Best Communication Skills
Never Split the Difference Negotiating as If Your Life Depended on It.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I've taken approximately 20 hours of graduate study in negotiation and conflict resolution. You will be best aided by these books by taking a chapter at a time and practice the ideas and techniques."
"The author begins the book by relating his experience at a prestigious seminar at Harvard University. The author discovered that the same techniques used in life and death situations could be generalized--they "made great sense intellectually, and they worked everywhere...In the twenty years I spent at the Bureau we’d designed a system that had successfully resolved almost every kidnapping we applied it to." NEVER SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE is not just about tricky negotiation tactics, or ways to "outwit" your adversary in battle. This also means careful listening, or what the author calls, the martial art of "Tactical Empathy." Each chapter in NEVER SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE begins with a real-life example from the author's involvement with hostage negotiations. The book's title reflects the author's position that compromise, or "Splitting the Difference" is actually a lazy way to conclude a negotiation. Instead of taking the easy way, Chris recommends working relentlessly to see "what is really motivating the other side." All in all, I found NEVER SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE to be an impressive book, filled with practical knowledge, tips, and just plain WISDOM about how to deal with people."
"I was pretty sure the negotiation outcomes we were getting to were subpar, both for me and for them: a lot of splitting the difference, mostly to make the negotiations — which felt uncomfortable for all parties — stop. Note, when I mean “negotiation”, I’m speaking pretty broadly: from “negotiating" with my fiancée on who should walk the dog tonight, to negotiating with an employee on why this feature needed to be built urgently, to negotiating with an angry customer who’d called me angry about something, to negotiating with my parents on wedding plans, the list goes on. The book exposed me to a whole different way of negotiating, questioning the rational toolkit I’d been given in business school and replacing it with a more human set of tools. Since reading this book, I have: - Forged a better relationship with my fiancée by actively listening to her before jointly finding solutions. - Negotiated successful resolutions to emotionally charged topics with parents and friends. - Brought angry customers — who felt we had failed them — back from the brink to trusting us again. - Forged a better relationship with my business partners by understanding how they value time, silence, relationships, surprises, etc…. - Gotten discounts on things that I didn’t think could be discounted, just by using my name. - Gotten to the front of the waiting line at busy restaurants. - Said no to bad deals, because no deal is better than a bad one. - the list goes on. Negotiation, in the broadest sense as described above, is something I want to become an expert in, because I now understand that every conversation is a negotiation."
-Six ways to make people like you. -Twelve ways to win people to your way of thinking. -Nine ways to change people without arousing resentment. Financial success, Carnegie believed, is due 15 percent to professional knowledge and 85 percent to "the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people." You learn how to make people like you, win people over to your way of thinking, and change people without causing offense or arousing resentment.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The realization that my marriage was being effected by my nearly empty toolbox of social skills promoted me to take personal responsibility and shoulder the blame myself for once instead of blaming everyone around me for everything. I grew up with a hypercritical Mother so I think I had promised myself that I would never be criticized again, even if that meant writing people off the instant I felt like I had made myself vulnerable enough to be hurt by them. The strategies are applicable to and helpful in all aspects of my life so far, from my marriage to my job, and even to the way I interact with clerks in gas stations."
"I did think several of the principles explained in the book are common sense, but I found that it could be easy for a person to react quickly to conflicts. The first principle emphasizes the importance of avoiding criticism and he describes working with people as: working with people of logic. With this principle, he describes the importance of self-expression and connects it to the importance of thinking in terms of the other person, so that they come up with your ideas on their own, which they will like more. Dale then describes the importance to recall a person's name in the third principle. He further explains this point in principle five: Talk in terms of the other person's interests. Dale describes in the third part of the book the steps to have a person think in terms of your own thoughts. He then explains the importance of agreement and having the person say "yes," at least twice. If all else fails, he explains the importance of competition and how it drives people to feel important and empowered to work efficiently and effectively. He then explains the importance of asking questions that direct the person you’re speaking to, to obtain your idea on their own. He emphasizes the importance of having the person be saved from embarrassment, and then explains the importance of praise again, even if it is small."
"I will say than telling a lie to someone to help them save face may not always be the wisest thing to do. The original "How to Win Friends and Influence People" is still a great book to read and I'd recommend it. This book is also well worth taking the time to read as it provides a modern and positive message which is inspirational."
"While this book may be a little dated, the concepts still apply."
