10 Simple Ways to Improve Your Interpersonal Savvy

Here’s a cliche you’re probably familiar with: give a child a toy and he ditches it for the box it came in. (Apparently, the same is true for animals. In the video, I caught Lenny, my bulldog, after she had dumped all her toys out of the plastic box we keep them in so she could chomp on the box itself.)

Now here’s something you’re probably not familiar with: as grown ups, our fascination with containers and boxes does not go away… the boxes just become less cardboard and more conceptual.

Ever overpay for a shirt because it had a particular logo on it? Sure you have. We all have, even if we didn’t want to… because sometimes, it just isn’t worth it to have to explain to everyone that we actually don’t care. And you probably know where this is going, right? That logo is the container. Just as a big ribbon frames a child’s experience with a present, providing secondary enjoyment and making the object inside the box seem more special, the logo frames our experience with the shirt in exactly the same way.

A brand is a box. You know what else is a box? Interpersonal savvy is a box. Seriously: the way in which you approach others frames others’ experiences with you the same way a brand frames your experience with a shirt… and the framing—the box—still matters.

The funny thing is, in my experience, people agree with this principle dearly when talking about other people, but not so much when focusing on themselves. They want other people to present themselves crisply, but they want other people to understand when they themselves are running late and don’t have time to “wrap the gift,” so to speak.

Sorry, Charlie! The box still matters. You need to ditch the ugly interpersonal wrapping paper you sometimes use. Here are 10 statements that, if you eliminate these from your repertoire, will help you improve your personal brand immensely:

• “He should have known I was kidding.”
  Never push responsibility for a conversation’s success to someone else. Take full control for your own success. Bad outcome? You can only fix it if the problem is within your control—that means assuming it was your own fault.
• “I would think people would want someone in my job to be so busy that I don’t have time for pointless pleasantries.”
  You’re still a human being, and no matter how busy you get, you’ll never be more of a man than I. You may forget that, but I promise you: I won’t.
• “Let me try to explain this to you one more time.”
  Wonderful. Now, not only are you an arrogant prick, but you’re projecting your inability to communicate onto me? I think we’re done here. If you’re a salesman, you’re really toast.
• “And maybe you’re too sensitive!”
  Just one more way in which people push responsibility for a conversation to others. The problem here isn’t my sensitivity, it’s that you failed to consider your audience before opening your big fat mouth. (Oh, don’t tell me you found “big fat mouth” offensive?! Get over it, you’re being too sensitive!)
• “Hey! I’m the boss around here, you just do what I say, got it?!”
  Huh? Did I fall asleep and wake up in 19th century France? Give your Napoleon Complex a rest before someone hands you your Waterloo.
• “How is it possible that you still don’t understand what I’ve been telling you for the past half hour?”
  Maybe because you haven’t shut up once in 30 minutes long enough for me to ask you the one question I need answered?
• “That’s actually not a bad job… coming from you.”
  And that’s actually a pretty a**holish thing to say… even coming from you.
• “That’s funny… coming from someone with an seven foot cube.”
  Thank you for confirming for me just how petty you are. I’m sure when they put “She had a 96″ cube” on your tombstone, everyone’s going to be really impressed.
• “Can I have a promotion? I deserve it.”
  Hmm. The irony of the first sentence is the deferential way in which you are asking for power—you want power, yet the framing here keeps you below me on the totem pole even if you get it. The irony of the second part is the lack of awareness of the irony in the first.
  
• “Everyone in management is a total idiot.”
  By the transitive property then, if I made you a manager… you’d be an idiot, too. Right? I guess you won’t be getting that promotion after all… I’d hate to undermine your intelligence like that.

Jason Seiden is Co-founder and CEO of Ajax Social Media, a training company that shows professionals how use social media to work more effectively.