FOOD FOR THOUGHT with Thuku wa Thuku Soft Skills Perfection (Part 1) They say practice makes perfect. Bruce Lee claimed, I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times. Similarly, Abraham Lincoln said, Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. It goes without say that in order to master your craft, practice is fundamental; be it your profession (in our case our studies) or your hobby (such as playing the piano) and etc. Todays session of FOOD FOR THOUGHT will give focus to Soft Skills Perfection. These come in handy when interacting with other people, as well as, when networking. For those that have interacted with Miriam Mukasa, this is something she stresses time again. It is necessary to be able to relate with people especially if we plan to compete in a global arena. Henrik Edberg in his article How to improve your social skills pays particular emphasis to the following: 1) Listen One useful way that I have found is to just forget about yourself. Focus your attention outward instead of inward in a conversation. Place the mental focus on the person you are talking and listening to instead of yourself. Placing the focus outside of yourself makes you less self-centered and your need to hog the spotlight decreases. If you start to actually listen to what people are saying it also becomes easier to find potential paths in the conversation. By asking open-ended questions – the ones that will give you more than a yes or no answer – you can explore these paths and have better and more fun conversations. 2) Actually be interested in the other person If you become more interested in people then you’ll naturally become a better listener since you are actually interested in what’s on their minds. And it becomes easier find out what someone is really passionate about and to dispel negative assumptions that can mess up the communication. But the big reason is simply that you make them feel good because of your attention, validation of them and their interest and the connection that is made. 3) Treat others as you would like them to treat you The Law of Reciprocity is strong in humans. As you treat someone else s/he will feel like treating you. Maybe not today or tomorrow. But over time these things have a way of evening out. One of the most important things in relationships and conversations is your attitude. It determines a lot about your interactions and how you treat other people. The attitude you have, the lens you hold up and view the world through determines what you see. And the thoughts you keep in your mind control how you feel. Your thoughts and feelings direct how you say something and what your hands, eyes, posture etc. says through body language. So even if you say nice words you may create an different feeling in the person you are talking to because your thoughts, feelings, voice tonality and body language arent aligned with your words. And words are only 7 percent of communication. So the attitude behind your words is absolutely crucial. May we as Gen Y never cease to learn. They say your success post-Varsity is dependent on how much further reading you as an individual engage in. Lets leave that thought to marinate as we await part 2 next week. Have a great week and for those writing tests or exams, on behalf of the ATB Family we wish you success!
Posted on: Wed, 09 Apr 2014 09:27:48 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015