Day 6 - Interpersonal Skill

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Day 6 - Interpersonal Skill

What is Interpersonal Skill?

Interpersonal Skill is an ability to recognize and understand other people’s moods, desires, motivations, and intentions. These skills are part of interpersonal skills - negotiation and conflict management, assertiveness skills, refusal skills, influencing/ persuasion skills, networking and motivation skills

How to improve Interpersonal Skill?

Set a goal to become a go-to person by mastering the art and science of Interpersonal Skill. 

Follow the LAST model to build your personal brand as a Guru of Interpersonal Skill. 

1. Learn - Invest time in learning different models/ techniques of Interpersonal Skill 
2. Apply - 
• Identify a model suitable to you
• Create a template to document the flow of the process
• Find opportunities to use the selected method/ template
• Maintain record/ process flow of every important Interpersonal interaction you did
• Maintain notes of your thoughts/ insights/ failures/ challenges…. to be used for sharing/ training others
3. Share - Share the insights captured in step 2 above in a planned manner (social media posts, blogs, videos, study notes…)
4. Train - Generate opportunities to train your peers and team members so that, over time, your organization benefits from your efforts

My learning for the day

Source - Games People Play

Author - Eric Berne

Games People Play is a great study on interpersonal interactions and provides deep understanding about why people behave the way they behave.This understanding is important to us to master our interpersonal skills.Eric Berne, author of the book Games People Play, defines a game as - “An ongoing series of complementary ulterior transactions progressing to a well-defined, predictable outcome. Descriptively, it is a recurring set of transactions… with a concealed motivation… or gimmick.”The book covers a good number of games; some of the games have interesting names e.g. ‘See What You Made Me Do’, ‘Kick Me’, ‘Now I’ve Got You, You Son of a Bitch’, ‘Why Don’t You – Yes But’, ‘Wooden leg’ etc.Let me explain a couple of games - 

Wooden Leg

In “Wooden Leg” a person uses his disability or mind-set as a wooden leg, an excuse for not making an effort. Logic used is - what can you expect of a man with a wooden leg? This game can be played by an employee to hide his incompetence. Sales Head can use excuses like lack of sales force, recession, market conditions etc.as “wooden leg” to explain inability to meet targets. In IT organisations lack of resources (blaming HR for inability to recruit) is “wooden leg” for anything that goes wrong in projects.

Now I’ve got you, you son of a bitch

This game is played by a person with someone who is at his mercy. He uses trivial issues to vent his anger on other person and blames him for it. This game is usually played by a bad boss, who is always looking for an opportunity to vent anger against subordinates whom he dislikes. Some small mistake is good enough for the boss to exploit the situation i.e. use that small mistake as an opportunity to fire subordinates and justify anger that has built up over a long time period. 

Source - Psychology games an employee plays

Author - Rajan Kasture

Hope you study all these games and use the understanding to appreciate the psyche behind people’s behaviours.

Purpose of this document

I took a 66 day challenge to study Life Skills last year (10 April 2019). To my astonishment, I succeeded in studying for 66 days one skill a day. 

My objectives of learning these skills were - To strengthen my mind to face life’s challenges with ease, To use these skills in my worklife for a better performance, To use these skills in my personal life for enriching my relationships, To open new possibilities to surprise myself. 

This is my next 66 day challenge (from 10 April 2020) - To share my Life Skills learning with my social media friends. 

I pray that my toil helps you in your success journey.

What are Life Skills?

UNICEF defines Life skills as - psychosocial abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour that enable individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life. They are loosely grouped into three  broad categories of skills

• cognitive skills for analyzing and using information, 
• personal skills for developing personal agency and managing oneself, 
• inter-personal skills for communicating and interacting effectively with others.

Which LifeSkills are covered?

The World Health Organisation identified these basic areas of life skills that are relevant across cultures: 

1. Decision-making
2. Problem-solving
3. Creative thinking
4. Critical thinking
5. Communication
6. Interpersonal skills
7. Self-awareness
8. Empathy
9. Coping with emotions
10. Coping with stress.

Some trivia

‘Life skills’ was never part of the school curriculum. WHO/ UNESCO mandated academia to teach these skills in all schools across the globe in 1993.

Different countries educate their children in these skills with different objectives

• Zimbabwe and Thailand - prevention of HIV/AIDS
• Mexico - prevention of adolescent pregnancy
• United Kingdom - child abuse prevention
• USA - prevention of substance abuse and violence
• South Africa and Colombia - positive socialization of children.

128 words - 1 minute reading - Flesch–Kincaid readability score 70-60 - English

Interpersonal Skill is an ability to recognize and understand other people’s moods, desires, motivations, and intentions. These skills are part of interpersonal skills - negotiation and conflict management, assertiveness skills, refusal skills, influencing/ persuasion skills, networking and motivation skills.

"Games People Play" offers profound insights into interpersonal dynamics, crucial for mastering our social skills. Eric Berne defines games as sequences of transactions leading to predictable outcomes, often with hidden motivations. The book explores various games, each with intriguing names like 'See What You Made Me Do' or 'Why Don’t You – Yes But.'

One such game is 'Wooden Leg,' where individuals use excuses like disability or external factors to justify their lack of effort. For instance, employees may blame incompetence on external factors like market conditions. Similarly, 'Now I’ve Got You, You Son of a Bitch' involves exploiting trivial mistakes to vent anger, often seen in toxic boss-subordinate relationships.

Understanding these games unveils underlying dynamics, empowering us to navigate complex social interactions with finesse and insight.