Chapter six

Getting on with other people

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What you’ll learn in this chapter:	This will help you to be more confident in any work situation, especially:
The benefits of listening to other people ‘actively’. Fast and effective ways to build rapport with others. Ways to get on well with the others in your team. What you can do to make managing and being managed a better experience.	Team meetings/the ‘morning huddle’/training sessions/other meetings. Networking of all kinds. Managing and being managed. Work-related social events. Work-related team-building events. When small talk is needed. Communication at all levels, including by letter, e-mail and telephone, up to Board level.

Not that long ago, it would have been relatively easy to name all the jobs people could be doing: plumber, electrician, engineer, doctor, nurse, teacher, and so on. Doing this today would be impossible, such is the range and variety of occupations. And almost all involve interacting with people some or all of the time, whether that is colleagues, clients or members of the public. So, getting on with other people is something almost all of us have to do every day. This chapter will home in on this fundamental part of your daily work experience, and brush up on your skills and techniques so that you can improve, and even transform that experience, and so give your confidence in such everyday matters a boost. All of the book’s earlier chapters will already have had something to add to this, too.

Talking to people

This most basic of workplace abilities is one that may pass us by when we think about the key skills that can define how well we personally perform, and how our organisation performs. And yet, if you think about it, with all the varied work-based activities we take part in every day, how we talk to people has to be one of the most pivotal. So, having more self-confidence in this most commonplace of behaviours can only produce tremendous benefits for you and your company.

Most of the time in the workplace, everyday social conversation is not appropriate, and we use other ways of communicating, almost without thinking about it in our many different interactions with people every day, from brief small talk with a new colleague, to regular team meetings, talking to your manager or staff, taking part in an appraisal or a Board meeting, talking with HR or Occupational Health, and so on. Each of these will involve one or more quite distinct ways of communicating. And, when several different communication styles are needed, they usually have to come in the right order, too. Most of your dealings with people will begin with small talk.

The following table shows other common ways we communicate and when they can be used. In this chapter, you’ll find different ways of improving your technique in each.

Common ways to communicate	Used in situations like these
Small talk	Meeting a colleague for the first time. Before a meeting or a course begins. On arrival at work. The beginning of a business call. With clients. Networking. Interviews. With those you don’t know well at lunch or coffee breaks, travelling or work-based social events.
Social conversation	Lunch or coffee break with colleagues you know well. Work-based social events with colleagues you know well. Travelling together with colleagues you know well. Networking.
Supportive exchange	Team meeting. Talking to a colleague with a problem. Managing others or being managed. Appraisal. Human Resources interaction. Occupational health interaction. Employee assistance interactions.

Don’t blow hot and cold

We all know people who are different each time we meet them: friendly today, stand-offish tomorrow. It is difficult to develop and maintain a good relationship in such circumstances. If this is your manager, a client, or a team member you work with much of the time, this can make the daily grind even harder. We never really know where we are.

• If this inconsistent behaviour is you, become aware of it and how difficult it makes working with you. Being the same this morning as this afternoon, and the next time you meet someone, and the next, is a very positive characteristic and something for you to aim for.
• If it’s a colleague, you may be blaming yourself, and looking for reasons in yourself for his chameleon-like change of behaviour. So, know that it isn’t you who is causing it. It’s just a personality thing, or perhaps is brought about by something that’s happening in your colleague’s personal life or their working life behind the scenes. Your best approach is to remain consistent and friendly yourself, and use active listening, assertiveness and other skills in this and other chapters to make sure that his behaviour does not have a negative effect on you.
  

Closed questions close down a relationship

In all kinds of communication, using too many closed questions will put the brakes on it. A closed question is one that can be answered with a ‘yes’ or ‘ no’, or very few words. These create a very one-sided conversation and are particularly poor for developing rapport. Time pressure and habit can mean that colleagues, team members or line managers can slip into this kind of staccato conversation with their staff often without realising it. Here are some examples:

• ‘Did you have a team meeting yesterday?’
• ‘What’s your new client’s name and phone number?’
• ‘When is the Chief Executive’s visit?’
  

