That's Not What I Meant!
Sometimes the best thing you can say about a book is that it's short. This is another book that I should have just walked away from in the first 50 pages. But I keep finding myself in these obligation situations where I feel like I owe it to someone else to finish reading a book. Like I said, at least this one was short.
This book is all about communication and the ways that misunderstandings and arguments can arise from a simple mismatch in communication style. Pauses that are too long or too short. Expecting to engage in a negotiation versus getting right to the point. Too much or too little focus on body language and tone.
Ironically, I had serious issues with the author's style. The information in here is interesting. But it's also dated and the book feels anecdotal. The author is a professor of linguistics, so I'm sure she has done a lot of research along with her own studies. But there's no mention of methodology. Just countless of examples of people failing to get their point across. These examples outweigh the analysis of the behavior, and because I can't tell where they're lifted from, I had a hard time trusting them. What's more, most of the people came across as overly sensitive to me.
It's not that I never encounter communication problems. But not to the extent as the people presented in this book. That might be because I've been lucky or I'm more likely to give someone the benefit of the doubt, or just because I'm so well-read and have been exposed to multiple communications styles and the inner worlds that accompany them. Whatever the reason, this book presented a lot of scenarios that were frustrating to me, because I could see the point where I would either step back and clarify or leave the conversation entirely. Maybe it's just that I don't need as much external validation as other people.
This book is all about communication and the ways that misunderstandings and arguments can arise from a simple mismatch in communication style. Pauses that are too long or too short. Expecting to engage in a negotiation versus getting right to the point. Too much or too little focus on body language and tone.
Ironically, I had serious issues with the author's style. The information in here is interesting. But it's also dated and the book feels anecdotal. The author is a professor of linguistics, so I'm sure she has done a lot of research along with her own studies. But there's no mention of methodology. Just countless of examples of people failing to get their point across. These examples outweigh the analysis of the behavior, and because I can't tell where they're lifted from, I had a hard time trusting them. What's more, most of the people came across as overly sensitive to me.
It's not that I never encounter communication problems. But not to the extent as the people presented in this book. That might be because I've been lucky or I'm more likely to give someone the benefit of the doubt, or just because I'm so well-read and have been exposed to multiple communications styles and the inner worlds that accompany them. Whatever the reason, this book presented a lot of scenarios that were frustrating to me, because I could see the point where I would either step back and clarify or leave the conversation entirely. Maybe it's just that I don't need as much external validation as other people.
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