Parthasarathy Rengaswami, EzineArticles Platinum Author

Sunday, August 23, 2009

1. Understanding People Is the Key to Better Relationships

Improving Interpersonal Skills is one of the most challenging objectives of people in general and professionals in particular. It is a great irony of life that human beings should find it challenging to deal with their fellow human beings! But that is the reality of life. A famous person once remarked “I can achieve anything in this world, if only I don’t have to deal with human beings!”

Why should the task of improving human relationships pose such a great challenge? What is so complicated about it? This is an easy question that will be difficult to answer. There are two fundamental truths about human beings. Number One: All human beings are the same and Number Two: Each human being is different! You will immediately see a contradiction. But in fact, there is no contradiction, but only a paradox. Unlike a contradiction, a paradox can prevail but it needs to be explained.

These two fundamental truths form the basis for any attempt at improving human relationships. How do we reconcile these two apparently divergent concepts? It is simple. All human beings are the same in the sense that each and every action of a human being has a motive behind it. The motivating factor can be a need, a desire, an impulse or a reaction. Each human being is different in the sense that the motivating factors will be different for different people. Two human beings may not be motivated by the same objective. One may do something for fulfilling a need. And another may do the same thing as an expression of his emotion (a reaction.)

Understanding what motivates every one can be the first step in improving human relationships. How does one find this out? Just by sharpening one’s sense of observation. A simple rule will be: Observe, understand, verify and confirm/modify. Observe a person’s behavior, seek to understand it in terms of what motivates him, verify the correctness of your understanding through more observations and based on the results of the verification, either confirm your understanding or modify it. If you have to modify your understanding, you need to go through the verification process again till your understanding is confirmed.

Improving Human Relationships will lead to Success and Happiness in Life.

No comments:

Post a Comment