Be Interested in others

I have been pondering lately on "communication skills". Being in training and development, and graduating with a communication degree myself, I see so many classes offered on communication skills. Tips and techniques to guarantee that you build beneficial relationships in the work place that will catapult you to unprecedented success and win you hundreds of loyal friends and associates. People attend these workshops all the time, and return to work only to find out that for some reason the skills and tactics discussed in that life changing training don't work for them. They still have a hard time with the same difficult people, and they still long for the respect from there coworkers that has eluded them. Why is this so? Because skills, tactics, and techniques that try to force sincere, natural relationships don't work. We need to look more at the person to whom we are talking. Go deeper. Why don't you communicate with tact and professionalism? It is not because you don't know the tricks; it is because you lack the ability to see the human need inside the person you are talking to. You are more concerned about how they perceive you, or if they will buy into your vision than you are about them. When you approach a person with a sincere interest in understanding them, when you offer yourself, with out fear; because you are more interested in them than you are in yourself, that is when the magic happens. That is when you will experience mutually beneficial communication and move towards solutions that will be positive and beneficial to both of you.