DARTON GROUP welcomes guest blogger Denise Altman!
Denise is founder and President of Altman Initiative Group – a management consulting firm (based in the greater Charlotte area) known for its expertise with a topic near and dear to those of us on team DARTON….interpersonal skills.
As a CPA and MBA, Denise truly understands the critical role that interpersonal skills play in the careers of successful consultants in the senior-finance and accounting space. Now on to Denise…
People skills ARE skills…
Have you ever heard someone say, “he’s just not a ‘people-person’”? Many people seem to believe that you’re either born with people skills or you’re not. Why would that be so?
How many of you were born knowing accounting? It’s a skill, right? Skills can be learned. If this applies to accounting, it also applies to “people skills.” I won’t debate that some people are more naturally inclined to certain skill sets – engineering, accounting, drama, music. But that doesn’t preclude others from successfully participating in those areas. That same principle applies to soft skills.
Think back to your college days. How many courses in “people skills” did you take? How many were even offered? Not many, I would guess. We focus our attention on technical skills, and we get better at those. If we focused as much attention on non-technical skills, we’d get better at those as well.
What could you accomplish if you had better people skills? You might improve your ability to:
- Teach others
- Persuade others to accept your ideas
- Resolve or avoid conflicts
- Improve relationships
- Break down resistance
- Get more accomplished through others.
People skills are critical as we move up in our careers. Technical skills will take us far, but at some point, the lack of people skills will limit our career choices. The good news—we CAN improve those skills as well, even if we don’t think we were born with them.
What have you done to improve your people skills today?
To learn more about Denise Altman:
- Altman Initiative Group, Inc. http://www.altmaninitiative.com/
- LinkedIn Profile http://www.linkedin.com/pub/denise-altman-daltman-altmaninitiative-com/1/312/7b9
Denise Altman is the consummate professional who is extremely knowledgable and intuitive about helping businesses find the “right” people for the right positions in any work environment. She is an amazing listener who can evaluate a situation successfully and apply her insights to the recruitment, selection and training process so that people are well chosen and they get off to the right start.
Denise is also incredibly keen at analyzing personalities, behavior and scenarios so that she can counsel on avenues for improving environments and performances within any enterprise.
I have known Denise for many years and can proudly say that she is well-qualified and brings great experience to each endeavor in which she operates. I would highly recommend her to others. Don’t make the mistake of waiting too long to call on her. Most problems are more easily fixed if they are confronted earlier rather than later!