Knowing how to work with others is critical to your career success and also makes life a lot more pleasant. Many human resource directors, employers and experts rate people skills as the most important of the ten Skill Sets. Because people skills are so important, they constitute two different Skill Sets in this playbook— working directly with people, which is this chapter’s topic, and influencing people, which we will look at in Skill Set 6. While there is a fine line between “working with” and “influencing,” these skills are different enough to warrant separate chapters. By creating these two Skill Sets, we give double weight to people skills in our list of 10 Skill Sets.
All employers place heavy emphasis on their employees ability to work well with and influence others, both within and outside of the organization. Teamwork has the potential to make or break a company or organization. Your ability to collaborate with your coworkers will make or break your future at your job. Working in teams requires you to build relationships with your team members so that you can work together more effectively later. It can allow you to teach other members skills or processes specific to the job so that the entire team can be successful. It is much easier to gain influence within your company if you can demonstrate to your boss that you are a team player who works well with others.