On a scale of 1–10, how good are you at the “soft skills” of interpersonal communication.  How well do you listen, speak, read other people’s body language, etc.?  They go by many names: people skills, relational ability, emotional intelligence.  These are the skills sets that ultimately determine how successful you are in communicating with other people. 

But what if I told you that your knowledge of these skills was also one of the biggest determinants of your professional success?  No matter what industry, profession, or trade, the most successful practitioners are the ones who not only have the right technical skills, but who combine their knowledge with highly developed people skills.   No matter what you do for a living, then, your abilities to communicate with your peers is critical for your professional growth.

So if these skills are so important, why are they overlooked?  It’s because we are engaged in communication every day!  We don’t think that there is anything to work on because we are constantly communicating with others.  It’s easy to gloss over our people skills; we assume that they are already good and we don’t want to admit that we might have to make some changes.

The trap most people fall into is the assumption that these skills will improve naturally without specific focus or effort.  Many people assume they don’t have to purposefully study communication, for example, because they “talk to people” everyday.  There’s a big difference, though, between engaging in an activity and working to improve that activity.  The most successful individuals are consistently putting attention on how they build their ability to communicate.

So the question is, what are you doing to improve your people skills?