The New York Times and Washington Post bestseller that changed the way millions communicate. The first edition of Crucial Conversations exploded onto the scene and revolutionized the way millions of people communicate when stakes are high. Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan , and Al Switzler are cofounders of VitalSmarts, an innovator in corporate training and organizational performance.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Enter the book Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High. I heard Joseph Grenny, one of the authors speak on this topic recently at the leadership summit and got a lot out of his session. Christians and church staffs are notorious for avoiding crucial conversations. This is why churches often split, people leave hurt and visions never move forward. When in reality, because of what is at stake (salvation) and because of the calling of Jesus, we should do a better job of having crucial conversations. Individuals who are the most influential—who can get things done and at the same time build on relationships—are those who master their crucial conversations. The mistake most of us make in our crucial conversations is we believe that we have to choose between telling the truth and keeping a friend. This is one of, if not the main reason, most conversations stop and things do not move forward. If you are a boss and want honest feedback and conversation, people can't fear for their jobs or that you will yell at them. Recently, there has been a lot of writing online about pastors abusing people, creating a culture of fear, yelling at staff members, elders and volunteers and it blows my mind. One of the ironies of dialogue is that, when talking with those holding opposing opinions, the more convinced and forceful you act, the more resistant others become. But, in conversations, if we give the impression that something has been decided or that we aren't open to suggestions, we will kill discussion. If you find yourself pushing your ideas, you aren't having a good dialogue and instead are simply giving out orders. That may be your leadership style, but it won't accomplish a healthy team environment and in the end, your church or business will never reach its full potential. When a crucial conversation ends, there must be clear expectations and guidance moving forward."
"I’m sure this book could be useful in personal situations, too, but it’s really great for business, which is the perspective in which I read this."
"Surely, one can argue that not all negotiations are high stakes or emotional but whenever a difference of opinion is involved, one has to make an effort to come to a mutually satisfactory solution. And that is what the book is about - the authors come up with fancy names for negotiation methods which all boil down to one thing - finding a compromise, being able to understand and empathize with the other side, avoid bullying, and staying focused. Using established concepts would’ve completely eliminated this problem, but then the book couldn’t claim that it had “revolutionized the way millions of people communicate.”. Finally, the examples."
Best Business Communication
This newly revised edition is the only book on parliamentary procedure to have been updated since 1876 under the continuing program of review established by General Henry M. Robert himself, in cooperation with the official publisher of Robert’s Rules . Henry M. Robert III is the grandson of General Henry M. Robert and has served as president of the Maryland Association of Parliamentarians and as parliamentarian for the National Association of Parliamentarians (NAP).
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"General Henry M. Robert published the original "Robert's Rules" in 1875 and 1876 and, since the copyright on that edition (and the next few editions) has long since expired, there are numerous unofficial editions on the market. With the copyright expired, even the name "Robert's" has passed into the public domain, and many imitators have slapped the name "Robert's" on books of parliamentary procedure that bear minimal relation to General Robert's work (much as many dictionaries claim the name "Webster's" without any connection to Noah Webster or the Merriam-Webster brand that carries on his work). Now in its 11th edition, published in September 2011, this book "supersedes all previous editions and is intended automatically become the parliamentary authority in organizations whose bylaws prescribe 'Robert's Rules of Order' ... or the like, without specifying a particular edition.""
"Nothing new here but the latest revision ;). The paper is literally like it’s a bible."
"Good format, good size, print font large enough to read."
"This is a very nicely printed and bound softcover book."
"The language is rather stilted at times and some of the procedures are very detailed, but these are the rules for properly conducting an orderly, efficient, effective meeting."
"It's a good book for officials to know, I use mine a lot to advise new volunteers."
"New Version of old book... Great to have a new one to replace my worn old copy."
"I bought this for my husband, and he says it was exactuaaly what he wanted."
Best Customer Relations
This revolutionary method for connecting with customers provides readers with the ultimate competitive advantage, revealing the secret for helping their customers understand the compelling benefits of using their products, ideas, or services. Donald Miller has helped more than 3,000 businesses clarify their marketing messages so their companies grow.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This was a great book for someone who is completely new to branding."
"Found the story brand processes for external and internal customer empowerment, band on and useful at every level of relationships."
"THE best book I have read in a while!"
"BOOK."
"Miller provides an easy-to-follow format for developing a story for your brand."
"Excellent book - very inspiring, and truly outlines the steps to take to tell your marketing story in a manner people can truly relate to."
"Great ideas for businesses small and large."
"I'm drinking the koolaid."
Best Email Administration
Examine the pitfalls that organizations fall into when adopting the new generation of infrastructure technologies Understand the capabilities and service models of dynamic infrastructure platforms Learn about tools that provide, provision, and configure core infrastructure resources Explore services and tools for managing a dynamic infrastructure Learn specific patterns and practices for provisioning servers, building server templates, and updating running servers. Kief Morris has been designing, building, and running automated IT server infrastructure for nearly twenty years, having started out with shell scripts and Perl, moving on to CFengine, Puppet, Chef, and Ansible among other technologies as they’ve emerged.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"To give an example, the author discusses Code Reviews where he says: "All too often, code reviewing becomes a wasteful activity that doesn't lead to improvements actually being made to code. The author often states opinions like this, but does not back them up by anything but his opinion. Parts in which the author relied on personal experiences and generalizations were not as good."
