What is 

Interpersonal Skills Training? Interpersonal Skills Training gives the skills that are

Interpersonal skills—especially conflict management and resolution, collaborative problem solving, and communication—
consistently emerge as important for high performance by work groups.6

employee interpersonal skills training—communication, conflict resolution, team building, customer service, and so forth—
is a high priority. For example, until recently, medical schools did not teach students how to communicate with patients.
Many hospitals have now taken on this responsibility as patient satisfaction becomes more important. For instance, the
University of Rochester Medical Center provides one- on-one coaching to help doctors improve communication with
patients.73 For Canon, Inc., it’s the repair personnel’s technical skills that are important. 74 As part of their training, repair
people play a video game based on the familiar kids’ board game Operation in which “lights flashed and buzzers sounded if
copier parts were dragged and dropped poorly.” The company found that comprehension levels were 5 to 8 percent higher
than when traditional training manuals were used.

P459

Because all managers deal with people, these skills are equally important to all levels of management

interpersonal skills - The ability to work well with other people individually and in a group

A group’s performance potential depends to a large extent on the resources each individual brings to the group. These
resources include knowledge, abilities, skills, and personality traits, and they determine what members can do and how
effectively they will perform in a group. Interpersonal skills—especially conflict management and resolution, collaborative
problem solving, and communication—consistently emerge as important for high performance by work groups. 6

Personality traits also affect group performance because they strongly influence how the individual will interact with other
group members. Research has shown that traits viewed as positive in our culture (such as sociability, self-reliance, and
indepen- dence) tend to be positively related to group productivity and morale. In contrast, negative personality
characteristics, such as authoritarianism, dominance, and uncon- ventionality, tend to be negatively related to group
productivity and morale.7 Some organizations recognize the importance of having the appropriate mix of personalities on a
team. For instance, car review website Edmunds.com uses the results of personal- ity testing as one consideration for
assembling its executive team.8 P416

Effective teams are composed of competent individuals who have the necessary technical and interpersonal
skills to achieve the desired goals while working well together. This last point is important because not everyone
who is technically competent has the interpersonal skills to work well as a team member.

employee interpersonal skills training—communication, conflict resolution, team building, customer service, and so forth—
is a high priority. For example, until recently, medical schools did not teach students how to communicate with patients.
Many hospitals have now taken on this responsibility as patient satisfaction becomes more important. For instance, the
University of Rochester Medical Center provides one- on-one coaching to help doctors improve communication with
patients.73 For Canon, Inc., it’s the repair personnel’s technical skills that are important. 74 As part of their training, repair
people play a video game based on the familiar kids’ board game Operation in which “lights flashed and buzzers sounded if
copier parts were dragged and dropped poorly.” The company found that comprehension levels were 5 to 8 percent higher
than when traditional training manuals were used. P459

Creativity is a frame of mind. You need to open your mind to new ideas. Every individual has the ability to be creative, but
many people simply don’t try to develop that ability. Developing your creative skills can help you become a better problem-
solver and contributor in the workplace. Dynamic environments and managerial chaos require that managers look for new
and innovative ways to attain their goals as well as those of the organization. 58

great problem-solving skills from finding creative ways to perform tasks that others may take for granted
Collaborative problem-solving skills enable individuals to effectively communicate and contribute to
problem-solving processes when serving as members of a group or team. Collaborative skills are critical
for team and team-member success.

1st : identify the problem by observing, inspecting, gathering information and analyzing it until the full scope of
the problem is revealed and fully understood. => Crital thinking , analysis - can tackle problems with much
more authority and proper facts in the future.

2nd: identify decision criteria

3nd: Brainstorm alternatives: requires a careful balance of creativity and logical thinking. Compare all possible
alternatives. Analyze the money, time, staff, and resources necessary for each approach as well as the return that
pp can expect from various strategies.
=> creativity : can find suitable ways that are out of the box.

=> Open minded : accepting the fact that the actual reason is different from the one you thought at first,

=> gives you good leverage in understanding a more wide range of problems. It also allows you to observe and

notice the significant changes that go around in an organization, eventually affecting the long run

4nd: select alternative: Strong decision-making is essential at this stage. After carefully considering all your
options, you must select the best strategy for your problem and stick with your choice. Employees who waver or
struggle to commit to a single plan don't make good problem solvers because they get stuck at this essential
point in the process. => Take less time to identify direct cause of the problem you are facing at work =>
Increasing productivity and boosting morale. Ability to handle difficult or unexpected situations in the
workplace as well as complex business challenges. Organizations rely on people who can assess both kinds of
situations and calmly identify solutions.

5nd: implement the alternative

As a result, it’s important that workers be effective problem solvers. Having a workforce with well-developed
problem-solving skills is a significant competitive advantage for a company.
Collaborative problem solving involves two different constructs—collaboration and problem
solving. The assumption is that collaboration for a group task is essential because some
problem-solving tasks are too complex for an individual to work through alone or the solution
will be improved from the joint capacities of a team. People vary in the information,
expertise, and experiences that they can bring to bear in order to jointly solve a particular
problem. More specifically, collaborative problem solving requires that people share their
resources and their strategies in order to reach a common goal via some sort of
communication process.
The primary distinction between individual problem solving and collaborative problem
solving is the social component in the context of a group task. This is composed of processes
such as the need for communication, the exchange of ideas, and shared identification of the
problem and its elements.
Collaborative problem solving competency is the capacity of an individual to effectively
engage in a process whereby two or more agents attempt to solve a problem by sharing the
understanding and effort required to come to a solution and pooling their knowledge, skills
and efforts to reach that solution. Competency is assessed by how well the individual
interacts with agents during the course of problem solving. This includes achieving a shared
understanding of the goals and activities, as well as efforts to pool resources and solve the
problem.
The importance of collaborative problem solving as an educational outcome and important
skill for life and work has continued to increase since the turn of the 21st century. Business
continues to evolve requiring more cross-functional teams that work across international and
cultural borders and possess complex cognitive, collaborative, and critical thinking skills
(American Management Association, 2010). As Dede (2009) has observed, The nature of
collaboration is shifting to a more sophisticated skillset. In addition to collaborating face-to-
face with colleagues across a conference table, 21st century workers increasingly accomplish
tasks through mediated interactions with peers halfway across the world whom they may
never meet face-to-face. … Collaboration is worthy of inclusion as a 21st century skill
because the importance of cooperative interpersonal capabilities is higher and the skills
involved are more sophisticated than in the prior industrial era.

Collaborative problem solving (CPS) is composed of two main elements: the collaborative,
sharing, or social aspects coupled with the knowledge or cognitive aspects. Thus, the primary
distinction between individual problem solving and collaborative problem solving is the
social component. This is comprised of processes such as the need for communication, the
exchange of ideas, shared identification of the problem, negotiated agreements, and
relationship management. It is important to distinguish CPS from other forms of
collaboration. In collaborative problem solving there is a group goal that needs to be
achieved, the solution requires problem solving, team members contribute to the solution, and
there is some foundation for evaluating whether the group goal has been achieved. Moreover,
the activities of the team members are interdependent, with various roles, so that a single
person cannot solve the group goal alone. The collaborative activities therefore require
communication, coordination, and cooperation.

Definitions of CPS all assume that a group includes two or more individuals whose task is to
solve a problem that cannot be successfully or efficiently completed by only one individual.
The PISA 2015 framework defined CPS as follows: Collaborative problem-solving
competency is the capacity of an individual to effectively engage in a process whereby two or
more agents attempt to solve a problem by sharing the understanding and effort required to
come to a solution and pooling their knowledge, skills and efforts to reach that solution
(OECD, 2013, p. 6). Competency is assessed by how well the individual interacts with agents
during the course of problem solving. This includes achieving a shared understanding of the
goals and activities, as well as efforts to pool resources and solve the problem.