How do you effectively communicate? To succeed in any field, you need effective and proper communication. Whether you are a politician, a marketer, a teacher, a preacher, or any other person interacting with many people all the time, you need the right communication skills for your messages to get through to your audiences effectively.
Best Books to Sharpen your Communication Skills
According to Anne Willkomm (2018), an Assistant Clinical Professor at Drexel University, there are five types of communication: verbal and non-verbal communication, written communication, visual communication, and listening. Sometimes, you can get the illusion that you have communicated but in the real sense, your message did not get through. This can be quite a problem. For you to become an effective communicator and deliver the right message, at the right time and in the right way, we have gathered a list of the 6 must-read books for communication skills. Read on to discover the books that you need to read to sharpen your communication skills.
Don’t miss reading our collection of the best books on human psychology books.
1. Unleash the Power of Storytelling
Authored by Rob Biesenbach, Unleash the Power of Storytelling provides an effective step-by-step tutorial that will help you look for, shape, and tell powerful stories. Any good story requires certain essential communication ingredients that this book will help you discover. You will also get to know the most common communication mistakes to avoid when storytelling.
Why should you grab this book?
It takes time and practice to become an effective communicator and storyteller. To help you in the process, this book provides you with the most practical guide that explains why stories work, and how to become a good storyteller. To make it even more palatable, the book offers an easy, three-part template for creating a story, and tips on how to refine and deliver the same most effectively. The book also shows you how to use the narrative approach in communications situations such as job interviews, office meetings, and official presentations.
2. Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone
Dr. Mark Goulston is the author behind this piece of gem in communication skills. In addition to publishing many other books, Goulston is also a teacher and a coach. He helps professionals, company CEOs, CIOs, and other individuals all over the world to become effective communicators. He also trains members of the police force and the FBI in the complex art of investigative communications. Using his experience in psychiatry and business consultancy, Goulston shares simple but effective techniques you can use to become successful in any communication situation.
Why should you read this book?:
You should read this book if you want to know how to make people listen. You will get the best and most effective techniques and tools that will help you break any communication barriers regardless of the situation you find yourself in. Whether you are dealing with rebellious executives, uncooperative employees, angry clients, or any other situation, Just Listen will help you discover the secret to getting through to anyone.
3. How to Talk to Anyone: Ninety-Two Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships
Leil Lowndes is the author behind this communications masterpiece. She is a popular American communications professional with a lot of knowledge and experience in the field, drawn from her personal life experiences. The book offers simple communication techniques and tools for readers in any field. If you want to learn how to use communication tools to influence others, attract people and make meaningful relationships, this is the book to go for.
Why should you read this book?:
Some of the reasons why you should read the book include the fact that you will get expertise on how to talk and confidently engage others at social events such as parties. You will also learn how to get your message across in business meetings and command complete attention from your audience. Just like to book title says, you will get 92 tricks to make you succeed in relationships. Do you want to attract people at the entrance of any meeting? Do you want to know how to use body language and other non-verbal communication techniques to become an influencer rather than a manipulator? Yes, go right ahead and read this book.
4. We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations That Matter
In modern times, most communication is happening electronically through such devices as computers, smartphones, tablets, and others. According to recent studies, people are feeling less and less connected. For example, people are using new media such as social media platforms for communication ad networking purposes. This is making interpersonal communication less frequent and therefore people start feeling more and more divided.
Celeste Headlee, the author of the book We Need to Talk, argues that the answer to this problem is to start talking to each other. In this book, she provides an outline of what has made her a better communicator and continues to offer simple techniques and tools that can make anyone better at communication too.
Why should you read this book?:
The reason you should read this book is that Headlee, as a public radio host, has had plenty share of difficult communication situations. This is especially more difficult because these situations have been live on air. Reading the tips that she shares in this book will help you deal with difficult communication situations too.
The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century
Is your writing becoming worse with time? There has been an argument that English writing is getting corrupted by texting platforms and social media messaging. Most of the kids do not even care how to write better and correct English as long as they can pass their message. How can this communication problem be solved? Steven Pinker, the author of The Sense of Style provides a perfect solution to this problem. He is a dictionary consultant, New York Times best-selling author, and a cognitive scientist. This means that he is an authority in this field.
Why is it important to read this book?
While a good orator may get the most attention, having impeccable writing skills is what makes a good leader better. According to Pinker, bad writing is not caused by laziness on the side of the writer or too much texting. Rather, it is caused by what he refers to as the “curse of knowledge” (the inability of the writer to put himself in the shoes of the reader). This is a serious communication problem that you can solve by getting the lessons that Pinker offers in this book.
6. Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences
Have you ever made a presentation and got that sick feeling that your audience did not get what you wanted to put across? Was it a sales pitch and your potential clients just murmured some incoherent feedback?
Many audiences feel they wasted their time after a presentation that did not inspire, inform and persuade them. For this reason, the presenter did not resonate with the audience to move them to a transformative action or cause. Nancy Duarte, the Silicon Valley storyteller, in her book Resonate, helps you make a powerful connection with your audience in a presentation situation and lead them to your desired outcome or action.
Why should you jump into reading this book?
The book will help you as a presenter, develop content that moves your audience to take action. This is by making the audience the hero of your story and you as the mentor. This is because as she says, building a presentation is a bit similar to writing a documentary.
Conclusion: Books To Improve Communication Skills
There are many books on communication skills that you can read to become an expert in conversational situations. These books will help you sharpen your communication strategies to succeed in the most important areas such as in the office, in business, and in relationships. These books cover communication areas such as verbal and non-verbal communication, written communication, visual communication, body language, kinesics, proxemics, diplomacy, empathy, and listening. Grab your copy of the 6 must-read books for communication skills, now.