Interpersonal Skills — Quick Revision

A one-page summary of the concepts and response patterns behind CSAT’s interpersonal-skills questions.

The Communication Process

Stage	Where it fails
Sender / encoding	Unclear idea, wrong words or format for the audience
Channel	Wrong medium (notice board for an urgent change), noise
Decoding / receiver	Jargon, emotion, prejudice, inattention
Feedback	No way to ask questions or confirm understanding

Barrier	Example
Physical	Noise, poor network, distance
Semantic	Jargon, ambiguity, unfamiliar language
Psychological	Anger, fear, distrust, prejudice
Organisational	Long chains of command, rigid hierarchy
Cultural	Differing norms of address, gesture, time

Concept	Key point
Passive	Avoids conflict, needs unmet
Aggressive	Blames and dominates
Passive-aggressive	Agrees openly, resists indirectly
Assertive	Clear, specific, respectful — “When… I… so I would like…”
Active listening	Attend, acknowledge, clarify, paraphrase, respond
Empathy vs sympathy	Seeing from their view vs feeling sorry from yours
Feedback	Specific, timely, about behaviour, private when critical

High-yield models

Johari window (Luft and Ingham, 1955): open, blind (others know, you don’t), hidden (you know, others don’t), unknown.
Thomas–Kilmann conflict modes (1974): competing (high assertive, low cooperative), collaborating (high, high), compromising (medium, medium), avoiding (low, low), accommodating (low assertive, high cooperative).
BATNA — best alternative to a negotiated agreement (Fisher and Ury, Getting to Yes, 1981). Focus on interests, not positions.

Strike out passive, aggressive and evasive responses.
Prefer private-first conversations before escalation.
Choose the response that solves the problem and preserves the working relationship.

Three common errors

Calling a firm but respectful response “aggressive” — it is assertive.
Treating avoiding as always wrong — it suits trivial issues or heated moments.
Quoting “7% words, 93% non-verbal” as a general rule — Mehrabian’s figures apply to judging feelings when words and tone conflict.