Your Communications Skills Book Review Page

Our communication skills are the fourth most important skills we can improve. It defines our relationships.

This page includes…

Communication Skills for Normal Conversations
- How to Talk to Anyone
- How to Win Friends and Influence People
- The Conversationalist
- The Narrative Gym
- Captivate
Communication Skills for Emotional Conversations
- Crucial Conversations
- Never Split the Difference
- Nonviolent Communication
- Verbal Judo
- Conversational Intelligence
Special Conversations
- The Five Love Languages
- The Love Prescription
- The Coaching Habit

Relationships have an emotional bank account, and the currency is trust, and trust is earned in many ways, one of the most important being communication. Communication experts estimate that only 10 percent of our communication is represented by our words, while 30 percent is our tone, and 60 percent is our body language (Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People).

Note: The links on this page are affiliate links, and I get a small compensation, at no extra cost to you, if you make a purchase through them.

Communication Skills for Normal Conversations

How to Talk to Anyone

This book gets five stars because of the quality and quantity of helpful tips expressed in a concise way. I would recommend this book to everyone, especially young adults. This book has over 90 tips in the areas of body language, first impressions, making small talk more interesting, increasing the connection with people, how to sound smarter (or like an industry insider), and be more persuasive. Get How to Talk to Anyone.

How to Win Friends and Influence People

This classic is the oldest five star communication book I reference on this page. It is based on a long period of studying relationships, and it could be useful for pretty much anybody. The communication tactics it includes are, don’t condemn or criticize, find out their good points, and give honest and sincere appreciation. Get How to Win Friends and Influence People.

The Conversationalist

This is a classic five star communication book that gives practical advice on how to strengthen relationships and connect on a deeper level. It has three sections, the heart, the questions, and the disciplines of conversationalists. The heart section includes five levels of significant conversations, casual, contextual, conceptual, considerable, and catalytic, and discernment of whether they need care, counsel, or courage. Get The Conversationalist.

The Narrative Gym

This is a five star book that provides a clear and compact message format to help connect with people and could be thought of as a universal value proposition format for communication. It is based on the three forces of narrative, which are agreement, contradiction, and consequence. It is a small book, a quick read, and is backed by evidence. Get The Narrative Gym.

Captivate

This five star book has good practical tips for connecting with anyone. While it doesn’t focus on communication, it includes timeless tips for creating good first impressions, starting conversations, and connecting with people through stories. It has a section on how to create “Big Talk” as opposed to the boring old small talk. It also recommends some specific topics that spark more lively conversation. The book refers to a study that shows being different wakes people up, or a slightly unusual request raises more interest. Get Captivate.

Communication Skills for Emotional Conversations

Crucial Conversations

Crucial Conversations gets a five star review because of its principled approach to communicating with respect in emotionally charged situations. This book was obviously a careful collaborative effort over time. It has a good process for productive talks when there are opposing opinions, high stakes, and strong emotions. A few of the steps include start with the heart (what do you want from the conversation and the relationship?), learn to look (for content, conditions, and triggers of conversational issues), make it safe, and explore others’ views. Get Crucial Conversations.

Never Split the Difference

Another five stars for this book as it provides proven tactics for expressing empathy and persuasion in tough conversations. The author was an FBI hostage negotiator, who gave us some helpful communication tactics. It talks about the importance of labeling people’s emotions and mirroring any comments that seem interesting. Mirroring other’s comments triggers a subconscious desire to explain more. It also explains how calibrating questions can be very helpful. Get Never Split the Difference.

Nonviolent Communication

This is a five star book, as it provides a formula for tactfully expressing your feelings about a tough situation. Of course, it can also be used to express gratitude. This book provides a proven process based on other people’s behaviors and the feelings they created. Then work on getting the same from them. When we label people and judge their intent they naturally get defensive, but if we label their behavior and explain how it made us feel, our perspective is much more likely to be accepted. Get Nonviolent Communication.

Verbal Judo

Five stars for Verbal Judo, as a book on how to have a conversation with someone you have authority over, and you need to ask them to do something, but you think they might resist. His tactics were developed during his time teaching and as a policeman. The Verbal Judo way “is to treat people with dignity and respect, most of all, your family and close friends. Be ever so careful how you speak to them, as words can cut deeper and fester longer than sword wounds. Ironically, we often spend less energy being kind to those closest to us.” Get Verbal Judo.

Conversational Intelligence

A five star communication book for facilitating change in a workplace. “Conversational Intelligence is essential to an organization’s ability to create shared meaning about what needs to be accomplished and why.” This book provides a TRUST model to guide conversations. It shows how to move conversations from I to We, in each of the points of TRUST. The book explains the five conversational blind spots. Get Conversational Intelligence.

Special Conversations

The 5 Love Languages

This is a very popular book with a 4.8/5 rating with over 88,000 reviews on Amazon. I’m giving it five stars because of how practical and insightful it is. It has a related book for the workplace called The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace. It’s a quick and easy read that everyone can relate to. Get The 5 Love Languages.

The Love Prescription

While this book does not focus solely on communication, it involves priceless communication principles, which is why I give it five stars. John Gottman wrote the best selling book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. That book was based on many years of studying couples in a “love lab.” The result was being able to predict which couples would still be together five years later, with over 90% accuracy. This recent book is a lot smaller, as a quick read. It has seven principles, or habits, and encourages the reader to practice one principle a day for seven days. It emphasizes how small things practiced often, creates big results over time. Get The Love Prescription.

The Coaching Habit

The Coaching Habit is a five star book focusing on a specific coaching method for helping empower others to uncover their challenges and overcome them. This book opens with a reference of a Daniel Goleman article for the Harvard Business Review, “Leadership that Gets Results.” It says coaching is one of many leadership styles and it has a “markedly positive” impact on performance, culture, and the bottom line. It also points out that few leaders use it because it takes time to teach people and help them grow. The Coaching Habit helps others build resourcefulness, by thinking through what they want and what steps they need to take to get it. The Coaching Habit is a process of seven core questions, with possible follow up questions for each core question. Something tells me the principles in this book would prove priceless for parents. What parent doesn’t want more resourceful kids? Get The Coaching Habit.