I’ve often found Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People to provide effective guidelines. He didn’t do any scientific studies as far as I know, but he claims to have based his material on the behaviors of those who were interpersonally effective throughout history and then tweaked it for effectiveness in the course of several years of teaching it in seminars. I’ve seen it work wonders in situations that I thought were likely to go south quickly otherwise. And his material on being a good conversationalist definitely works marvelously in my experience—even if I don’t always remember to apply it!
I’ve also found some personality typing systems to be immensely useful. I personally lean mostly on Riso & Hudon’s Enneagram with occasional adjustments using the four dimensions of Myers-Briggs, though I’ve recently started looking into the Big Five due to a recommendation from a recent meet-up. (I can’t tell as yet whether the Big Five is actually useful at all in the way the Enneagram and Myers-Briggs are.) There’s something jaw-droppingly spectacular when you suddenly realize how to decode someone’s personality enough to know a few magical phrases that dissolve conflict or open that person right up, or at least understand why they got so upset about something you didn’t think was at all relevant.
I’ve often found Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People to provide effective guidelines. He didn’t do any scientific studies as far as I know, but he claims to have based his material on the behaviors of those who were interpersonally effective throughout history and then tweaked it for effectiveness in the course of several years of teaching it in seminars. I’ve seen it work wonders in situations that I thought were likely to go south quickly otherwise. And his material on being a good conversationalist definitely works marvelously in my experience—even if I don’t always remember to apply it!
I’ve also found some personality typing systems to be immensely useful. I personally lean mostly on Riso & Hudon’s Enneagram with occasional adjustments using the four dimensions of Myers-Briggs, though I’ve recently started looking into the Big Five due to a recommendation from a recent meet-up. (I can’t tell as yet whether the Big Five is actually useful at all in the way the Enneagram and Myers-Briggs are.) There’s something jaw-droppingly spectacular when you suddenly realize how to decode someone’s personality enough to know a few magical phrases that dissolve conflict or open that person right up, or at least understand why they got so upset about something you didn’t think was at all relevant.