So, choose your questions with a bit of thought. Aim to use open questions or statements, which take a few sentences or more to answer, and create a more balanced, interesting and supportive discussion. Here are examples of alternative ways to ask the above three questions:

• ‘How was your team meeting yesterday?’
• ‘Tell me about your new client.’
• ‘How do you feel about the visit from the Chief Executive?’
  

This will add depth to the conversation, and allows rhythm and rapport to develop easily. Open questions or statements will usually begin with words such as:

• how
• tell me about
• what did you think of …
• describe
• in what way
• what about
• how do you feel about …
  

How to do small talk

You may find the idea of ‘small talk’ boring and time-wasting. Many people do but, unfortunately, socialising of all kinds usually opens with small talk and it definitely forms the bedrock of good rapport and long-lasting relationships, both in and out of the workplace. Most of us could benefit from brushing up on our small talk. I seem to be stuck in a rut with the weather as my usual topic. But, then, I live in the west of Scotland, where we can have four seasons in one afternoon!

1. For people you already know, small talk usually begins with your version of, ‘How are you?’, then moves on to everyday topics of common interest like the weather, the traffic or big news stories, then moves on to more personal areas, such as asking about partner, family or job.
2. On a first meeting, you’re more likely to begin with introductions, then move to comments about where you are and why. Perhaps at a training day or a team-building afternoon. Conversation then moves on to general discussion of where you’re from or your job. People like to get a thumbnail sketch of someone before moving forward with small talk. There would be no point in asking someone who is facing possible redundancy where they are going on holiday that summer, or complaining about having to take time out of your schedule to attend a course, if you’re speaking to the tutor.
3. Keep a bit of an eye on the news and current affairs, even if you don’t usually and you have no interest. It’s definitely worth the effort. Think of it as a means to an end. Buy a popular newspaper or magazine regularly to keep up with ‘what’s hot and what’s not’, or just skip round popular websites and TV programmes every so often. It’s not detail that matters, just an idea of what’s being talked about, or ‘trending’ on the internet and socially. This will never go wrong and will reap benefits in building stronger relationships, both new and old.
   

Social conversation

Imagine if two people are talking, and the person who is speaking holds a large red ball, then passes it to the other person when they speak. If you think about it, in most everyday social conversations, each person would have the ball for about an equal amount of the time. The ball would pass back and forth, with the rhythm of the conversation, a bit like a regular and long-lasting tennis rally.

Here are two participants in a one-day training course, Adele and Luka, having an everyday conversation over lunch. They know each other slightly and work in different companies. They begin with small talk, then move into social conversation:

Luka: How are you today?

Joanne: I’m good thanks, what about you?

Luka: Yes, doing OK, thanks. Seems a good course.

Joanne: It’s been a useful morning, yes. The trainer puts it over well.

Luka: I’ve waited months to get on this course. Just couldn’t get the time.

Joanne: How’s Caroline? Still with Kerr and Simpson?

Luka: Just had a step up, yes. They’re doing well. How’s baby Danielle? Still got that cute smile?

Joanne: Yes, she’s a sweetie. Her dad’s looking after her while I’m away.

Luka: We’re just back from two weeks in Italy. Had a great break. You getting away soon?

Joanne: Next month. Heading for the snow. Just love skiing. Do you ski?

Everyday social conversation has this kind of back and forth rhythm, with ‘turns’ being taken in a roughly even and equal pattern. Each person takes their turn and will ask a question, offer some feedback, or reflect back, then pause slightly, looking at the other person, indicating it’s their turn to speak. We all do this completely without thinking, having learned to do this from our parents’ ‘baby talk’ during infancy.

Supportive exchange - active listening

Listening in this kind of situation is probably more important than talking. Although listening in such situations is not the passive experience you might think. If someone were to just sit and listen to us, nothing more, it would soon feel very strange, and you would wonder if they were really listening at all. That’s because good supportive listening is really an active process, much more active than social conversation. The listener says less than the speaker, yes. But what an active listener is doing is hearing what is said and understanding it, and then showing this through a few careful words, or a nod of the head, and a quiet, ‘Go on’. So, good listening is not as one-sided as you might expect. And though you’re overtly saying and doing less, your mind is more active and analytical than in social conversation.

