Books for Effective Communication

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish.

Stack Overflow co-founder Jeff Atwood recommends this book on his Coding Horror blog[0]. I don't have children, but his statement that a book on talking with children "improved [his] interactions with all human beings from age 2 to 99" intrigued me enough to get the book.

I feel that out of any book I've read, this is the one that's affected my actual behavior the most. The book features a lot of examples that help the reader to internalize the lessons. Also, the lessons are so broadly applicable that you can likely apply them immediately in your life.

It was honestly really amazing to read some pages of the book one night, find an opportunity to apply a lesson from it in a situation the next day, and then see immediate results when the conversation would go in positive direction that I maybe would have screwed up otherwise.

[0]: https://blog.codinghorror.com/how-to-talk-to-human-beings/

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...

I don't think these can be learned through books.

What you need is practice. Years of practice in performing arts has made me good in public speaking, and my stage-fear in non-existent.

And, since my childhood, I was always encouraged by teachers to write my own amswers to literary subjects as opposed to reading answers written in companion books and teachers' notes. Years of practice made me better. You would think that the skill of literary answer writing in middle school does not translate well into writing technical blogs, or project/grant proposal. You would be wrong. Many skills are general to writing.

What I suggest is that you begin reading non-fiction books in the areas that interest you. Start blogging. It could be about anything. Then improve your writing quality through iteration. Iteration is the only way to improve your writing. Generally read more. Read _anything_.

Same goes for speaking. Join a book club. Or any Clubhouse room with a topic of your interest where things are well organized. Prepare speeches. Talk. Seek brutal feedback.

Take any opportunity to speak and write.

I must warn you that these things take time. You will not be magically better after one month. You can see progress after, say, six-seven months. And if you are in the correct path, you will feel world-encompassing cringe in your writing and speeches from six months back. This is the way.

Think of a timeframe of five/six years. Be focused. Your speaking and writing will be completely transformed.

Pro tip: many people speak and write to woo an audience, project themselves as something they are not, impress peers, etc. Their effect is limited to only a small (and often insignificant) portion of people out there. The only important goal of writing and speaking is communicating your thoughts, feelings, knowledge, intuition, and so on. Everything else comes later.

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.

"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.

  - 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.

“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)

I took a really good course at Stanford Business School about public speaking.

One of the course textbooks was Resonate by Nancy Duarte, which offered a really interesting twist. The book talks about the classic "Hero's Journey" story template, but then flips it on its head: it suggests you consider your audience to be the people going on the journey, and it's your job to guide them through the different stages: the initial call to adventure, the trials along the way and the eventual return where they have been changed in some way (by their understanding of the topic you are talking about).

I thought that was really neat.

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.

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.

People have already listed them, but:

- Crucial Conversations

- Difficult Conversations

- Nonviolent Communications (aka NVC)

The first two books are great at explaining the dynamics at play, but poor on actionable advice. The third book is great at actionable advice, but poor on explaining why the advice is good. So I'd recommend reading at least one of the first two books as well as the NVC one.

There is also, essentially, an NVC cult out there (reminiscent of agile cults or TDD cults) - in the form of NVC chapters in each city.. Ignore them - just focus on the book. In my experience, local NVC chapters always seem to add more to the material in the book, and often follow a world view not particularly espoused by the book - one which often repels people.

I think your question and these recommendations are an attempt to treat the symptom not the cause. If you have trouble communicating with other people I think part of it is that you are out of touch with yourself. In an attempt to shield yourself from the judgment of others you limit the way you communicate with other people. Consider therapy, meditation, medication, exercise or some other ways of opening your mind and unraveling any self-criticism that may exist within you. I admit, I'm reading a lot from this question, probably because I asked the same one myself many years ago and only in the last few have finally found real answers.

"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.

Verbal Judo by George J. Thompson and Jerry B. Jenkins.

Excellent at teaching how to understand a situation and diffuse conflict. How to employ empathy (not necessarily sympathy). Even how to talk to customer service and remain calm.

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.

The Writing Centre was recently mentioned in HN https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/ Provides writing tips and tools .

The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker. Invaluable insights about what makes good writing good.

Agile Conversations by Squirrel & Frederick: https://www.conversationaltransformation.com/agile-conversat...

I am working with one of the authors, and am totally blown by the depth of thinking these two have put into all aspects of company communication and culture.

My bachelor study in IT / Sofware Engineering had a required communications class every semester. It was pretty useless it was all about conventions, What does a letter look like. How many words should be in a power point. Just the boring stuff. But one insight that I still remember and use nowadays is that if you find it hard to talk to people, then you should just use more conventions: Say hello more often to get yourself in a talking mood, having nothing to talk about anymore? just look around, observe something and say, hey i see ...

I do not have any book recommendations but I hope these tricks that work for my (tiny bit autistic) brain may help you.

Strunk & White's The Elements of Style

This covers the key takeaways from more than 30 books on communication, including many of those mentioned in this thread: https://www.sivv.io/guides/Effective-Communication

My brother went to law school, and joined the Marines. I learned something about effect spoken presentation from listening to his imitations of instructors in the Marines. He also said that one of his professors in law school recommended listening to TV preachers.

As for writing, you have to read a lot, you have to write a lot. In writing, you need to let your first draft sit a day or two, then edit. You also need to go back in a week or a month, or longer, and read what you wrote. It will be informative and sometimes embarrassing.

This Technical Communications textbook is one of the best set of instructions and recommendations on how to clearly communicate in written and verbal modes: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1319245005/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_...

I always recommend it to researchers and anyone who has to write documents (most folks in tech).

"You can negotiate anything" by Herb Cohen.

I learned that every conversation is a negotiation. Seeking to understand the position the other party is starting from, and seeing where everyone wants to go, reframed how I view interactions.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Can_Negotiate_Anything

You can read all you want about communication, but if you don't know how to execute it, it will be like learning how to fish on the Internet. You will know what to do, but until you actually try with real water, you won't get any real practice. The best way to learn communication is to 1) try it yourself or 2) watch (and learn) from others who are there.

Leonard Peikoff's Objective Communication

https://www.amazon.com/Objective-Communication-Writing-Speak...

Messages: The Communication Skills Book Di Matthew McKay, Martha Davis, Patrick Fanning

Basics, without any controversial ideas. This book helped me a lot.

Language in Thought and Action by S. I. Hayakawa

I highly recommend HBRs “On Communication”. I always flip through it when I have to present something.

David Burns - Feeling Good Together

Strunk & White.

Also "TRANCE-formations" (sic).