# Your Career in Business

## Developing Interpersonal Skills Is Key to Your Success

A degree in business is going to offer you many great career opportunities. Once you take your first job, how rapidly you move up the ladder is up to you. People with great interpersonal skills will always do better on and off the job than those who lack them. It has been estimated that up to 90 percent of our workplace success depends on an understanding of other people. Here’s how to enhance your interpersonal skills:
1. 
Become a good listener. When you listen well, you are in effect telling the other person that they are worth listening to. Listening well includes listening to both what is said and what is not said. Learn to read unspoken gestures and expressions. When giving feedback, plan what you will say in advance. Be positive and specific. Ask the person receiving the feedback if they would like to discuss your comments further.
2. 
Persuasion rests on trust. You can build trust by being honest, fulfilling your commitments, being concerned about others, and minimizing problems and pain for others whenever possible. In short, if you have integrity, building trust becomes a simple task.
When people raise objections to your plans or ideas, try to fully understand their comments and the motivation for making them. When you feel that you understand the true objection, answer the objection in the form of a benefit: “Yes, you will need to work next Saturday, but then you can have compensatory time off anytime you wish next month.” Determine your persuasion skills by taking the quiz in 
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It will not happen overnight, but you can become an outstanding thinker and speaker. A simple technique is to set a timer for two minutes and ask a friend to begin speaking. When the timer goes off, your friend stops speaking, and you begin talking. The challenge is to use the final thought that your friend spoke as the first word of your two-minute talk. Another technique is to have someone supply you with a series of quotes. Then, without hesitation, give your interpretation.
4. 
If you want to gain empowerment in your life and work, here are a few tips: be assertive, ask for credit for yourself when it is due, propose ideas to your group and your supervisor, initiate projects without being asked, tie your personal goals to those of the organization, develop your leadership skills, plan to learn on a continuous basis, be informed, don’t let others intimidate you, and don’t complain about a bad situation—instead, take action to improve it.
5. 
Here are some tips and techniques to be an effective player in the political game:


Find out how well you play the political game by taking the quiz in 
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7. 
When conflicts occur, try the K-I-N-D technique. The letters stand for:


The technique involves your requesting a meeting with the difficult person, whether they are is having a conflict with you or with others. Start off with kind words, words that encourage cooperation, words that show your determination to make the conflict situation better. Next, demonstrate that you have taken the time to learn more about the person, what is important to them, what they prefers in terms of work. Show by your words that you have taken the time to become informed about the individual.
The third step requires you to do something novel, something you have not tried before. Put your creativity to work, and discover a plan to which you can both subscribe (for example, keeping a journal regarding the problem and possible solutions).
Finally, do not permit the exchange to conclude until you have made a definite overture to ensure future success. What can you promise the other person you will do differently? What are you asking him or her to do differently? Set a time to meet again and review your individual attempts to achieve collective improvement.