"This is well-written and provides a good overview of some of the concepts (benefits and high level methods) of defining your infrastructure in text files, but honestly I didn't get anything out of this book."
"After the first few introductory chapters that lay down the basic definitions and context, the author goes on to describe patterns and best practices for building server templates, managing configuration and changes to configuration, as well as the pitfalls you might encounter when you move from a traditional system administration mentality to dynamic, automated "infrastructure as code" perspective. If you're building / managing a dynamic and flexible information system infrastructure in the cloud or on premise, regardless of your particular tool choice for automation, you'll find yourself facing the challenges described in this book, and therefore the outlined patterns will apply to your problems to a great extent."
Best Media Studies
Increase student interactivity and lower costs with this soft-cover, black and white, Advantage Edition version of LOOKING OUT/LOOKING IN , 14e. Ron Adler is professor emeritus at Santa Barbara City College, where he developed programs in interpersonal communication, business and professional communication, and communication theories.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This is the textbook for my Interpersonal Communications class for college, which is why I purchased it."
"It has given me insights into just how terrible my communication skills are and how destructive my ways of dealing with conflict can be to my relationships."
"For covety narc s JEZEBEL demon possessed people."
"The text is actually an icredibly insightful read and can help anyone looking to improve there communication skills."
"This was a really interesting textbook, thank you!"
"I didn't read anywhere in the description about this book being printed in black and white so I was surprised when I received the book."
"Good book and good rental pricing."
"simply amazing book, I am reading this for my college speech class, but have learned so much to apply to my own life."
Best Technical Writing Reference
Use the fourth edition of "the little book" to make a big impact with writing. "No book in shorter space, with fewer words, will help any writer more than this persistent little volume." "The book remains a nonpareil: direct, correct, and delightful." "It's hard to imagine an engineer or a manager who doesn't need to express himself in English prose as part of his job. It's also hard to imagine a writer who will not be improved by a liberal application of The Elements of Style ."
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"edition (the one with the blue cover that is expanded) and I own the 3rd edition (which is not expanded). I've always struggled with being concise in my writing, and this book is THE book to help you maximize your writing."
"I think this would be an excellent little guide for high school and college age students."
"Classic book, I don't know one better."
"I bought this for a family member who is writing a book."
"It was the required text for English 8, a course taught by the author and printer of the book, William Strunk Jr. Strunk called it "the little book," an apt label for a book of forty three pages. There's a fourth edition, a fiftieth anniversary edition, even an illustrated edition. The New York Times says that, "It's as timeless as a book can be in our age of volubility." "The beginner should approach style warily, realizing that it is himself he is approaching, no other; and he should begin by turning resolutely away from all devices that are popularly believed to indicate style--all mannerisms, tricks, adornments. The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity.""
"a century has passed since this book was written, and thousands have attempted to surpass it, without succees."
"This should be a required text for college freshman, or high school seniors as they strive to improve their writing."
"It is by-far the best book book for conveying a message with concision and clarity."
Best Business Negotiating
A former international hostage negotiator for the FBI offers a new, field-tested approach to high-stakes negotiations—whether in the boardroom or at home. Those who have benefited from these techniques include business clients generating millions in additional profits, MBA students getting better jobs, and even parents dealing with their kids. Never Split the Difference provides a gripping, behind-the-scenes recounting of dramatic scenarios from the gang-infested streets of Haiti to a Brooklyn bank robbery gone horribly wrong, revealing the negotiation strategies that helped Voss and his colleagues succeed where it mattered most: saving lives. It’s a riveting read, full of instantly actionable advice—not just for high-stakes negotiations, but also for handling everyday conflicts at work and at home.”—Adam Grant, Wharton Professor and New York Times bestselling author of originals and give and take. In these pages, you will find the techniques for getting the deal you want.”—Daniel H. Pink, bestselling author of To Sell Is Human and Drive.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The author begins the book by relating his experience at a prestigious seminar at Harvard University. The author discovered that the same techniques used in life and death situations could be generalized--they "made great sense intellectually, and they worked everywhere...In the twenty years I spent at the Bureau we’d designed a system that had successfully resolved almost every kidnapping we applied it to." NEVER SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE is not just about tricky negotiation tactics, or ways to "outwit" your adversary in battle. This also means careful listening, or what the author calls, the martial art of "Tactical Empathy." Each chapter in NEVER SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE begins with a real-life example from the author's involvement with hostage negotiations. The book's title reflects the author's position that compromise, or "Splitting the Difference" is actually a lazy way to conclude a negotiation. Instead of taking the easy way, Chris recommends working relentlessly to see "what is really motivating the other side." All in all, I found NEVER SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE to be an impressive book, filled with practical knowledge, tips, and just plain WISDOM about how to deal with people."
