Master conversation skills, advise from Research Digest

Exactly what I always advise the younger executives on brushing up communicating skills:

1. Talk to strangers.
Strike up conversations in elevators, at the cashiers, with the cafe barista. There’s so much to gain, aside from feeling happy.

2. Connect with relationships.
Touching about something personal in the other persons, as well as sharing something personal with your own self, builds trust, and creates a connection. Be genuine, though.

3. Be generous in compliments.
Everyone loves to be complimented. You’ll be amazed how good you feel yourself, when you take the effort to notice something good at the person, and compliment it. Like that beautiful shawl that brings out the colour of her dress, or the smooth way he answered during the Q&A session in the presentation.

Read on the article for more tips.

#communicationskills
#smalltalk
#feelgood
#afzanmentor

https://digest.bps.org.uk/2022/01/25/how-to-master-the-art-of-conversation-according-to-psychology/

Use these 4 tips to negotiate successfully with your boss

We all want the perfect workplace.

Positive environment. Good friends.

Great boss.

High pay.

Job satisfaction.

What if one (or more) of this is not meeting our requirements? Find another job? What if it doesn’t work in the new place either?

As career people, we need to determine our worth, and our wants. If we love doing our job, and the boss is good, but the environment is not so healthy, we need to work on that. Finding a new job is not the answer to everything. Fight for what you want.

I once had to negotiate with my former boss about my job scope.

Some of the tasks I was supposed to do, were continuously being done by my Senior Manager, and so I didn’t have the chance to learn how to do it by myself. That made me feel useless, especially since I was already promoted as Manager for quite a while but was still doing Senior Engineer’s jobs.

I decided to have a discussion with my former boss (his boss).

What I did was:

1. Approached him and tell him verbally that I would like to request some time to talk privately. That should warn him that I have something serious to talk about.

2. We booked a meeting room and used a time when we are both normally calmer from daily hectic times. Avoid mornings when everyone is busy.

3. I prepared my points in a bullets, so I can work my story correctly, and don’t leave important parts. I needed to be precise, remove any emotional matters, keep positive, and connect with my suggestions.

These are 4 important tips that you must remember when negotiating something with your boss.

• He doesn’t have the time to listen to your lengthy complaints, so keep it short.
• Making an emotional burst (of anger, or tears of sadness, etc) will make you look weak and, well, emotional.
• Use positive words, avoid negative words (I will touch on that in other posts), because language indicates your mind and attitude.
• And finally, prepare your suggestions. You’re not there to just say your complaints. Be prepared to answer when your boss asks, “So, what should we do?”. Your proposals can be one or a few, in case he doesn’t agree with them. Don’t worry if he doesn’t, keep negotiating until both parties are happy.

4. When I talked with him, I showed him what I wrote, even though they were just simple notes. This is to show him that I took the time to think this through, and that I am serious, and that I hope this would work out for both of us – it is not just a complaint and I’m off.

Suffice to say, our discussion worked out well, and I later got what I wanted.

Four points to remember to resolve conflicts like a winner

Everyone will face conflicts in one time or the other.

Many people try to avoid conflicts, not having the energy or skill to manage them.

However, sometimes, conflicts should be taken heads on, because more often than not, conflicts arise from solid reasons.

It is how we react from it that matters. Here are 4 important points one must remember when dealing with conflicts.

Communicate openly and compromise

The key to resolving key is to communicate about it. That means to talk about it, and listen to what the other party has to say for himself. He most likely has a good reason of creating the conflict. It is vital to discuss it with an open mind. Sometimes, you may need to compromise your own beliefs, in order to successfully resolve the conflict and achieve a solution.

Focus on final aim

Managing conflicts is never about winning. It is basically a road to go through, in order to achieve a mutual understanding, and agreeing to proceed with further steps. Sometimes, you may be right, sometimes the other party may be right and not you. Be ready to listen to the other party’s concerns – you might even find a richer solution after considering his thoughts!

Also, sometimes discussions go off track, especially when things get emotional, or upsetting pasts are being brought up. In such cases, steer back to the right direction, ignore irrelevant issues or pasts, and focus the time and energy on how we can accomplish results.

