Let’s discuss what you mean when you say a person has good or bad social skills. I’m primarily interested by social skills as they relate to the workplace, but if y’all want to talk about non-employment related situations that’s fine too. Concrete examples are gravy.
Quoting myself from the other thread: “Having good social skills means understanding the effect of your behavior on others and moderating your behavior accordingly.” One thing that entails is paying attention to the body language of others and adjusting how you are physically interacting with them accordingly, in such a way not to be threatening or intrusive.
An example of poor social skills is rigidity–thinking that patterns of behavior that work with one person will work with everyone else, or thinking that the way you feel in a given situation is the way everyone will feel. An example: in my first management job, when I was in my late twenties I think, I had an employee whose father died suddenly. This wasn’t the first time something like that had happened at work, and the previous employee had told me she not only wanted but needed to work the day after her father’s death so she could keep control of herself. So, when the second employee told me about her father’s death, I foolishly–hell, stupidly–assumed she was okay to work that day rather than take a few moments to probe a little deeper. If I had, I’d have seen that she was trying to be a good soldier because she didn’t want to look inferior, but that she desperately needed to go home. Fortunately my immediate boss corrected my mistake and let her know there was nothing wrong with needing to grieve and she would not be thought less of if she left.
One of the things I do that avoids a lot of conflict that I wish my coworkers and clients would do is, instead of stating things as if I’m issuing commandments from the Bible, I start with “it’s my understanding that…”, “I’ve been told…”, or “My experience has been…”
It leaves room for others to give more information, correct me, or accept correction without losing face, and it avoids arguments of “no, it isn’t!”/“yes, it is!”.
Oh man I hate this. I understand it’s a necessary evil, but I freak’n hate it. I hate having to go from:
“That’s the stupidest god damned idea I’ve ever heard of in my life!”
To
“Interesting idea. However, I see some challenges with that idea that may prove difficult to overcome.”
PSA: If you ever hear the word ‘interesting’ at work, just take that as a pejorative in some shape or form. Ditto when you hear that word on political talk shows or coming from political pundits.
So, phouka, with the type of language you use how do you distinguish between advice and an order?
In other words I think that employees think you are giving them advice, consider it and reject it–and then you jump on them for not following an order.
I think it also involves being able to interpret other people’s facial expressions, body language and tone-of-voice nuances accurately and responding appropriately. And I think a large portion of the responding part requires being able to learn cultural mores for various situations and (in order to respond effectively) act on them.
Personally, most of my previous social stupidity (I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten much better) stems from that - being oblivious and unable to interpret or know how to respond. It’s surprising how much of that is learned rather than innate, in my experience.
Generically speaking, good social skills mean you understand yourself, others, your relationship to the person(s) you are talking to and the context of your current interaction. Its hard to pin it down.
At this point in my life, I’d say I have fairly decent social skills. I say I have terrible ones on this board, but by and large that isn’t true anymore. I just say that because on some level I’m damaged by things I’ve experienced when I was more socially inept.
I think social skills can be learned, at least to a degree.
The ability to understand when you are making someone uncomfortable is a really really important social skill to have. People give off early warning signs. I’m glad I know how that one works now.