‘I never know what I’ve said until I’ve heard the answer’

Sam Goldwyn

There’s hardly a job today where we’re not expected to work well with other people.

The success of our day often revolves around whether we have managed to relate to people across our different behavioural patterns. If we have managed to bridge the gap between ourselves and others, we know we feel happier and more productive and are quite confident that the other people do to.

Of all the challenges we face in our lives, those to do with people are generally the hardest to solve. Difficult as many of our tasks may be, we would choose them over people problems. People problems tend to take the greatest wear and tear on our health –they stop us sleeping; we think about them until we can think of nothing else, they drive us to drink or overeating, they make us cross and irritable, often to the people we love most and we feel stressed a lot of the time.

Behaviour differences are not the only sources of tension between people, but they are significant. Behavioural psychologists have discovered 75% of the population are significantly different from you.  These differences often mean it’s hard to get along with some people in your office, even though they are very personable, there’s sometimes poor or no communication, and things don’t get done so productivity drops.

For managers and executives the ability to achieve productivity through the work of those who report to them is crucial. Once upon a time this could be achieved through authority; the command and control approach. And while pockets of this still exist, productivity is better achieved now through influence.  Managers are expected to empower others, encourage participation and build teams.  Frontline employees also need to be able to communicate with internal and external stakeholders to build effective and productive relationships for their businesses.

A number of studies have found that aside from downsizing, 80% of employees who were fired from their jobs, had shown to be poor at interpersonal relationships.

Although it is challenging to work with people very different from ourselves, we don’t get the chance to choose our colleagues. So finding a way to overcome these obstacles is vital. The solution lies in better communication.

With improved communication comes greater:

• Empowerment – as everyone is clear on what is expected of them;
• Understanding – so people aren’t left to interpret the message;
• Direction – which helps motivate people to achieve an end goal;
• Cohesiveness – working together creates a healthy corporate culture;
• Accountability – when everyone knows what everyone is doing, we are prone to keep one another accountable.

How much better to make the differences work for you, rather than against you? Using a number of techniques including Neuro Linguistic Programming, Transactional Analysis, Merrill’s Social Styles Model, Influencing and Feedback, the Effective Communication for Increased Productivity workshop gives you a set of tools to help you understand how you communicate and adapt that communication to build relationships  with others.

Article by Lotte Poole

Lotte Poole has been training employees in the art of effective communication for more than 10 years. She is a Master NLP practitioner, TA trainer, corporate coach and facilitator. She is also the Coach and facilitator for Softskills Net Pte Ltd, and her workshops include Effective Communication for Increased Productivity, Mastering Web Copy and Coaching Skills for Line Managers