"I've taken approximately 20 hours of graduate study in negotiation and conflict resolution. You will be best aided by these books by taking a chapter at a time and practice the ideas and techniques."
"MAIN CONCEPT: Tactical empathy: “This is listening as a martial art, balancing the subtle behaviors of emotional intelligence and the assertive skills of influence, to gain access to the mind of another person.”. IS IT FUN TO READ: Finished it in a day. The book’s full of riveting life-and-death hostage negotiations, and Voss spins a damn good yarn. But it makes all kinds of sense: letting your adversary say a solid “no” gives them a feeling of safety, security and control -- a great starting point to a negotiation. -- Ali Binazir, M.D., M.Phil., Happiness Engineer; Speaking Coach, KNP Communications; author, The Tao of Dating: The Smart Woman's Guide to Being Absolutely Irresistible."
Best Business Pricing
Praise for Implementing Value Pricing: A Radical Business Model for Professional Firms "Ron Baker is the most prolific and best writer when it comes to pricing services. Ron Baker's most recent offering is ambitious in scope, exploring topics that include economic theory, customer orientation, value identification, service positioning, and pricing strategy. He is on a radical crusade to align the interests of service providers with those of their customers by having lawyers, accountants, and consultants charge based on the value they provide, rather than the effort it takes. It is richly illustrated by the successes of firms that have embraced value-based pricing to make their services not only more cost-effective for their customers, but more profitable as well. Implementing Value Pricing demonstrates a superior model to price for professional services: selling intellectual capital with pricing based on the results and value it creates, not the cost or time it took to formulate. Driven by theory and the actual experiences of many firms, Implementing Value Pricing features seven appendixes available for download on the companion website containing checklists, strategies, sample forms, and case studies, and discusses: With case studies from firms that have profitably implemented these specific ideas, Implementing Value Pricing is a practical guide for how and why to implement a business model change, create more value, and unlock the tremendous competitive power hidden in the intellectual capital of every professional firm.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"We are talking about going from the model where you are selling time to a model where you are giving the client the freedom to placing a value on the outcome of what they will receive from you. If any of you hesitated or had to re-read this last sentence then get this book and convince yourself that this radically different approach to doing business is something that you should have done a long time ago. You are no longer a Professional Service Firm, selling services and time, you are now a Professional Knowledge Firm, creating "value" for your customers and giving them an upfront fixed price that they can count on and budget for. Then consider that your customer is determined to get the lowest price for your services, while you are striving to get the highest price possible, so there is no common ground here."
"On a trip to China I had the opportunity to read from start to finish Ron Baker's Implementing Value Pricing book. The "theories" outlined in this prose are radical and very intelligently conveyed, allowing the reader to grasp these concepts in a methodical manner. As a person with a CI (continuous improvement) ideology of how to approach business (and life), I was enamored with the blend of rational and sensible concepts as delivered by Mr. Baker. Our goal is to make our value proposition (at premium prices) so that our Customers see us as a necessity in their business and highly dependent on the value we bring to the table."
"The idea of value creation as a measure of company plus customer profit, and how to apply this concept to define price, is applicable to anyone who uses their brain to make money. So if you missed that one entirely, if you're new to Ron's work, or if you're a professional looking to radically rethink how you and your company create value, get this book."
"The book takes you through a useful, logical path of reasoning: defining the problem with hourly billing (even considering the positives and the history behind it), why consumers buy anything, and replaces your current knowledge of what you believe is possible with pricing a customer based on services and gives you tools, processes, ideas, and case studies to help you visualize and reason through / unlearn what you currently know about time-sheets."
Best Public Speaking Reference
NOTE: This is a Standalone book and does not include Access card/ Code. His major articles include "The Schism in Rhetorical Scholarship" (1981), "The Renaissance of American Public Address: Text and Context in Rhetorical Criticism" (1988), "The Stylistic Artistry of the Declaration of Independence” (1990), and “The Rhetorical Ancestry of the Declaration of Independence” (1998), for which he received the Golden Anniversary Monograph Award of the National Communication Association. Professor Lucas has received a number of teaching awards, including the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching at the University of Wisconsin and the National Communication Association’s Donald Ecroyd Award for Outstanding Teaching in Higher Education. In addition to participating in public speaking workshops and colloquia at schools throughout the United States, he has served as a judge for the major national English-language public speaking competitions in China, has lectured at numerous Chinese universities, and has conducted workshops for Chinese instructors on teaching public speaking.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I rented this and only opened it 2-3 times the whole semester and the cover fell off the book."
"It helps break down public speaking into easy to understand steps."
"Used it for class, pretty good overall."
"A useful book to support your public speaking endeavor for absolute beginner."
"Best price and some good tips."