This is a book “review”, ok, more specific challenge from How Highly Effective People Speak by Peter D. Andrei.
First, I put the word: review in quotations because I’m no true reviewer. I will share my opinions but they are strictly my opinions. I highly recommend always reading for yourself.
Second, I recently purchased several communication books. The first couple were duds. I mean, the content was not invalid, but I didn’t need to read a book to know a critical step of effective communication is listening. I wanted something deeper and tactical. Then I opened the last book I purchased, How Highly Effective People Speak by Peter D. Andrei. And I found exactly what I was searching for… a great resource for tons of approaches associated with various biases.
A bias is a systematic, predictable, scientifically proven-mental operation that acts as a “short cut”. (p. 71)
Now disclaimers aside, what I enjoyed/gained:
There were so many strategies (in fact a TOC of the strategies and not just by the bias would have been helpful). There were some that reinforced things I knew such as story telling, images, etc. But there were so many to level myself up as well. For example, I’ll share a strategy I learned to help with the availability bias. The availability bias is our human ability to overweigh evidence we easily remember; evidence that is available. (p. 71)
Use Sententia American Rhetoric defines sententia as “A figure of argument in which a wise, witty or pithy maxim or aphorism is used to sum up the preceding material.” So, you explain a complex topic and end with a sententia. For example, Abraham Lincoln said “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” I don’t need to know the contents of the rest of the speech that came before this sentence. I can remember this and gain appreciation for the point being made. It stays with me, hence it’s available and I’ll give it weight.
When I am speaking, I can get so focused on sharing all the details, facts and scenarios that I can lose my audience in what my goal/request is. In addition, I don’t think of myself as able to come up with wise, witty or pithy statements. Yet, if I took time to think about this in advance, how much more effective could I be in my communication. This is a challenge I’m setting for myself.
Here’s what I didn’t enjoy:
- There were numerous references to other materials. Think they were mostly free but still felt like I was constantly being sold or distracted from what I was focused on.
- There were some parts that could be used in manipulative ways. The author actually addresses this several times with messages about not being a jerk, etc. But there were still strategies that I wouldn’t ever feel comfortable using even if it does align with how our brains work. For example: present zero-risk (just because I don’t believe that’s ever really true).
Overall, I made several tweaks to my keynote based on this book.
I would recommend this book for anyone looking to be more impactful in their communciation.