There are many simple ways you can listen more supportively, just by listening more actively. Here are 10 very straightforward ways to do this:

1. Really listen, and pay attention.
2. Engage mentally with what is being said.
3. Be interested - people can be fascinating if you let the barriers fall, and just let it happen.
4. Pleasantly warm, light, surroundings, with a minimum of clutter, and preferably no barriers such as a desk between you instantly shows you are taking the conversation seriously.
5. Give the person the courtesy and respect of not being interrupted by phone calls, text messages or people dropping in.
6. There’s no need to think of smart solutions and clever things to say, and you don’t have to move into a role that is more like counselling or coaching.
7. Hear the emotion in the words and the voice, be alert to body language, and reflect on what may lie behind these. Observe feelings.
8. At appropriate times, nod, or say ‘uh-huh’, reflect or summarise what’s been covered, ask a question or for more information.
9. React appropriately to what’s being said. No smart answers or response needed - just reflect back what you’ve seen or heard, and the other person will feel heard and continue to explain. For example, you could say:
   • ‘I can see how angry this has made you feel.’
   • ‘What Kate did has clearly increased your workload considerably.’
     
10. If someone has just told you about an experience or a piece of work in which they have shown a strength of some kind, comment on that strength:
    • ‘Your report was so well organised and easy to read.’
    • ‘You showed such initiative there.’
      
    
    

Supportive exchange - empathy

Empathy is probably one of the most underrated of abilities. It’s a key part of being able to listen actively, and in any kind of supportive exchange. It can also open the door to building a good rapport. Empathy is simply the ability to feel what it’s like to be in another person’s shoes, or to put yourself in their position. It’s something that comes quite naturally to many people. But, if you’re not one of them, it can be learned, too, as it is the fast-acting glue that can form strong relationships very quickly. If you’ve never thought about empathy before, it can just be a case of becoming aware of it, and all sorts of improvements in your working relationships (and personal ones, too) can follow.

Empathy is the ability to have a deep understanding of another person’s world, and you can show this by:

• Putting yourself mentally in their shoes to find out what it feels like.
• Using a warm tone of voice.
• Using good eye contact.
• Reflecting back what a person is saying to you, e.g. ‘I can see your meeting with the client was disappointing for you.’
• Provided you practise this first so that it’s not obvious - try breathing in unison with the other person, and speaking at the same pace.
  

But watch out for being tempted to say anything along the lines of, ‘I know how you feel’, to show empathy because it is invariably met with the response of, ‘Nobody knows how I feel’ or ‘No you don’t’. People frequently feel that they are experiencing something that no one else can understand, unless they’ve experienced it, too. You’ve probably felt like that yourself at some point. Empathy is usually better expressed by words such as:

• ‘I can’t begin to understand how awful you must be feeling today …’
• ‘I can only imagine what that must feel like for you …’
  

Being able to speak with warmth is another key part of supportive exchanges and is also important for good communication, assertiveness and good rapport, too. We all know people we would regard as ‘cold’, so we all know intuitively what ‘warmth’ is, and we certainly can recognise when it is absent. But it’s a difficult idea to explain or define exactly. You can show warmth:

• through empathy;
• your tone of voice;
• speech rhythm;
• open and relaxed posture;
• smiling appropriately;
• using good eye contact.
  

Just take a look at a mother talking to her baby for a clear demonstration of all of these. Even fathers feel more at ease these days talking to their young children in this way. If you have a child or a well-loved pet, compare your tone of voice and speech rhythm when they’ve just run across the floor with muddy feet, with when you’re having a bit of a cuddle. Warmth, like empathy, is difficult to fake. It has to be real and come from within you. The famous American psychologist Carl Rogers (1902-87), founder of this kind of approach, thought of warmth as ‘unconditional positive regard’, in other words, ‘I am positive towards you, no matter what’.

