How to improve your "people smartness." (Psychology).

PositionCommunication - Brief Article

If super-sized burgers and fries are ruining our waistlines, then fast-food communication--e-mail, pagers, and other technologies--are making us "interpersonally flabby," maintains psychologist Mel Silverman, coordinator of the Adult and Organizational Development Program at Temple University, Philadelphia, Pa., and coauthor with psychologist Freda Hansburg of PeopleSmart: Developing Your Interpersonal Intelligence. Now, more than ever, he says, good people skills are essential for success at home, in the business world, and in relationships.

"People smartness is something that every person in society has to think about. We rely on fast-food communication shortcuts instead of learning how to talk with people and work things out with them. People are becoming less `people smart' because we do things at a much faster pace. Time is the big currency and, with this pressure, we just don't get involved with each other. But our success, health, and security in the new millennium will increasingly depend on being people smart."

According to Silberman, people skills are essential for everyone, in every relationship, and in every job. "More people complain about the people they work with...

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