Higher level interpersonal skills

  Up to this point in the chapter we have been outlining the basic interpersonal skills required to communicate successfully in a social interaction. However, there are higher level skills that may be required by a particular occupational group, because they are intrinsic to the work that they do. For example, health professionals working on the front line with patients may frequently have to break bad news to patients or their relatives about death and dying. Where this is the case and there is an identified need to develop these higher level interpersonal skills, it may be appropriate for the workplace organization to offer workshops on ‘breaking bad news’ to those health professionals. Similarly, general managers may have to discipline people, make them redundant, or have to deal regularly with complaints and conflict. Another example would be police officers being able to identify inconsistencies between the verbal and non-verbal aspects of communication associated with lying when interrogating suspects. In these examples, training them to do their work more effectively by developing such high level skills should be provided by the employers. This training could be incorporated into their continuing professional development needs, or delivered in a series of specialist workshops. Other work related examples of higher level interpersonal skills include developing one’s presentation skills, managing people’s reactions to organizational change, advanced negotiation skills and the appropriate use of power in working relationships. More generally, higher level interpersonal skills also include the ability to give and receive emotional support, predicting the behaviours of others, making social judgements and developing self-awareness. Workshops which include not only education about the specific skills involved, but also a range of exercises of a more practical nature, which includes the use of role-play and/or audio-video feedback, can be particularly helpful in learning these social skills. The content of the workshops will vary according the needs of specific occupational groups or the stage in one’s career.

Developing cognitive skills

  As mentioned in earlier chapters, cognitive approaches focus on what is going on in the person’s head. What someone is thinking impacts on their subsequent feelings and behaviours. Underlying the behaviour of socially unskilled people is the feeling that there is something about them that is ‘not good enough’ or ‘inferior’, or others are out to ‘hurt’, ‘humiliate’, ‘lie’ to them or ‘cheat’ and ‘cannot be trusted’. In turn this may lead to beliefs that they have been ‘unfairly treated’ or ‘misunderstood’ by others. These negative beliefs in turn create a vicious cycle in that they lead to more defensive, suspicious and hostile behaviours towards others, which court rejection. An integral part of becoming more confident and competent in social interactions is to help the individual to identify the unhelpful and dysfunctional beliefs that are preventing them from functioning more effectively. They then need to learn how to replace their dysfunctional beliefs with more rational and healthy ones. The tools and techniques used for identifying, challenging and changing unhelpful attitudes are covered in depth in Chapter 9 so will not be replicated in this chapter.