How to be BETTER at COMMUNICATING In Person and Online

In a nutshell

This book will help you to communicate more effectively with other people, regardless of with whom, why, what or how. It also contains specific topics for meetings, feedback and interviews.

Why you might want to buy this book

If any of the examples below sound familiar, this book can help you:

You thought you had said one thing and they thought you’d said something else (and vice versa). It didn’t end well!
Other people just don’t seem to get what you’re saying, even though it’s perfectly clear in your own head. If only they could understand what you mean.
Even though you actively listen to them, you don’t understand the points that others are trying to make. Life would be so much easier if you did.
You come out of a conversation and think, “Well that could have gone better!”. This might be an occasional, or regular, occurrence.
It would be really useful to be able to quickly understand someone so that you could then communicate in a way that’s best for them and therefore get better results, more quickly.
Other people just seem to be great at getting their message and points across and you wonder how they do it.
Meetings, meetings, meetings! You spend way too much time in meetings. If only they were better planned and more effective you could get so much time back in your day to do the other things you need to do too.
It’s all well and good telling somebody that they’ve done well but feeding back to them when they haven’t done so well, now that’s a different matter. It would be great to know how to give feedback so that it was comfortably given, well received and properly appreciated (regardless of what the feedback was for).
You’re not having much success at interviews and you don’t understand why because you think you’re a great fit for the new position. You’re wondering what you could do differently to get a better result in the future.
As an interviewer, you know that it rests on your shoulders to find the right person for the job. Of course, that is easier said than done and so it would be great to have a proven approach that helps to ensure that this happens.

People communicate in so many different ways on so many different occasions. Most of the time it seems like they “just do it”, without a thought of why or how they do it, possibly because it seems intrinsically easy to do. However, the reality is that to communicate effectively and get the best results from that communication, there’s more to it than “just doing it” and that requires knowing how to be a better communicator.

And if communication goes well, because you’re a better communicator, it can lead to:

increased understanding and shared knowledge
better relationships
reduced stress
reduced conflict
the ability to make better, more informed, decisions
fewer assumptions and guesses
less wasted time
less wasted money
increased productivity

What this book covers

Simply put, this book helps you to be a better communicator, regardless of with whom you are communicating, why you’re doing it or how it’s being done.

To do this, the book first covers the foundations of effective communication including:

how to gain an understanding of those with whom you are communicating so you can tailor your communications to them
how to prevent things from getting in the way of effective communication
the importance of understanding what people are saying and how to use active listening and questioning techniques to do this
the importance of defining the purpose of the communication
the importance of being prepared for communications and proven frameworks to help with doing that
the pros and cons of different communication media
the implications of communicating online and the best practices for doing so

The book also contains proven frameworks for more specific types of communication skills including:

how to plan and run effective meetings
how to give effective feedback
how to prepare effectively for being interviewed
techniques for coming across well when being interviewed
how to conduct an interview effectively

There are also online resources that accompany the book’s content.

By taking and applying what’s covered in this book you will develop the skills to become a more effective communicator The more you put things into practice, the more confident a communicator you’ll become too and by being a better communicator with greater confidence, you’ll be able to get the results that you would like from your communications, whatever those may be.

This book is part of the “Interact better. Achieve more.” series. The other titles in the series are: