Interpersonal Skills at Work (2nd ed.)

Citation

Currant, N. (2003), "Interpersonal Skills at Work (2nd ed.)", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 35 No. 4, pp. 171-171. https://doi.org/10.1108/ict.2003.35.4.171.1

The main target audience for Interpersonal Skills at Work are managers and management students. However, there is also plenty of background material here for trainers to use in sessions on any of a range of different interpersonal skills. It also aims to appeal to anyone who deals with people as part of their profession in order to help with self‐development.

As such, it is difficult to pin‐point the exact aim of the book. There are lots of useful exercises for trainers to use and it would be a good theoretical starting‐point for student dissertations. Many of the points included would certainly help managers to improve the effectiveness of working relationships in their business. However, the overall impression given is that the book lacks focus. Reading through, I was never quite sure who the target audience was meant to be. It is therefore not ideal for any one of the groups mentioned, although all would find components of it useful.

The structure of the book is well thought‐out. The first quarter gives a theoretical introduction and outlines the importance of self‐awareness. The book then continues with a simple overview of different interpersonal skills such as listening and effective questioning. These are then developed later into more complex skills such as negotiating and working in groups. Finally, the author draws the book to a conclusion with a theoretical discussion on various conceptual frameworks such as transactional analysis.

The starting‐point, from the author’s perspective, is a reductionist approach to skills development. The premise behind this is that to improve we initially need to focus on learning component‐based micro‐skills and then put these together into more complex behaviour and practice until we can use these skills unconsciously.

Each chapter has the same basic structure:

• •

  an outline of the learning objectives;

• •

  the main ideas in the chapter; and then

• •

  a summary.

Throughout there are practical exercises aimed at encouraging self‐awareness and improving interpersonal skills. Many of these exercises are group activities, so are not ideal for your own personal self‐development. These, however, make an excellent resource for training material.

The book has a very academic feel to the structure and style of writing. The author touches on a great deal of existing research and models of interpersonal skills. It would therefore provide a good starting‐point for management students or for trainers putting together a training plan on interpersonal skills. In addition, two of the chapters, “Presenting information to others” and “Helping and facilitating”, cover skills useful in training and include helpful points to assist less experienced trainers.

Overall, the book contains a lot of useful material for planning both training sessions and exercises for use in these sessions. The ideas have a strong theoretical background and there is a whole raft of references listed to enable you to go into more detail if you wish. It is not the kind of book you would be able to digest in a couple of sittings but you can easily dip into relevant chapters. The book manages to give thorough coverage of a wide‐ranging subject area.