At some point in your career, you may have worked for someone who was an expert at their profession but was profoundly lacking in interpersonal skills. They lacked the interpersonal abilities to foster a team spirit and move projects forward. The lack of strong interpersonal skills may have proved detrimental to the success of the team and the organization.
Unless you are working on your own, you need the support of a cohesive, engaged team to keep your spa or massage practice moving ahead. Interpersonal skills are equally important in client relationships, where empathy and patience are essential to building lasting relationships. By being empathetic and identifying with someone’s feelings – even someone you’ve only known for a short period of time -- you build a bond.
Essential interpersonal abilities
To succeed in managing people and building strong client relationships, you need to have a strong understanding of several key interpersonal skills. Here are ones that are essential to keeping your spa or massage practice running efficiently and successfully.
Communication skills: As the owner or manager of a spa or massage practice, you need strong communication skills to convey the vision and goals of the company and your expectations regarding employee performance and how processes and procedures should be handled. Communication with clients regarding treatments and expected results needs to be equally clear to build trust. Interpersonal skills should also factor in non-verbal communication. Facial expressions, eye contact and hand movements convey a message as you interact with employees and clients.
Active listening: Effective interpersonal skills involve active listening. Be patient when you listen to the other person, whether an employee or client. Active listening enables you to provide the appropriate feedback on the information offered.
Delegate: You cannot do it all. You must delegate for the business to be successful. If something needs to be done, ask yourself who else could do it? Learning to delegate is not the same thing as farming out assignments either. You may need to train someone to start taking on new responsibilities. Also communicate responsibilities, deadlines and goals so that whoever takes on a project understands how the work fits into the big picture of running your business successfully.
Empathy: One of the most important interpersonal abilities to bring to the table is empathy. Empathy distinguishes you as a healer beyond a competent practitioner. You convey your empathy by being sensitive to the feelings of others and by being honest. You can be tactful but give honest answers about your work. You also want to show your employees and your clients that you appreciate them. Say thanks and mean it.
Resolve conflict: Conflict resolution is key among interpersonal skills. Whether the issue involves staff or clients, the goal is to resolve a conflict not to establish right or wrong to make the situation right. Start by getting to the bottom of a problem so that you know how to effectively deal with the issue and avoid the problem next time.
Follow through: You can have great ideas but you must be able to follow through to bring them to fruition. Following through also may involve inspiring those around you to help make your great ideas reality.
Steps to improve interpersonal abilities
Here are steps you can take to improve your interpersonal abilities
Identify areas for improvement: Evaluate your strengths and areas that need improvement. Set goals and establish a plan to improve the interpersonal skills that need work.
Learn from others: You may belong to a professional organization or other volunteer group where you can see others in action directing members to specific tasks, building consensus, moving projects forward or resolving conflict. Watch how they handle these situations. Ask questions, if necessary, to understand the choices they made.
Seek practice opportunities: Involvement in a group provides an opportunity to work on your interpersonal skills. Take on responsibilities that require you to work on communication, delegation, or any of the other skills where you need practice.
Ask for feedback: You can ask for feedback from your team or others you interact with in a group or even in family situations. Ask how they felt about your body language, tone of voice or choice of words. Find out how they felt during the interaction.
Assess your growth: Periodically review how you feel about strengthening your interpersonal skills and if you are getting the desired results from interactions with your team and clients.
Modify where necessary: After assessing your growth, determine what areas still need improvement and continue to seek opportunities to work on them. You may need to modify your actions whether active listening, follow through or other interpersonal skills.
Whatever you need to work on, stay positive. When you are positive you are more open to changes that will help you meet the goals you set for yourself in your dealings with others. Boosting your interpersonal skills will help you run your business more effectively to increase revenue and profit. It also will help remove frustration you may feel running your business day to day because you will be more in control.
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