Building Successful Relationships: the Art, Science, and Practice

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Developing Yourself:

People Skills

Building Successful Relationships

The Art, Science, and Practice

By Vadim Kotelnikov & Ten3 East-West

"The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people." - Theodore Roosevelt

Pearls of Wisdom

East

"Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness." - Confucius
"Hatreds never cease by hatreds in this world. By love alone they cease." - Buddha
"Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other." - Dalai Lama

West

"If you can be interested in other people you can own the world." - Jay Abraham
"The worm lures the fish, not the fisherman and his tackle." - Angler's maxim
"To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved." - George MacDonald

NLP Technology of Achievement:

Three Steps in Building Successful Relationships

Determine mutually satisfying goals
Establish and maintain nonverbal rapport
Produce positive feelings in others

NLP Technology of Achievement:

Exploring Relationships

Don't forget that your and your prospect's map of the reality is not the same - the meaning of the same thing is different for different people

Explore what you think about the relationship. Label both your own and the other person's behavior. Change the state - shake off all bad feelings.
Explore the relationship from the other person's point of view. Imagine how they experience your behavior. What sort of label would they put on it? How do they feel? Shake off that emotional state before continuing.
Go outside the relationship, become a detached observer - imagine a stage and see both of you on stage. See that other person doing what they do, and see yourself responding to them.
Shift your question from 'How can I change that person's behavior?' to 'How am I reinforcing or triggering that person's behavior?' Explore how else you could respond to him or her.

Health Benefits of Friendship²

People with strong social networks are shown to:

Boost their chances of surviving life-threatening illness.
Have stronger, more resilient immune systems.
Improve their mental health.
Live longer than people without social support.

Related Chapters of the Business e-Coach

Establishing Rapport

Building Relationships - the Key to Your Personal Success

Successful people have the ability to develop relationships that last.

Building relationship requires the building of trust.

Building Relationships - Your Key Business Skills

A relationship is two people eliciting responses from each other. If you want a change in response, then you must change your own actions.

As a business professional, you should ask yourself: "What business am I in?". The answer is quite simple: if your business has anything to do with people - and ALL businesses do - you are in the business of building relationships. "Some people think that if they sell things, they are in the business of selling. They aren't. They are in the business of building relationships - because that's how you sell things. Those in management are also in the business of building relationships, because that's how you get things done."¹

Friendship

There is solid scientific evidence that friendship can extend life. Several hundreds of studies attest to the health benefits of friendship. People with plentiful social support have stronger immune systems and are less likely to suffer from depression, anxiety and other types of mental illness. Having friends mitigates the physiological consequences of stress.

Taking the Preferred Styles Into Account

To work effectively with people, take their preferred style of interaction and decision-making into account. Many misunderstandings derive from differences in style. For example, "Perceivers" may see "Judgers" as unwilling to take the time to explore creative options. Conversely, "Judgers" can become irritated by "Perceivers" who may stray from the agenda.

Case in Point: Health Benefits of Friendship

In a Yale University study of 194 heart attack patients, those who reported emotional support were three times more likely to be alive six months after their attack than subjects who had no support.

In a study at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg, researchers rounded up 276 volunteers, dripped cold viruses into their noses, and then quarantined them for five days. Subjects who had a wide range of friends and acquaintances had one-fourth the chance of catching a cold as those whose social networks were minimal.

Bibliography:

"NLP - the New Technology of Achievement", Steve Andreas and Charles Faulkner, 2001
"Friends - the Secret to a Longer Life", Katherine Griffin, 2003