Strengthening Your People Skills in the Workplace

Increasing Interpersonal Success Through Self-Awareness

• Understanding how strong interpersonal skills will magnify your personal power dramatically
• Assessing your interpersonal skills: How successfully do you interact with others?
• Exploring your interpersonal behavior: In what situations do you feel powerful? Powerless? Overpowering? Unsure? Anxious?
• Analyzing various communication styles and recognizing your own
• Strategies for effectively interacting with communication styles different from yours
• Pinpointing interpersonal habits and tendencies that may be holding you back

Rapport-Building: Establishing Solid Working Relationships Up and Down the Ladder

• Where “people skills” go bad: Top mistakes that sour relationships — and how to avoid them
• Introvert or extrovert? How to use your personality type to your advantage when building rapport
• Proven techniques for “connecting” with people you don’t know
• The secret to making others feel valued and important
• 10 bridge-builders that create strong alliances with other departments
• Creating an environment where everyone feels safe in expressing themselves openly
• Recognizing the unlimited power of sincere praise

How to Persuade and Influence Others to Your Way of Thinking

• Creating a win-win approach — your key to dealing successfully with others at all levels
• Step-by-step method for persuading others with a quick, concise message
• Assertive vs. aggressive: Understanding why strong-arm tactics backfire every time
• Tips for gaining buy-in for your ideas and plans
• Surefire techniques for winning over an adversary to your way of thinking
• Go to Plan B: Understanding your options when they simply won’t see it your way

Working With Difficult People and Handling Tough Situations

• Why are difficult people difficult? The answers may surprise you
• Recognizing how your attitudes and behaviors impact the behavior of others
• Analyzing the classic types of difficult people
• Typical weapons difficult people use and how to counteract them
• Finding the right words: EASY scripts you can use to get through tough situations
• Constructive feedback: Techniques for giving criticism in a way that creates positive behavior change
• Tips for handling criticism calmly when it’s dished out to you

Working Through Conflict With Tact and Finesse

• Policies that help minimize conflict in the workplace
• What’s the real problem? Getting to the root cause
• Elements of constructive confrontation: How to face it calmly, confidently and head-on
• Techniques for defusing explosive situations quickly and easily
• The 3-step method of working through a situation to permanently resolve conflict
• Negotiation strategies that turn no's into yeses
• Tips for keeping your emotions from sabotaging you during conflict or confrontation

Listening Skills: Your Strategic Advantage in Interpersonal Effectiveness

• How excellent listening skills can expand your personal power
• Master the basics of active listening – and double your communication effectiveness
• Are you unintentionally shutting down important information or feedback?
• Here’s how to stop it
• What are they really trying to tell you? Reading body language and nonverbal cues
• To feel listened to is to feel valued: How to make colleagues or employees feel “heard”
• What to do when the person you’re listening to won’t stop talking

People Skills to Help You Shine in Specific Situations

• Making a memorable, positive impression in those crucial first few seconds
• Interpersonal skills at work during business lunches and dinners
• Making networking events productive — instead of a torturous waste of time
• At a loss for small talk at work-related social functions? Try these tips
• Assertive communication in action: Practicing responses for various workplace situations
• Tips for saying “no” without arousing anger or resentment
• Major communication mistakes that can damage your career — and how to avoid them