Today is Friday, so this post is on interpersonal competence.
My last post of 2006 was Friday, December 15. In that post, I discussed Tim Sanders’ new book The Likeability Factor. I think that Mr. Sanders is on to something, so I bought his previous book Love Is The Killer App: subtitled How to Win Business and Influence People.
In Love Is the Killer App, Mr. Sanders suggests that successful people are “lovecats” – people who “intelligently and sensibly share their intangibles with their bizpartners”.
Mr. Sanders goes on to say:
- “Intangibles are our knowledge, our network and our compassion.
- “Knowledge is everything you have learned and continue to learn. Knowledge represents all you have picked up while doing your job, and all you have taught yourself…it means every piece of relevant data and information you can accumulate.
- “Network is your entire web of relationships. In the twenty first century, success will be based on the people you know. Everyone in your address book is a potential partner for every person you know…Once, scarcity created value. Today abundance can create value…The more people in your network, the more powerful the network. (I discussed some ideas for networking in yesterday’s post on communication skills.)
- “Compassion is the personal quality that machines can never possess – the human ability to reach out with warmth, whether through eye contact, physical touch, or words. The ability to show compassion is paramount to human happiness in any situation…Our humanity can be defined as the ability to involve ourselves emotionally in the support of another person’s growth. When we celebrate someone’s accomplishments, or show true sympathy for someone’s undoing, it’s our warmth that separates us from the thinking machines.”
In the Little Black Book of Connections, Jeffrey Gitomer (in his unique and refreshing voice) makes similar points:
- “All things being equal, people want to do business with their friends. All things being not quite so equal, people STILL want to do business with their friends. HINT: To climb the ladder of success, you don’t need more techniques and strategies, you need more friends.”
- "Everyone wants to be rich. Although most people think being rich is about having money, rich is a description for everything but money. Rich relationships lead to much more than money. They lead to success, fulfillment and wealth.”
- “Providing value to someone is a whole new way of thinking. It means give first rather than ‘ask for’ first. It means helping others so that they will look forward to helping you back.”
As you recall, interpersonal competence is the topic of this post. Both Mr. Sanders and Mr. Gitomer have important things to say about interpersonal competence. Here’s how I have boiled down what they have to say.
Interpersonally competent people build strong, mutually beneficial relationships with as many people as they can. They do this by sharing their knowledge and helping others. They help the people they know connect with other people they know to the benefit of both parties. They genuinely care about other people, and let this caring show.
Some of these ideas are instinctive with me. I have been writing this blog and www.CommonSenseGuy.com because I want to share my knowledge. Also, I have always been pretty good at putting together people who can benefit from knowing one another.
On the other hand, I need to work on some of these ideas. Mr. Sanders says to read voraciously to expand one’s knowledge. I read a lot (four to five books a week), but my ratio of fiction to non fiction is skewed. I read about 80% fiction – and most of that is thrillers and detective fiction. One of my resolutions for 2007 is to up my reading of business and other non fiction books to 40% of my total reading.
Also, while I think of myself as a compassionate person, I am not always as supportive of others as I can be. Another of my 2007 resolutions is to become more compassionate and supportive of others.
If you’re truly interested in becoming more interpersonally competent, I suggest you read both of Mr. Sanders’ books, Love Is the Killer App, and The Likeability Factor, and Mr. Gitomer’s Little Black Book of Connections. I’ve not done justice to the wisdom in these books in this brief post.
That’s it for today. Thanks for reading. Log on to my website www.BudBilanich.com for more common sense. Check out my other blog: www.CommonSenseGuy.com for common sense advice on leading people and running a small business.
I’ll see you around the web, and at Alex’s Lemonade Stand.
Bud
PS: Speaking of Alex’s Lemonade Stand – my fundraising page is still open. Please go to www.FirstGiving.com/TheCommonSenseGuy to read Alex’s inspiring story and to donate if you can.
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