Understand Our Friends Better, Become People Person
Nowadays, it is nearly impossible for you not to interact with others, regardless of what you do, especially at work. Whether you are a stand alone team or working from home alone, at some point you have to interact at some point with your colleagues/your superiors/your clients. Of course, we want to leave a good impression on them, making them comfortable with us and hopefully, will help us later in the future. How to do that? Well, if you see your colleagues who appeared to blend in well with others and attend many activities, that is your role model and what we called as people person.
What is People Person?
People person is often defined as someone who considered blended well with others, having empathy, and able to teach, influence, and persuade another people. In Cambridge Dictionary, people person is defined as “someone who is friendly and enjoys meeting and talking to people”. Considering what people person do, It is a mandatory that they had a good soft skills, something that often defined as one of the most important aspect in works. Because of that, people person is a category that many company and recruiters valued, especially considering that soft skills is all about us, while hard skills can be trained time by time.
Characteristics of People Person
People person often has its own characteristics that differentiate them with others. Their characteristics are:
- Greets people well
People person tends to understand the importance of greetings and first impression. Greetings will lead to good first impression, while also give people much more spirit by sharing our positive energy with others. Just like many motivators or trainer said, “good deeds is a domino”. One good deeds will lead to another deeds and create domino’s effect. It’s a win-win situation, isn’t it?
2. Good Listener
Listening is one of the most important aspect in communication. By being a good listener, you make people comfortable and find yourself enjoyable. Being a good listener is not just listening with what they said, but also show them that you are listening to them by body languages, response, and appreciation that they want to talk about it to you. With listening, you can understand other people better too and start communicating with them at ease by adjusting to their style of communication.
3. Considered as a Humble Person
Being humble, is also one of the factors that made people enjoy sharing their time with you. By being humble I do not mean to play down yourself and your achievement. Being humble means to show interest in other people’s life and achievement instead of fully focused in yourself. People person tend to dislike boasting their achievements and fully recognize other’s people achievement. Who doesn’t like people like this?
4. Ability to memorize important events
One of the most detailed aspect of people person is how they memorize important events between you and them. Due to them being a good listener and find interacting with other people enjoyable, they often remember what other people told or what happen with them. If we take a look at it from communication perspective, by doing this, we can show other people that we care about them while create an opening for a warm conversation between each others.
How to be People Person
Now you’ve known what people person characteristics are and benefits that its bring, you surely want to know how to become people person. Well, for me, there are several tips that I took noted of, to be a people person:
- Avoid monotone response
To become someone who people find enjoyable, you must have a way to prolong a conversation, regardless of who started it. You can add another information in your response, such as how do you feel that day, what event has been occur yesterday, or showing some empathy with their bad luck. This trivial information will lead to another light conversation, and make your interaction much more remembered.
2. Silent and listen
Just like what I had said in “being a good listener” part, listening is an important part in communication. By listening to others, and sometimes giving a response or question about them, it will give you an impression that you are a smart and emphatic people. I know, it is hard to listen to others without telling others about yourself, but try to enjoy their story more and imagine that you are in his/her position, this will lead to you able to hold yourself back and understand them better.
3. Watch your tone
Whether it is in social media, or in a direct conversation, tone is one thing that you need to be wary of. Often, tone will lead to different interpretation based on what other people perceives. Because of that, I suggest you to show the right tone to your teams, and if you unsure, just went into safe tone response such as, response with small enthusiasm, or add smile in your response. Be careful of sarcastic response tho!
4. Act enthusiastic
Appreciation of others, is key in our interactions. By appreciating what others had done, they will have a sense of accomplishment and remembers you as someone who acknowledge and appreciate your work better. Start by giving a good response to other’s work with words such as, “That’s a nice one bro!” or “You’ve done a good job”. Trust me, compliment always feels good!
5. Don’t let your problems all over you
Life is not something that you can get through smoothly. Sometimes, you had a bad day that ruined your mood so much. As a people person, don’t let your ruined mood spilled into another people who knows nothing! Be as professional as possible and try to show your usual self. If it keeps reaching your nerves, you can try to talk to others and ask for a break time for yourself, being a people person, surely they will understand.
6. Try to hold yourself better
Not all people good at communicating. Sometimes, you will receive harsh response or critique from your colleagues, or your superiors. However, do not let it waver your emotions! Try to think positively and see them as someone who try to makes you better, regardless of their harshness. By thinking positively and holding it out, you will be able to build yourself better from those critiques, and interact with maturity that people loves.
7. Actively engaged with people
Well, the most important tips for me is actively try to find acquaintances and always keep interacting with other people. You can do that through small chat at break, or engaging in social/company activities. By doing this, people will know you better and show up some interest in you.
How do I implement It In My Project
In my project, where we together for a months, we always try to keep our communication open with each others. At first, we begun with familiarizing ourselves by talking about us, our relationship or our dreams together, creating a connection between us by having known each other better. Then, in our group, we always discussed about our project and discussed if there are any things that need to be discussed. We also use our groups to discuss about another lessons too! While also having a light chit chat about our study. Well, overall, I do think that working in this group is fun too, especially after I apply those tips in my project’s group :D.
So what are you waiting for? Let’s be a people person!