How rapport can work for you

The word ‘rapport’ comes from the French word rapporter, which means to return or bring back. This also brings to mind the commonly made comparison that a good conversation is like a game of tennis. The ‘service’ ball, or opening remark, is returned by the other player, and then there is a good volley, with the ball going back and forth, just as a good conversation does, with each player enthusiastically having their turn.

You’ll know what it’s like when you have a good rapport with someone. It’s easy and comfortable, and you feel you are being heard and taken seriously. There is a sense of being really understood. You are encouraged because the other person is interested in what you are saying, and they respond to you in an appropriate and meaningful way which takes the conversation along at a favourable pace, in a useful direction. So, building a rapport is about having a productive two-way conversation, which has a rhythm, enthusiasm and momentum of its own. So it’s about high-quality two-way communication.

Simple ways you can build rapport

So, whatever the interaction, a good rapport is a valuable starting point and a sound basis to work from. Think about those people you’re pleased to bump into, have a meeting with at work, or are happy to hear at the end of the phone. What is it about them that means you enjoy meeting and talking with them?

Then there are the people you find it hard to communicate with, difficult to connect with, or get through to. What is it they are doing that puts you off? What is it about some people that makes your heart sink a little when you have to talk with them? This may seem a back to front approach, but one of the simplest ways to build rapport is to make sure that you don’t do certain things, just like being a good speaker in Chapter 4. If you simply avoid certain behaviours and characteristics, you’ll have made giant steps towards establishing a rapport already.

The more you talk to people and become interested in them, the more they’ll give back to you, and you’ll find that even the most apparently insignificant, quiet and mousy looking person has a story to tell, and sometimes a more fascinating one than you could ever imagine. Appearances and first impressions can be very misleading. So, making people feel good about themselves and feel important is really easy to do in a genuine way. And from this comes good rapport. Just listen, and ask questions that follow on from what they’ve said:

• ‘How interesting, tell me more.’
• ‘What a surprise - how did you manage that?’
• ‘Well done, you! Tell me all about it.’
  

Here is a non-exhaustive list of do’s and don’ts for quickly and easily creating a strong and long-lasting rapport. Are some of your own thoughts included?

Aim for these to promote rapport

Avoid these to promote rapport

Open mind Unconditional acceptance of others Respect for others Empathy and warmth Liking for others Commitment Positive comment on strengths Good listener Patience Honesty Use of the person’s name Consistency Understanding Interest in people Positivity Sense of humour Talk about common interests Cheerfulness Genuineness Trustworthy Remembering previous discussions

Talking too much Talking for too long without thinking about the commitments of others Taking phone calls or texts during your conversation Giving friendly pushes or back slaps Dominating the conversation Dominating or manipulating them Pushing your own views on them Judging them Not responding to what they’re saying Complaining endlessly about your own problems Not asking anything about them Interrupting them One-upmanship

Before you speak ask yourself if what you’re going to say is true, is kind, is necessary, is helpful. If the answer is no, maybe what you are about to say should be left unsaid.

Bernard Meltzer, American radio host, 1916-1998

Colleagues sitting opposite or beside you often behave better if you have a rapport.

Are you emotionally intelligent?

There are numerous physical and practical capabilities that are essential for the work we do, be that as an architect, lawyer, teacher, doctor, sculptor, nurse practitioner, or whatever. Physical attributes, such as a steady hand for a surgeon or dentist, or outstanding brushwork skills for a portrait painter, are examples. Then there are the more cerebral skills, such as use of language, problem solving and mathematical ability, all vital to so many jobs, and together making up, in large part, the more traditional ability known as intelligence, and measured as intelligence quotient (IQ). But there is yet another set of personal characteristics that are not actually essential if we have to design a bridge, or complete a project on time and on budget. But they do make it considerably easier to do any job, and get on with people at work in the process; and, in so doing, this inevitably will have a positive effect on productivity and on the quality of your experience and achievements in the workplace.

