Informationen zum Autor Robert Bolton, Ph.D., is president of Ridge Consultants in Cazenovia, New York, a firm that specializes in improving human performance in industry, health care, education, and government. His staff has taught communication skills to thousands of managers, salespersons, first-line supervisors, secretaries, customer-relations personnel, teachers, members of the clergy, health-care workers, couples, and others. He is the author of People Skills , People Styles at Work , and Listen Up or Lose Out. Klappentext A wall of silent resentment shuts you off from someone you love....You listen to an argument in which neither party seems to hear the other....Your mind drifts to other matters when people talk to you.... People Skillsis a communication-skills handbook that can help you eliminate these and other communication problems. Author Robert Bolton describes the twelve most common communication barriers, showing how these "roadblocks" damage relationships by increasing defensiveness, aggressiveness, or dependency. He explains how to acquire the ability to listen, assert yourself, resolve conflicts, and work out problems with others. These are skills that will help you communicate calmly, even in stressful emotionally charged situations. People Skillswill show you How to get your needs met using simple assertion techniques How body language often speaks louder than words How to use silence as a valuable communication tool How to de-escalate family disputes, lovers' quarrels, and other heated arguments Both thought-provoking and practical, People Skillsis filled with workable ideas that you can use to improve your communication in meaningful ways, every day. Leseprobe People Skills CHAPTER ONE Skills for Bridging the Interpersonal Gap I wish I had some way to make a bridge from man to man. . . . Man is all we've got. Cross Daman in Richard Wright's Outsider COMMUNICATION: HUMANITY'S SUPREME ACHIEVEMENT When one person communicates to another through the medium of language something takes place between them that is found nowhere else in nature. This ability to turn meaningless grunts into spoken and written words constitutes humanity's most important distinction. Language has made possible the development of those characteristics that differentiate Homo sapiens from all other creatures. No wonder the German philosopher Karl Jaspers claims, Man's supreme achievement in the world is communication from personality to personality. THE INEFFECTIVENESS OF MOST COMMUNICATION Although interpersonal communication is humanity's greatest accomplishment, the average person does not communicate well. One of the ironies of modern civilization is that, though mechanical means of communication have been developed beyond the wildest flight of the imagination, people often find it difficult to communicate face-to-face. In this age of technological marvels we can bounce messages off the moon and land space probes on Mars, but we find it difficult to relate to those we love. I have become increasingly aware of the inadequacy of most communication. In our society it is rare for persons to share what really mattersthe tender, shy, reluctant feelings, the sensitive, fragile, intense disclosures. It is equally rare for persons to listen intently enough to really understand what another is saying. Sometimes people fix their gaze on a friend who is talking and allow their minds to wander off to other matters. Sometimes, while the friend speaks, they pretend to listen but are merely marking time, formulating what they will say as soon as they discover a way to begin talking. Nathan Miller caustically remarked that conversation in the United States is a competitive exercise in which the first person to draw a breath is declared the listener. Ineffective communication causes an interpersonal gap that is experienced in all fa...

Autorentext
Robert Bolton, Ph.D., is president of Ridge Consultants in Cazenovia, New York, a firm that specializes in improving human performance in industry, health care, education, and government. His staff has taught communication skills to thousands of managers, salespersons, first-line supervisors, secretaries, customer-relations personnel, teachers, members of the clergy, health-care workers, couples, and others. He is the author of People Skills, People Styles at Work, and Listen Up or Lose Out.

Klappentext

A wall of silent resentment shuts you off from someone you love....You listen to an argument in which neither party seems to hear the other....Your mind drifts to other matters when people talk to you....

People Skillsis a communication-skills handbook that can help you eliminate these and other communication problems. Author Robert Bolton describes the twelve most common communication barriers, showing how these "roadblocks" damage relationships by increasing defensiveness, aggressiveness, or dependency. He explains how to acquire the ability to listen, assert yourself, resolve conflicts, and work out problems with others. These are skills that will help you communicate calmly, even in stressful emotionally charged situations.

People Skillswill show you

How to get your needs met using simple assertion techniques
How body language often speaks louder than words
How to use silence as a valuable communication tool
How to de-escalate family disputes, lovers' quarrels, and other heated arguments

Both thought-provoking and practical, People Skillsis filled with workable ideas that you can use to improve your communication in meaningful ways, every day.

Leseprobe
People Skills
CHAPTER ONE
Skills for Bridging the Interpersonal Gap
I wish I had some way to make a bridge from man to man. . . . Man is all we’ve got.
—Cross Daman in Richard Wright’s Outsider

COMMUNICATION: HUMANITY’S SUPREME ACHIEVEMENT
When one person communicates to another through the medium of language something takes place between them that is found nowhere else in nature. This ability to turn meaningless grunts into spoken and written words constitutes humanity’s most important distinction. Language has made possible the development of those characteristics that differentiate Homo sapiens from all other creatures. No wonder the German philosopher Karl Jaspers claims, “Man’s supreme achievement in the world is communication from personality to personality.”

THE INEFFECTIVENESS OF MOST COMMUNICATION
Although interpersonal communication is humanity’s greatest accomplishment, the average person does not communicate well. One of the ironies of modern civilization is that, though mechanical means of communication have been developed beyond the wildest flight of the imagination, people often find it difficult to communicate face-to-face. In this age of technological marvels we can bounce messages off the moon and land space probes on Mars, but we find it difficult to relate to those we love.

I have become increasingly aware of the inadequacy of most communication. In our society it is rare for persons to share what really matters—the tender, shy, reluctant feelings, the sensitive, fragile, intense disclosures. It is equally rare for persons to listen intently enough to really understand what another is saying. Sometimes people fix their gaze on a friend who is talking and allow their minds to wander off to other matters. Sometimes, while the friend speaks, they pretend to listen but are merely marking time, formulating what they will say as soon as they discover a way to begin talking. Nathan Miller caustically remarked that “conversation in the United States is a competitive exercise in which the first person to draw a breath is declared the listener.”

Ineffective communication causes an interpersonal gap that is experienced in all facets of …