## **MEANING OF SOCIAL SKILLS** Social skills are the skills used while interacting with people whether it is verbal or non-verbal (i.e. gestures, body language, or appearance) communication. Human beings are social animals. History witnesses that if you want to explain something to others, then you can do this even without speaking anything. **For example:** #### **1. Silent Movies** - Earlier, when words were not used so much, we used to watch silent movies. In these movies, Charlie Chaplin made the audience laugh through his non-verbal communication. #### **2. Tribes/Primitive Humans** - Primitive men used to go in jungles for work and women used to make food at home. - Now, how did these primitive women communicate to the men that food is ready? - For this, primitive women used to burn fire. With the smoke of this fire, the men in the jungle came to know that the food is ready and they went back to their homes to eat the food. #### **3. Shehriya Janjati of Madhya Pradesh (MP)** - When any marriage takes place in this Shehriya Janjati, everyone is called for a meal. If food is finished, then they do not use verbal communication to inform about this to the guest instead they use a non-verbal communication. - In this non-verbal communication, the lady of the house carries the empty utensil of roti on her head, she walks in front of the guests and then she move out from there. This action tells the guests that food is finished and after that, nobody asks for more food. ## **FACTORS THAT ENHANCE SOCIAL SKILLS** #### **1. Verbal language:** It means: - The tone you are using while communicating - The volume of your voice while communicating - The words you choose while communicating #### **2. Non-verbal communication:** By understanding the body language, gestures, and appearance of a person you can determine what he/she wants to convey. **For example:** While you are communicating with your friends or subordinates, how will you know that he/she is interested in your talks or not? When you are talking and your friend or subordinate is: - Checking his watch constantly - Checking or doing something on his phone constantly - Tapping his feet - Making the direction of his feet in a manner that he is about to leave All the above points indicate that your friend or subordinate is no more interested in your talks. This is called non-verbal communication. So, you should understand the gestures of people to improve your human communication. ## **ADVANTAGES OF SOCIAL SKILLS** #### **1. More & Better Relationships** Social skills will help you to make more and better relationships whether they are personal or professional as when you talk with someone properly, then it will impact people and they will like you. Everyone wants to meet charismatic people. #### **2. Better Communication** - With the help of social skills, you will be able to become a good speaker. - If you choose the right words, then your communication skill will automatically become the best. This will help you to convey your talk to others. #### **3. Greater efficiency and convincing power** - When you are able to connect and convey your thoughts/talk to others, then people will agree with you. They will have trust on your talk and they will start liking you. - This will happen only when your voice is sweet and your speech has convincing power. #### **4. Advancing career prospects and gives you power** - Social skills will help you to make your position in your company better and take you up in the company. - As an entrepreneur, if you develop good social skills and interact with people, then it will provide you financial benefits, new buyers, and a network of people who will help you to grow further. - Most of the companies look for people having a tactical skill, which means they search for people who are the best in every way and can work with team spirit. #### **5. Social adaptability and increases overall happiness** Social skills help in adjusting with the social situations in a better way. When you are able to talk with people comfortably, then you will be able to make them understand what you want to say. This helps in opening all the personal and professional doors for you. ## **IMPLEMENTATION OF SOCIAL SKILLS** The formula for implementing social skills is –L, C, P, L, and F. Let us discuss this formula in detail. #### **1. L – Listening** If you are a good listener, only then you will be able to become a good speaker. When you listen to people carefully, then people also pay attention to your speech. So, you should: - Be interested in people’s stories. - Always remember their stories so that you can share their experience outside. - Always remember the names of people. This is an important part of communication skills. If you forget the name of the person while greeting him/her, then it will down your impression in front of him. #### **2. C – Communication skills** You should have good verbal as well as non-verbal communication skills. While communicating with people: - Don’t fill every gap. If there is a gap in communication, you can say, “Wow, it’s so interesting.” You can complete your talk in two lines as well. - You should know when to leave a communication. It is not necessary that you keep on listening to someone and it is boring or you have to go somewhere, then you should know how you can say goodbye to them. - Always maintain eye contact. Never look up or down because it shows that you are not interested in their talks. - Recognise the body language. - Maintain correct posture. If you lean a lot or you keep on moving continuously, then your communication will not be so effective. #### **3. P – Positive attitude** If you are: - Always negative and keep on saying negative things - Always complaining Then, people will not like you. So, you should be cooperative and maintain harmony while communicating with people. This helps in getting to know whether a person is positive or negative. Otherwise, people will listen to you but also do back-biting. #### **4. L- Love/Empathy** You should: - Greet people with their names - Show care to them - Be sympathetic - Don’t make fun of others - Don’t act superior when somebody comes to you with problems - Be humble and treat people with love If you do so, people will start liking you very much. #### **5. F – Follow-up** It is easy to do friendship but it is difficult to maintain it. But, you have to implement this. Suppose you have talked with a friend and he said that he likes a particular type of movie or article. So, you have discussed this but now, you have to follow-up with him. For this, you can send him the link to a movie or article, which they like, after two-three days. This will make your friend believe that you have listened to his communication carefully and you understand his feelings. This helps in increasing your interaction. In personal relationships, you can follow-up them by remembering their important days like birthdays and invite them to your home or visit their house. ## CHECKLIST/HACKS OF SOCIAL SKILLS** #### **1. Deserving factor** It means whatever you want you should deserve it. It means whatever you want to achieve, you should first think why you want to achieve it and do you deserve it. **For example:** If you want a good family, you need to work on the following factors: - You have to become a good person. - You should give time and care to your family. Similarly, if you want to become a good employee and want everyone in the office should respect and praise you, then you have to: - When you do your work wholeheartedly - When you do your work with your full dedication and within the time limit #### **2. Opposite attracts** In childhood, we used to do the work that we are not allowed to do. We do this even when we become adults. **For example:** You should do exercise regularly. But, you may skip the exercises and eat fatty foods. Therefore, you should make an inverse rule. The formula for making the inverse rule: - First, find a goal. - Next, inverse the goal. - After that, make a subgoal of the inverse of the subgoal. - Later, inverse the subgoal. Let us take an example to understand the inverse rule formula. Suppose, you want that people like you. So, your goal will be: - Goal: People should like you - **Inverse:** People should not like you - **Subgoal:** You become more talkative, do gossiping, and make fun of people. If you do so, people will not like you. - **Inverse subgoal:** You should become empathetic, caring, and develop a good sense of humour. This all will happen when you understand your goals. #### **3. FORD Formula** It tells how you should talk to people and how you should start a communication. Sometimes, you want to talk a lot but don’t know how to start the conversation. For starting a conversation, you can use the FORD formula, wherein FORD stands for: F- Family, O – Occupation, R – Recreations, and D – Dreams You can use the above points anywhere, anytime, and with anybody for starting communication. These points are discussed in detail as follows: - **Occupation:** Though the formula is of FORD, but you should start with Occupation because it is a topic on which everyone wants to talk and everyone has enough things to talk on this topic. This helps in making friends easily. - **Family:** For starting communication, you can also talk about the family of the person or tell about your family. You not only have to ask about them but also tell about yourself. This is also part of social skills. - **Recreation:** It means talking about the interest of a person. In this, you will have a good friendship with the person because you will have some common points’ between you and the other person. - **Dreams:** It means talking about the dreams of a person. These dreams are the goals of a person in life. You can only learn social skills by mixing with people.