These kinds of skills and characteristics are those that help us to succeed in life and get on with other people, especially at work. They include being easy to get on with, being able to read people well, and being generally ‘emotionally aware’, both for yourself and others. Collectively, these and other similar characteristics have become known as ‘emotional intelligence’, to equate their importance with, but distinguish them from, the more cerebral IQ. So, your emotional intelligence quotient, or emotional IQ, is definitely a relevant concept for this book.

Emotional IQ isn’t just about ‘being in touch with your feelings’ or being able to ‘talk about your feelings’ (not that there is anything wrong with that), but these phrases have often been used in a pejorative sense, when discussing what are sometimes called the ‘softer skills’. What emotional IQ does is value aspects of our behaviour other than those traditionally associated with intelligence (and measured mainly by language and mathematical skills), because there is so much more than IQ playing a part in defining how well we perform on workplace tasks.

What is important here, though, in terms of building self-confidence, is that, whereas our abilities in the traditional IQ are, to a large extent, innate, the abilities that make up emotional IQ can be learned and practised, and so improved. And the good news is that, much of what we’ve already covered in earlier chapters, and will be covering in Chapters 7 and 8, will give you direct guidance on how to improve those skills that contribute to Emotional IQ.

Measure your emotional intelligence quotient

So, let’s discover how emotionally intelligent you are. I’ve arranged the scoring on this activity to produce a figure that can be roughly compared with IQ, that has an average figure of 100, and the very highest scores of around 140.

For each of these characteristics, rate yourself on the scale below, and write down your scores in your personal journal:

Poor	09
Average	10
Fairly good	11
Good	12
Very good	13
Excellent	14

Characteristic	Description
1. Emotional awareness	Being aware of your own and others’ feelings, and being able to read these and have an idea of what has brought these about.
2. Problem solving	Seeing problems and coming up with possible solutions.
3. Independence	Managing most things without outside support or help, but knowing when to ask for help.
4. Emotional self-expression	The ability to show appropriate emotions at the right time.
5. Self-actualisation	The ability to have meaningful goals for yourself and set about achieving them.
6. Flexibility	Being aware that change can happen and being ready to adapt to this; the ability to try new things.
7. Social responsibility	Cooperating with others and making a contribution of your time or skills for the greater good.
8. Impulse control	Being patient when it’s needed, resisting temptation and not acting on impulse.
9. Decision making	Considering options, weighing these up and reaching a decision.
10. Interpersonal relationships	Having a positive attitude and developing strong relationships involving trust and mutual benefit.

When you’ve finished, add up your score to give you your emotional IQ. As with IQ, an average score on this scale would be 100.

Here is a guide to what your emotional IQ score means:

90-95	poor
96-105	average
106-115	quite good
116-125	good
126-135	very good
136-140	excellent

Now look over your lowest scoring items and check out the parts of the book that refer to this, so that you can work on improving these - use the contents list or the index as a guide.

Managing and being managed

Much of the preparatory work we do in order to get the job we want, is concerned with acquiring the necessary skills for the day-to-day work we will be doing, from selling to teaching to diagnosing patients, to administration, analysing data, developing software, and everything in between. But, what many of us have not yet learned on our first day at work, is how to manage and how to be managed. And yet, this is an intrinsic part of our working life. First being managed, and then possibly moving on to managing others, too.

Wherever you are in the workplace hierarchy, all that’s gone before in this and earlier chapters will have much that can help you to feel more confident, whether managing or being managed. Chapters 7 and 8 will also include relevant material.

Career progression in most workplaces involves taking on a management role. But, although being a manager can seem daunting, there is much you can do to broaden your skill base while you are waiting to finally achieve that promotion. Despite what you may believe, being a good manager is something that rarely comes naturally.

Though there is tremendous variation, most management that works well is a blend of the ‘softer’ emotionally intelligent skills, such as supportive exchange, empathy, being able to motivate, and so on (which I’ll explain further just shortly), with the ‘harder’ skills of making sure a job gets done well and on time, and supervising and organising a team of people.

