Wouldn’t you like to achieve better work results, advance your career, navigate the workplace effortlessly, and more easily balance work success with personal well-being? Who doesn’t want the secret recipe for that? While there may not be a single, one size fits all answer, developing a people skills toolkit can put you on the right path. An exploration of the ways in which people skills can be acquired and developed, People Skills at Work discusses new career development tools, the role of professional commitment statements, psychological contracts, and how to work with difficult people.
- Manage interpersonal relationships in the workplace
- Improve communications with coworkers and constituencies
- Work with people of different ages, gender, and backgrounds
- Handle conflicts with co-workers and clients
Shaped by the authors’ experience, the book reflects their professional and personal integration of many different sources of knowledge and experience. The book uses a practical approach to address critical social skills, career advancement and professionalism, and how the different career stages affect key relationships. Each chapter elucidates the development of a specific skill and includes examples, sets benchmarks, and examines the particular skill’s relationship to the other skills presented in the book.
Good people skills are no longer on the "nice to have" list; in most work settings they are simply a must. Very few people can escape the reality that their success usually requires having good people skills, too. This book gives you the tools to improve interpersonal relationships, communications, job performance, and interaction with people of different ages, genders, and backgrounds.
Setting the Stage
Common Sense Is Not Enough
Social Skills in a Modern World
Welcome
Communication
Getting Along
Connecting
We Need To Talk
Assessment
The Professional Self
What’s Your Commitment?
Interviewing and Networks
Expectations
Ethics
Leading
Mentoring and Development
The Human Condition Explored
Getting To Know Us
Gesture of Balance
The Search for Happiness and Fulfillment
Mental Health
The Little Tyrant... and Other Problems
Transitions
Epilogue
Knowledge is Power?
Appendix A: Primer on Emotions
Appendix B: Essential Social Manners for the Workplace
Appendix C: Sample Professional Commitment Statements
Appendix D: Sample Psychological Contract
Appendix E: Further Readings
Biography
Evan Berman, Diva Berman