Keep calm and stay positive

Discussions may switch to quarrels, when blaming or anger arises. Remind yourself (and the other person, if you can) to stay calm, and stay positive. Find a good time and place to do your battle (read: discuss). Don’t approach someone when he is busy, or tired, or hungry, even. If the discussion is moving towards a heated direction, call for a break, and come back when you’re both more rational.

Try to empathize

Conflicts arise when two (or more) different parties have different concerns. Each member would feel that their own concern is the more important one. During discussions, listen actively, and try to put yourself in the other person’s shoe. Create a comfortable discussion – listen actively, ask open questions and opinion, and do not interrupt. Find the best way to meet each parties’ concern, if they are valid.

Revealing 3 tips to excel your Influencing Skills

In your daily life, and in work, influencing people is a must-have skill.

Influencing is an art of effecting how others think (and finally act) towards a particular purpose. Influencing can be when you are at home, getting your spouse to agree on a particular purchase, or getting the children to complete their project. At work, influencing is like the number one task – selling products to potential customers, getting the boss to approve that big project of yours, and even negotiating team mates on a favor on a particular task.

Most importantly, influencing is done without authority. That means, you make someone believe that what you are saying is right, hence he should do as you suggest. You are not influencing when you are giving instructions (read: boss, parent, senior in the job).

The most important party to consider when you are planning to influence is – the other party. What YOU think, is not as important as what HE thinks. Because the aim, is to change how HE thinks. Try to look from his point of view, and answer this question “What’s in it for me?”. “Me” here, as in, “him”, of course. Think about what benefits he will get, if he does agree with you. If you can show that to him, influencing can be very easy.

Here I share 3 tips on influencing people.

1. Build relationships.

You want to influence someone without using authority, so the first thing you need to do is, build a good relationship.

Generally, building relationships is easy, when you are interested in someone, and expresses that interest to him. That involves active listening, asking good, open questions, and relating to what he is thinking. When someone feels that you have interest in him, he will be more open, and keener to create a connection with you, ready to hear your thoughts.

Also, use common courtesy. Be polite, sociable and friendly. Smile.

Other ways to build relationships include:

• Notice positive behaviours or changes in the other person – comment on that
• Give compliments and praises
• Read their body language and adapt how you speak

Build rapport and make him feel a connection to you. Do this genuinely, because everyone has his own story to tell, and his side of the story is important too.

2. Social proof.

This is where we use others’ acts to influence people.

“Others” here may mean those familiar to someone, or those he feels similar to him. Or someone he respects.

For example, when seeing an expensive product on your own (alone), you may not feel the urgency to buy it. But if a few respected colleagues, or someone close to you just bought it too, that curiosity to purchase it may grow.

That’s why we see “Other people also likes…” columns while shopping online. These suggestions (exists with the social media algorithm) appear to you, to utilize the power of social proof, and influence your buying.

So, when you want to influence someone, pay attention to what his surrounding people are doing too. You could use that someone’s influence towards him.

3. Credibility and reputation.

As said earlier, influencing does not involve the use of authority.

However, using credibility and reputation is something else. People can be influenced by experts, believing his words and suggestions.

There are many experiments of changing people’s mindsets by experts, influencing their behaviours and ultimately effecting the results. A good example is the placebo effect, where medical patients are given something like a “real” medical treatment — but in actual, does not contain an active substance meant to affect health, like a dummy treatment. Researchers use placebos during studies to help them understand what effect a new drug or some other treatment might have on a particular condition. Around one third of the patients taking a placebo may get better. Believing in experts, it shows even the body’s chemistry can create effects similar to medication. A classic case of mind over matter.

So, as an influencer, having credibility and good reputation is important, too. Where can you find your own credibility? Look at your qualifications, your educational background, expertise, or experience.

So those were 3 tips on influencing people. Different situations will require different methods of influencing. We’ll look at more influencing methods later.

What is your favourite influencing method?

