest some alternatives to see if they are more suitable’, this could show that you are more in tune with meeting the customer needs and not just advising them on what you would do. It’s important not to scrutinise everything that you say but being aware of using positive language is an important part of developing effective interpersonal skills. Another thing that can be done in a customer support role is to reassure the customer how simply you can come up with solutions to their problems. Saying things like ‘yes we have a quick fix for that, all you need to do is…’ shows that you are knowledgeable and can turn what seems like a problem into a quick solution with a turn of phrase. Remember again, it’s not always what you say it’s how you say it and saying things in a positive manner can make a massive difference in terms of developing good relationships. See what works best for you over time and record this to further improve in the future and make an even better impression.
Negative language: Having looked at how positive language can be used effectively let’s now look at the pitfalls of using negative language. Using words like can’t, don’t, won’t, unsure etc. show a natural unwillingness and lack of knowledge and decisiveness. You need to be mindful of this as using negative language will be picked up by the person or party that you are communicating with. Saying something like ‘we can’t do that’ or ‘we don’t offer that service’ in a customer facing role immediately shuts down any willingness on your part to meet the customer needs. A way to address this in a more positive and helpful manner would be to suggest an alternative or show the customer that you are willing to look at their suggestion even if you do not currently offer that service. For example, say something like ‘that sounds like an excellent idea on what we could provide, I will add that to our list of improvements for our next update, thank you very much for your suggestion’. Following this up by saying something like ‘In the meantime might I suggest that we do the following for you…’ and giving additional options shows that you have the customer needs in mind at all times. Picture the same scenario and just saying something like ‘we don’t offer that at the minute so I can’t help you’, look at how using negative phrases and languages breaks down the communication channel immediately. Whilst looking for negatives points is important in business, it is a very important skill to be able to present everything that you find in a positive light and show that you are looking to improve processes rather than complain about current solutions. Every so called problem should be seen as an opportunity to improve and painting things in a positive light no matter what the issue is something that will really help you succeed in business and develop excellent relationships. Understanding how using negative language can affect you and being aware of this when communicating will really help develop excellent interpersonal skills.
Active Engagement:
One very important thing to do when communicating is to encourage active engagement with your audience or with the speakers depending on what your role is. If you are the one speaking then you need to keep your audience’s attention by getting them to acknowledge that they understand what you are saying, agree or disagree with you. It’s important to do this to ensure the message being communicated is clear. Likewise, when you are listening to someone else speaking and they ask for acknowledgement it is important to engage with them to show that you are interested in what they are saying.
Nodding: in approval is the accepted way of engaging with someone who is asking for feedback. A simple head shake up and down suggests that you are agreeing with them or saying yes and a side to side movement suggests disagreement. Obviously you need to be aware of different cultures here in case this differs. Nodding is just one way to give and receive feedback in a non-verbal manner and it’s important to encourage this when most of the talking is being done by one person to keep everyone engaged throughout. Nodding can be supplemented with a show of hands or any other agreed format. As a presenter it can be a good idea to introduce an agreed format of non-verbal communication at the beginning to make sure that your audience knows that you want to keep them engaged throughout. This can even be used as a form of ice-breaker if introduced as a bit of fun and incorporated with a bit of movement to re-energise people that have been sat listening in the one place for a while.
Paraphrasing: can be defined as expressing the meaning of spoken or written word in your own words. This can mean simplifying things to make your message clearer and easier to understand by your audience. An example of using paraphrasing effectively would be to simplify terms in a technical support role. Paraphrasing can also be used when someone needs to repeat something back to the other person to show that they understand what was said. This is particular useful when trying to get someone to repeat what you said so that you are sure that they have received instructions and understand them in their own words.
Using Effective Questioning Techniques:
To communicate effectively using a range of interpersonal skills and develop communications you need to be able to use questions to elicit information from another party. Questioning can be used to find out information and to find out what the other person already knows so that you can help them develop their understanding of a specific topic.
Closed Questions: Closed questions are most effective when finding out a yes/no or very simple one word or short phrase response. They can be used for something like ‘do you understand?’ or ‘what is your date of birth?’ Closed questions are good for gathering basic information and can be followed up by open questions to build on the basics after you have gathered the required information.
Open Questions: Rather than find out a simple answer in closed questioning, open questions are used to gather further information and are based round the other persons opinion or knowledge. Open questions can be formed with ‘what, how or why’ to get the person to expand and give reasons for their answers. Open questions can be something like ‘Can you explain to me how you did the following…?’, this puts the onus on the respondent to open up and show what they have done and not just give a closed answer. Whilst closed questioning is good to get the basics, open questioning is good for surveys when you need to gather individual viewpoints about products or services.
Probing: are used to get the respondent to go into more detail on a topic. When you have already used an open question to find out what they know you can use probing questions to get into more detail and find out very specific information by guiding the other person. Probing questions can also be used to get the other person to think about how they can provide further information or delve deeper into a topic to develop their own understanding. An example of this would be ‘what do you think would happen if you…?’ Probing questions are very good in technical support roles or for medical purposes.
Speed of response: When using questioning effectively, you need to extract information as quickly and as accurately as possible. You should think about a way to present closed questions with specific options to minimise the amount of time needed to response. For open questions you need to give the user more time to think about their response so that they can formulate a reasoned judgement or opinion. If open questions are not getting the level of response in the time that you have you can then use probing questions to help the other person elicit the required information. One thing to be mindful of is to make sure that you keep the other persons needs in mind when questioning. Try to make them feel as comfortable as possible by remaining calm and professional. Do things in an organised and structured fashion without repetition where possible to ensure the other person understands that you are gathering information correctly.
We have looked at how to demonstrate a big range of interpersonal skills effectively. You should be mindful of the different communication methods used and try to develop techniques that suit you over time. Remember interpersonal means between people so you should look to be as personable as possible, as well as professional to built excellent working relationships.