She’s an amazing graphic designer, but cannot keep a job in an office. She has switched to freelance work.
He is a brilliant bio-physicist, but his research partners keep dropping him.
She wins case after case in her law firm, but no one ever sits near her at the firm’s outings.
He is a gifted journalist, but can’t seem to find a position as a staff writer. Instead, he submits his pieces to different publications.
What do these four people have in common? For starters, they have remarkable technical skills. They are great at their jobs and consistently turn out stellar results. Their second similarity is not so great. All four of these people seem to lack some element of what the media calls “soft skill” or what I will be calling “social skills.” They do not understand the minutia that go into our everyday interactions with those around us. Even if you have spectacular technical skills, you can suffer in the workplace and in your career if you lack social skills.
What’s more, though there are schools to teach us all of the technical skills, there are no schools for social skills. We expect people to pick them up on their own. That’s especially true for adults. When a child tells someone, “You made a mistake. That was stupid,” we tell him that it’s not polite and that he should say, “I think you might do better if you…” However, if an adult tells someone, “You made a mistake. That was stupid,” we are silent, and comment later about how rude he was. This is detrimental to those without strong social skills. How can someone learn to act correctly if there is no one to correct him when he does something inappropriate?
Social Skills Can Be Taught
The answer is that social skills can be taught. They aren’t taught in universities or graduate schools, but there are institutions and people dedicated to teaching them.
Most experts agree that with specialized coaching, a person’s social “intelligence” can be significantly raised. Even those who habitually miss social cues, and have difficulty making a favorable impression in social encounters, can learn how to relate to and connect with a new acquaintance. They can acquire the skills of reading facial expression and body language cues; maintaining eye contact; injecting interest and empathy into one’s conversation – and many other important social skills.
Raising a person’s social IQ is far from an instantaneous, magical cure-all. It is not much different from other forms of “therapy,” requiring consistent training and practice. One of the very first things we work on in social skills training is non-verbal communication.
Nonverbal communication, or body language, is a vital form of communication. When we interact with others, we give and receive countless signals without words. The gestures we make, the way we sit, how fast or how loud we talk, how close we stand, how much eye contact we make – all of these nonverbal behaviors send a strong message. They tell the other person whether or not you care and how well you’re listening. The nonverbal signals you send either produce a sense of interest, trust, and desire for connection – or generate disinterest, distrust and confusion.
For example, when the person you’re talking to keeps shifting his feet or glances at his watch as you speak, what message does that send? When someone frowns while crossing his arms over his chest as you recount your recent job interview, what attitude is communicated? What feeling is conveyed by someone who smiles too eagerly or peers intently into your face for your reaction as they talk?