In business today, you should certainly go out of your way to get along with the people who work with you or for you. No matter what echelon you rate, the workers below you are entitled to your constant thoughtfulness and consideration. You never know when someone in your department or elsewhere will come up with ideas or suggestions that may be extremely valuable to you. But only if you make him feel that he may talk to you freely. That is where a good personality enters the picture and frequently decides the difference between good and bad human relations.
When you talk to a man, give him your full attention and consideration. When you listen to his ideas, put some smiling pleasantness and interest into your manner. When you shake hands with a man, put some warmth, cordiality, and grip into the operation. Hardly anything so promptly lights the quick-burning fuse of a man’s resentment as to receive a hand clasp that has the vigor of an invalided kitten, the geniality of a drippy fog and the spirit of a cold buckwheat cake. Make your handshake human and you will make a human being out of yourself in the process.
Finally, when an employee comes to you with a complaint don’t listen with an attitude of bored resignation; put some human sympathy and understanding into your manner and let your kindly, genial, warm personality take over. Remember that, as the manager of the department or the top executive of the business, it is your
outstanding personality that has helped you to build up your reputation for fair dealing and sympathetic understanding.
If managers would only learn to listen more feelingly and sympathetically to their workers and associates, we would see much less concern over human relations and labor relations, in business today!
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