Why listening and watching are the best tools to lead, an advise from Sir Alex Ferguson

A lot of people are so eager to prove they are clever, that they speak more than they listen. This is where extraordinary leaders differ. Leaders listen and watch more than they speak.

Sir Alex Ferguson talks about in the earliest pages of his book, “Leading”. Who doesn’t know Sir Alex Ferguson – the man behind the numerous and continuous wins for the Manchester United team. This man has shown superior leadership, with extremely good results.

He and many other leaders can not emphasize more on the importance of listening and watching. These are two things all must learn and practice, in order to gain more information, connect and excel.

Listening

• Pay attention. In conversations, words comprise only 7% of a message. The rest of the message is conveyed through the tone of voice (38%), while body language accounts a huge 55%. Learn to read body language. Don’t interrupt – when you speak, you stop listening.
• Pause before responding. Let the other person completely finish. Give time to digest what he just said. Also, pausing indicates to the other person that you do consider what he just said.
• Ask questions to clarify. Don’t make wrong assumptions, make sure what you heard was understood correctly. If something was misunderstood, questioning can correct it. Questioning also reassures the other person that you are listening.

Watching

• Step away from the hustle, and look at things from a bigger, higher point of view. You may notice the root cause of a particular problem – something that could not be seen when you too focused to the problem in front of you.
• Watching how people work. or communicate as a whole, can also give hints on how they are doing. There may be signs of a communication breakdown, or an unspoken issue, which can only be interpret through observations.
• Again, learn at least the basics of body language – what calls for defensive, openness, honesty, angry, lying. Body language tells you a lot about what’s going on.

3 interesting reasons why storytelling is a valuable skill

Remember those days back in school where we had storytelling competitions?

You had to stand in front of everyone on the stage, and tell that “Hare and Tortoise” story with those props – a rabbit stuffed doll and a tortoise figure.

Oh how we hated the sickening butterflies fluttering in our stomach. No one said there was going to be so many people in the audience. How we practiced and rehearsed until Mommy too remembers the whole story.

Little did we know that that story telling competition is one of the most crucial skills we need to learn to be a grown up. Here are three reasons why.

4 secrets to consider to get in sync with The Boss and be in the spotlight

There are many reasons employees quit their jobs, but none more than due to disappointment with The Boss. If an employee is not satisfied with the pay, or the job scope, there’s higher chances that he would find a way to solve it or get by, than if he is not in good terms with The Boss – he’ll find a way to move out, even if the pay is good, or the job scope satisfies him.

Unless you’re the company’s founder, or the management, you’re bound to be working for someone – The Boss. Understanding him is crucial for both parties to cooperate in order to achieve a common goal, if not to at least make your 9 hours spent at work less painstaking. To accomplish this, one must find a way to click with his Boss, to find that certain chemistry.

Today, let’s take a look at what you should ponder over in order to create that rapport with The Boss.

Why casual conversations are a sure fire way to bring you higher

The value of chit chat, casual conversations with people surrounding us is sometimes belittled by some people, especially in this era of social media, and heads always over handphones.

People tend to avoid small talk, claiming it is meaningless, sometimes tresspasing others’ privacy.

 

Why is small talk important?

If we look at successful people surrounding us, we may notice that they are smooth conversationalists, friendly, able to talk to anyone, even almost seeming like everyone knows them!

How to get hired in an interview – revealing 2 secrets today

Tis the season of hirings and interviews…

Or at least to fill my department’s vacancy.

After years of interviewing engineers and technicians, I’ve come to see some patterns in candidates’ resumes, and their interviewing skills. And after hiring, I can see the how the candidates work, so I guess, I’ll be talking about the whole cycle.

Today, I want to share two secrets in hiring.

4 contents you need to feedback the Boss impressively

As a manager, I deal with many issues with many departments throughout the day. I also need to follow up with what my staff are supposed to do, make sure everything is on schedule, and to help if any help is needed.

I’ve seen many ways employees update their bosses. Some explain things straight to the point, not wasting precious time, while some tend to take more time to explain something, adding the spices and in the worst, finally not making any decisions at all.

Today, let’s talk about how to update The Boss.