|
 Peg's
Polemic
Every
month, philosopher Peg Tittle casts off the calm, measured and qualified
style of her profession to deliver her opinionated and impassioned
column, exclusively for the TPM philosophy café...
Number
2. 'People Skills'
I've
always been rather proud of not having any 'people skills'. Of not
being able to 'talk to people', to smooth things over, talk them
out of their way of seeing things, talk them over to my way, persuade,
influence, manipulate, control. No wonder supervisors, salespeople,
and customer relations people need good people skills. And no wonder
I resent them: I've always been the subordinate, the consumer, the
customer - I'm the one the people skills are used on.
Now
subordinates are expected to have good people skills too, but what's
meant is the ability to get along, to follow, fold, obey. And, well,
as I said, I'm not very good at that.
But
no, no, I'm told, you've got it all wrong. People skills are communication
skills. Hmmm. And what might skilful communication be? Putting your
message in words the other person will most likely understand instead
of in words that most easily come to mind - that's okay. That's
just courtesy.
But
choosing your language, your vocabulary and sentence structure,
to increase the likelihood not of understanding, but of agreement
- that's rhetoric. (And if you abandon the meaning in order to get
that agreement, that's just plain lying.) There's a difference in
intent. And loading your language shows that you don't respect the
other person's rationality. (Nor do you respect your own - if your
reasons were good you wouldn't have to resort to rhetoric.) Such
wilful discouragement of dissent also slows little respect for their
autonomy (what exactly are you afraid of?).
But
no, again, it seems I've got it wrong: communication skills just
means the ability to listen to what the other person is saying,
and the ability to express yourself clearly. Still thinking about
control, and insecurity, it occurs to me that men must've introduced
the term. Because women grow up with those people skills. It's such
a no big deal, we don't have to name it. And if we did, we'd call
it maturity, and self-knowledge.
Peg's
Polemic will next be updated on January 1st 2001
Join
Our Café mailing list
To
receive *very* short messages, letting you know when the Café
has been updated, just fill in your email address below - and press
submit.
[If
you wish to unsubscribe from the mailing list, simply fill in your
subscriber email address, select "Unsubscribe", and press Submit.]
Previous
polemics
1.
|
