[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Books for Effective Communication
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Ask HN: Books for Effective Communication
Being very good at writing and speaking are very valuable skills
that come in handy in all situations in life. What books have you
read or want to recommend to enhance these skills? Any specific
book that changed how you articulate your ideas and thoughts?
Author : 2bor-2n
Score : 49 points
Date : 2021-06-05 20:12 UTC (2 hours ago)
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Nonviolent Communication by Rosenberg
|
| Quick Summary:
|
| "1. Observe what's happening - what's really going on? What is
| happening or being said that you either like or dislike?
|
| 2. Identify your feelings about it - anger, joy, hopeful,
| inspired, lonely?
|
| 3. Figure out what need you have that is driving that feeling
|
| 4. Ask for what you need (explicitly)"
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/71730.Nonviolent_Communi...
| pella wrote:
| _" When CEO Satya Nadella took over Microsoft, he started
| defusing its toxic culture by handing each of his execs a
| 15-year-old book by a psychologist"_
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-satya-nadella-nonv...
|
| """
|
| - Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella bought all the members of his
| senior leadership team a copy of the book "Nonviolent
| Communication" in 2014 when he took over the company.
|
| - At the time, Microsoft was known for having a culture of
| hostility, infighting, and backstabbing.
|
| - "Nonviolent Communication" preaches compassion and empathy in
| communication, and it has lessons that apply beyond the
| boardroom.
|
| """
| johnwheeler wrote:
| How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie.
| Effective communication is about listening more than speaking. It
| all boils down to people wanting to feel important. In order to
| influence people, you have to open yourself up to being
| influenced by them first.
| kevinskii wrote:
| This recommendation always comes up in this sort of discussion,
| and I wholeheartedly agree with it. This book greatly affected
| the way I interact with people. It also lends itself well to
| just reading a random chapter here or there depending on what
| catches your interest.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| It's a good book, and I came here to recommend it too. But it
| didn't help me for a long time.
|
| The key is to actually care about those around you, more than
| your own goals. I think this wasn't emphasized enough.
|
| It's also how you win your goals, most of the time.
| lionhearted wrote:
| "Difficult Conversations" was a great read --
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Conversations-Discuss-What-...
|
| The basic idea is that in any difficult conversation, there's
| actually three sub-conversations happening --
|
| (1) What happened?
|
| (2) How do we feel about it?
|
| (3) What are we going to do about it?
|
| A lot of times people get into cross-talk or can't get on the
| same page because they mix up what sub-conversation they're
| happening. This can happen when one person gets right into
| proposing solutions (#3) while another person is still trying to
| work out why things went the way they did (#1). Likewise,
| sometimes a conversation around "we really screwed this up" is
| meant to be a neutral "what happened" conversation (#1) but is
| taken as a negative or put-down (#2).
|
| Useful book. Very readable and informative.
| lrPrentice1 wrote:
| Language in Thought and Action by S. I. Hayakawa
| callmeed wrote:
| "Crucial Conversations" Best book I've read during the pandemic
| and probably most useful in my current stint as an engineering
| manager. Also extremely applicable to personal relationships
| (marriage, kids, etc)
| villasv wrote:
| Of all the books listed so far, this is my favorite. Definitely
| the one which caused the biggest long-term positive change on
| me.
|
| Nonviolent Communication is good for building up empathy, I
| recommend it as a complement. Crucial Conversations is a bit
| more practical and useful.
| diocles wrote:
| "The Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing and Thinking" by Barbara
| Minto.
|
| This approach is taught at consultancy firms to help structure
| clear written business communication, especially if your audience
| includes time-poor senior executives.
| mrzool wrote:
| The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker. Invaluable insights about
| what makes good writing good.
| open-source-ux wrote:
| Patrick Winston (1943-2019) was a computer scientist at MIT.
| Every year he gave a popular talk titled _How to Speak_. Here is
| a recording of the talk from 2018:
|
| _How To Speak by Patrick Winston_ :
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY
|
| A book of his insights was published in 2020: _Make It Clear:
| Speak and Write to Persuade and Inform_. I 'm half-way through
| the book and it is good so far. Although the book pitches itself
| as suitable for anyone who writes or speaks, many of the examples
| in the book have an emphasis on speaking in an academic or
| teaching setting. However, there are good insights that anyone
| can learn from.
|
| I recommend watching the talk above first to help you decide
| whether the book will appeal to you (the material in the lecture
| is in the book as are additional insights). There are lots of
| reviews of the book on the Amazon US site too.
| chris_j wrote:
| It would be helpful if you could give some concrete examples of
| the sorts of situations where you want to improve your writing or
| speaking skills. Are you wanting to communicate more effectively
| at work, in your personal life, or somewhere else? I might
| recommend a different book depending on the answer.
|
| A couple of books that have helped me:
|
| - The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabane. This book changed my
| life than any other. The premise is that charisma is a skill that
| can be learned, and isn't something that some people are born
| with, and that you can become more charismatic by working on your
| internal mental state and learn to emit signals of power, warmth
| and presence. I didn't used to be a people person until I read
| this book.
|
| - Mastering Communication At Work by Ethan Becker and Jon
| Wortmann. This book is specifically aimed at leaders in a
| business context. It contains lots of great advice on subjects
| such as understanding different communication styles (and
| tailoring your approach accordingly), managing your "ethos" i.e.
| the way that you come across to people, running effective
| meetings and many more.
| helph67 wrote:
| The Writing Centre was recently mentioned in HN
| https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/ Provides writing
| tips and tools .
| luxurytent wrote:
| On Writing Well: https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-
| Guide-Nonfiction...
|
| Also, practice. Keep writing. Write postmortems, discovery docs,
| blog posts, threaded tweets. Practice in multiple mediums and
| find your style.
| jajon wrote:
| David Burns - Feeling Good Together
| jppope wrote:
| - The Charisma Myth. It focuses more on meta skills like
| projecting presence, but is useful to start seeing non-verbal
| communication as effective as well - The Presentation
| Skills of Steve Jobs. The books is really about presentation
| skills and then the author layered Steve Jobs on top, but it's a
| very useful book. - A quick overview of Amazon's approach
| to written communication. One thing I will say about Bezos, he
| understands the overhead of communication in a corporation and
| focused on streamlining it, there are a bunch of articles but
| this one is useful: https://networkcapital.substack.com/p/the-
| amazon-way-of-writing - I've spent a lot of time reading
| the sale literature out there and its rough to recommend a book
| given the way the question is formed but understanding a sales
| mindset is extremely useful to becoming a better communicator.
| Zig Zigler "Secrets to closing the sale", Jeffery Gitomer's work,
| and SPIN selling all come to mind as valuable reads.
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