Understanding management brings confidence

No matter what your working role, understanding the role of the manager will give you a better foundation for being more self-confident. Managing others, or being managed, is a hotbed of possibilities for making people lose confidence in themselves. Many of the clients I coach are struggling with confidence issues because they can’t understand their manager’s attitude and have blamed themselves for having shortcomings, when really the problem was with their manager, whose management skills were poor. Likewise, I’ve coached managers who were just handed the job with no training and no real understanding of how to manage, and were just stumbling along doing what they thought was best.

Whether manager or managed (or both), the best way to improve your confidence is to get to know the source of the problem better. Knowledge is power, and so is understanding. So, learn more about being a manager. Find out where your manager is coming from. This usually explains a lot. As Sun Tzu, the Chinese philosopher, said thousands of years ago, ‘Know thy self, know thy enemy’.

You can do this by:

1. Observing or finding out what the accepted management style is in your workplace. Then check out the jargon that’s being used, and read up on it. Management today is usually (but not always) more about consultation and collaboration, flexibility and cooperation, and not at all about ‘Do this, and do that, because I said so’.
2. Reading up on alternative management styles, especially if there is no accepted style in your workplace. This aids your overall understanding, but also allows you to choose which you would prefer to use, if it’s up to you.
3. Checking out the company website, or any other public documents, to learn about its main aims and objectives, and current priorities. This will tell you a lot about the pressure from above acting on company managers and decision makers all the way up to the Board room.
4. Continuing to develop your skills and maintaining your knowledge and understanding of the company management structure.
   

Your own management style will depend on many factors, including the ethos and practices in your workplace, the training you’ve had, your personality, managers you’ve seen in action (one way or another) and the background skills and experience you bring to the table. Management style is a fluid and changing concept in practice, and it makes sense to keep up to speed and be one step ahead of the game.

(More on this, and on stress in Chapter 7.)

Preparing to become a manager with confidence

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

Benjamin Franklin, founding father of the United States, 1706-90

These famous words are often quoted, and they hit the nail right on the head here. You wouldn’t aim to be a lawyer, an architect or a doctor without taking the necessary training, and gaining relevant experience. And yet, people walk straight into management roles every day without any kind of preparation at all. This isn’t because they are hasty and unwise. It’s just because it’s what most people do. Being able to manage others tends to be seen as a basic skill, or even as part of your personality, and not something you should train and prepare for. And yet this is such an important and pivotal role in any workplace, affecting both the manager and the managed deeply, and with huge implications for the success of the business.

So, to succeed in management, even if you feel it may not be for you, here’s what you can be doing to prepare:

• Follow the same suggestions given in the previous section.
• Then, choose the style to go for, and be confident enough in yourself to ask if there is a course you could take on this, or if you could link up with a mentor to show you the ropes - this also shows you’re keen and will be a plus when it comes to selecting candidates for career progression.
• Well ahead, build and keep a good rapport with your own line manager, others in management and other team leaders, as they will be good sources of information and support while you are preparing, and when you eventually move up to lead your own team.
  

Most common complaints about managers

Whether manager or managed, bear in mind these recent findings about staff reports on the key drawbacks in their managers:

• Poor communication skills.
• Making staff feel threatened rather than rewarded.
• Being over-stressed.
• Disorganised or forgetful.
• Micromanagement.
• Not recognising effort and contribution, but quick to criticise.
• Not explaining the benefits of, or reasons for, changes or restructuring.
• Caring more about what employees did, than how they were feeling.
• Lack of empathy.
  

Genuineness is a kind of ‘what you see is what you get’ characteristic. And, how you stay true to yourself and remain a genuine person, is by taking all you’re learning in this book on board, slowly and carefully. Practise and try out your new skills, just as you would with anything else you were learning, before using them for real. Build them piece by piece into your own way of being, so that they strengthen your identity and confidence.

Opportunities multiply, as they are seized.

Sun Tzu, ancient Chinese philosopher, 544-496 BCE