Every week Indium Corporation provides us with a lunch and learn. These educational sessions are designed to give us a more rounded experience working at Indium Corporation. The hands-on work experience, tied together with the lunch and learns, will give us valuable experience in more ways than one. This week's lunch and learn was about interpersonal competence. Interpersonal competence is knowing which type of communication is best for a situation and knowing how to apply the communication to steer the conversation in a positive way. Indium Corporation brought in experts on interpersonal competence from Dale Carnegie, which is a company that provides training for interpersonal competence in the workplace. Indium Corporation has been working with Dale Carnegie for years and has built up a good working relationship with the company.
The lunch was very hands-on and interactive, which provided a good learning environment. The representative talked to us in great detail regarding how interpersonal relationships in the workplace are extremely important. The program has a "Secret to Success" which covers being a friendlier person, winning people to your way of thinking, being a leader, fundamental principles for overcoming worry, and much more. In the session we had, the representative focused on these nine ways to become a friendlier person:
1. Don't criticize, condemn, or complain.
2. Give honest, sincere appreciation.
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.
4. Becoming genuinely interested in other people.
5. Smile.
6. Remember that a person's name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
7. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
8. Talk in terms of the other person's interests.
9. Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely.
These guidelines are extremely helpful, especially in the workplace, even though they seem like common knowledge. If you actively pursue each one then you will absolutely become a friendlier person.
Indium Corporation has provided us with an amazing company and exposed us to something that will help us out tremendously throughout our careers and our lives.