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The Quick Fix - Interpersonal Skills Training
We live in speedy timesA call for good interpersonal skills development programmesWe have fast foods, fast cars, fast CD players, fast faxes, faste-mail. We have instant coffee, instant lottery winners, instantweight loss, instant hair growth.We expect things to happen ever more quickly and we have deviseda raft of gadgets to facilitate that: mobile phones that canreach us whenever and wherever, answerphones to make sure wedon't miss a trick and Internet webs for global immediacy.We are bombarded with things to make us more accessible, to haveeasier communication flows, to save time. For business, thatmakes good sense, doesn't it? The quicker things happen, themore gets done, the less time is wasted in waiting. Push abutton and it happens.Too often, it doesn't quite work out that way. Instead of easingour working lives, the requirement for speed can become anintrusion and an obligation. We somehow, without realising it,become obsessed by the speed, rather than in control of itsusefulness.At Impact Factory we view The Quick Fix as anything we havearound us that we think is going to make our lives better andeasier and doesn't.In our work in the business sector we see that many people areimpatient for things to happen quickly and to happen exactly theway they want them to. There are pressures in the currenteconomic climate that make it very easy to feel that things areno longer in our control. There is an underlying anxiety aboutgood performance, with coming up with the goods and being on topof situations.If people are operating on a knife edge, with the possibility ofloss of business, or loss of income, or loss of status and allthat goes with it, they are more likely to have their attentiondiverted away from solutions and onto the worry itself. Theworry becomes the focus. Out of that, a 'let's fix the worry'attitude takes over, crisis management ensues and the realproblem gets lost.And that's when people begin to look for The Quick Fix: the one'thing' that's going to provide the solution. The one trainingcourse, management consultant, book, video, programme,restructure or culture change that will make everything allright.On a personal level, The Quick Fix can be alcohol, drugs, sex orfood. These are substances or activities that seemingly providerelief from all that underlying anxiety and worry.There is nothing intrinsically wrong with quick fixes. They canbe quite pleasant and can indeed take the pressure off for atime. Alcohol may feel very good going down, but it must alwaysbe remembered that very little really gets done when you'redrunk and the hangover can be ver...
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...y depressing.In the same way in business, there's nothing wrong with buyingin courses that look as though they'll be able to transform agroup of people into how you want them to be. There's nothingwrong with trying to find something that will motivate andmobilise staff to work better.However, if you're looking for the one thing that will fixeverything, then you're probably ripe to be seduced by somethingthat promises a 'feel good factor'; something that will get yourpeople's hopes up only to dash them (giving them a 'hangover').A good crisis will have you feeling like you've done something,and pretty soon, having crises becomes the current Quick Fix.Give your staff a couple of doses of Quick Fixes that don't endup shifting much of anything, and you can bet your bottom dollaryou'll end up with an outbreak of cynicism and an everincreasing lack of trust.The problem is, when things get hard, it really is tempting totry to fix it all in one go. The problems or issues took a longtime developing, but a lot of people we meet do seem to losepatience in developing the solutions.Indeed, there doesn't even have to be a problem as such, butthere will still be a desire for staff to work more efficiently,get on better, be more motivated. And so solutions are soughtthat will make employees more effective. Nothing wrong withthat, certainly. It's just that too often companies have adesire to make the solution instantaneous, along with theexpectation that staff members are going to be transformed intosome impossible ideal.It's why gimmicks are so attractive. Here's the latest.In these times of rapidly expanding use of technology in theworkplace, we now hear of interpersonal skills training that canbe done on-line, at your desk. Hard, for us as a professionalpersonal development company, to imagine developinginterpersonal skills without people to be interpersonal with.But there you go - a sign of the times.If you think about it, this is a new take on sheep-dip training,where the sheep don't even have to leave the meadow!So what's the advantage of the slow fix? To begin with, fixisn't the right term, because as far as we're concerned, there'snothing to fix. There are, however, things to develop. None ofus emerges, fully formed, into adult life (much though we wishthat happened). All of us take time to evolve, change a bit,stay static for a while, change a bit more, take on new things,reject some as well.Yes, of course, occasionally someone experiences a spectacular,life-changing event and they may make a huge shift in theirthinking, attitude, behaviour, and in the very way they livethe...
...eir life. But, that's not the norm.The norm is that we develop interpersonal skills in little bitsand pieces; in small turning points and choices; in getting anew job, breaking up with a partner, the death of a parent,having a child, getting a promotion, getting in touch withreligion or spirituality, battling an illness, clinching a dealthat's been in the pipeline for months. The stuff of oureveryday lives.You know, it's a bit like someone becoming an overnight success(to the rest of the world) after years of hard graft. You can'tjust have an interpersonal skills program where you learn goodinterpersonal skills by rote. Developing good interpersonalskills is something that's done over time: through success,mistakes, recovery, triumph, more mistakes, more recovery;indeed, the hard graft of living and communicating with others.It isn't done in a day, it isn't done by shaking people'sfoundations, and it certainly isn't done by trying to changethem in order to fix a problem ("If I put my entire marketingteam through this super duper radical programme, then when theycome out the other side our marketing problems will be solvedand the company's downturn will reverse." Don't laugh! We'veheard that and other similar statements from prospectiveclients).Here's our take on the slow approach: real and lasting changecomes from building and developing what's already there. Thatmeans respecting what people are, not wishing they weresomething else. It means understanding that there can never,ever be just one cause of a problem, and therefore, one solution.If you're looking at professional personal development within acompany, a real interpersonal skills development programme issomething that is part of the fabric of an organisation, notsomething bolted on as an afterthought. It takes time toimplement. It requires effort and commitment to make it work. Itrequires thought, planning and people's consultation to ensurebuy-in.Development programmes evolve; they can't stay the same becausepeople don't. So any such programme also requires follow-up,assessment and review; things a Quick Fix just doesn't - can't -do because it's too speedy.The Quick Fix puts unfair expectations on everyone concerned.Radical and gimmicky programmes with 'guaranteed results' rarelyproduce long-term changes. As a matter of fact, those guaranteedresults are highly questionable, since they presume that allpeople are alike and will be affected by training in the sameway.You take the time - you will get results.It takes a slow fix to make a significant difference: it's morelike gardening and less like Miracle Gro.
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