Supercommunicators

Despite my critical comments, I think this is a largely positive book detailing some techniques of good communication. However, it's really not a how-to. The rough outline for each technique goes: anecdote about a communication breakdown, review of research about a technique, anecdote about someone who is good at it (a supercommunicator), and a cursory, hand-wavey things you might want to try section. The overviews/reviews of research are the best part. The how-to is too general to be of real use.

And to repeat my comments in the review itself, the author tends to glorify good communication itself, rather than as a means toward an end. That is readily apparent in the sections on communicating about race & identity, where the author never really identifies that racism, sexism and other issues related to identity are the real problem, not just that communication about them is fraught.

His information on communication itself seems pretty solid though, from the bits I checked.

This would not be a book I'd normally pick up. It was on a list from a well respected digeratti several months before it came out as they had reviewed it. I was first on my library list to reserve it then, and when it finally arrived for me, there were 60 other people waiting on the book. I had not read any of the author's previous work, but did recognize his name.

That said, I really liked this book. What can one learn about communicating from reading versus actual practice and coaching? Hard to say. He lays out a case here of three different conversation types, provides and integrates several stories he discovered in his research (surgeon, NASA, Netflix, doctors, etc) and discusses each.

I took several pages of notes for my future referrals. I did appreciate the book, and took special note of the chapter on difficult discussions which I thought was very well done (extra notes taken here). I do think a bit too much time was spent on his Netflix topic.

All in all, I really enjoyed it and learned a bunch. I'll use my notes to cement these ideas in coming months. Now I have to go practice on my family ...