Communicate With Confidence!

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Summary: A Comprehensive Guide To Being Your Best At Communication
Review: "Communicate With Confidence" is a comprehensive guide to becoming the best you can be at a vital skill which we all possess, but which needs constant attention and development: Communication.

This book is filled with useful tips on how to be effective one-on-one, use small talk appropriately, be persuasive, confident, and assertive, listen, ask, and answer questions, apologize and criticize, give and receive advice, negotiate, mediate, and resolve conflicts, give praise and instruction, break gender and cultural barriers to communication, and use body language to help get your point across.

The 1042 tips in this book are not easy to memorize, but if you are serious about being productive and effective in your communication style, then you are sure to find many valuable tips that will assist you in becoming the communicator you want to be

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Summary: Tried and True Resource Material
Review: As an author and trainer I count on Diana's book as tried and true resource material. I refer to "Communicate with Confidence" regularly. Diana covers all the bases with sound advice and practical suggestions. Diana's books are the most clear, concise and complete books about communication I've ever read--and isn't that the way it should be for a communication author?

Elaine Biech, author of "The Business of Consulting" and "The Consultant's Quick Start Guide"

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Summary: There isn't anyone who couldn't use these practical tips.

Review: Communicate with Confidence! contains over 1000 communication tips, arranged in a quick-read format. Brief, practical tips are found easily under category headings such as "Conversing One on One," "Asking the Right Questions without t Being Intrusive," "Criticising Without Crippling," and, "Taking the Sting Out of Criticism Leveled at You."

The inside cover is replete with endorsements from a dozen high-powered corporate hanchos, but the advice in this book is helpful and immediately-usable for anyone who has to interact with anyone else.

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Summary: One of the best!
Review: I have used this book as a reference in the many business seminars that I conduct. When it comes to "Communications", Dianna Booher's tips and practical advice are the best I've seen. It also "works" for my international clients. A great all round practical guide to communications improvement.

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Summary: RIP OFF
Review: The only thing exciting about the book is the title. I could not wait to get the book and read it. I can't remember being this disappointed in a book - ever. There is nothing of any value in this - just warmed over hyperbole. I am so po'd that I wasted money on this rip off.

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Summary: What is communication any way?
Review: This book is for those that really want to COMMUNICATE -- not simply write or speak well. It includes over 1000 (yes I said one thousand) tips taught in 23 situational lessons. I found Booher's writing style to be conversational and easy-to-follow. After reading the book cover-to-cover, I also find it a straightforward reference where I can "look up" how I might handle "special" circumstances. There's also a full list of all the tips in the back that I used to highlight a few goals that I want to put in practice in my professional and personal life.

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Summary: Tips for Daily Conversations
Review: This book is very easy to read. It contains a list of pointers for various kinds of situations and includes examples of dialogue you can utilize. It covers topics like dealing with forgetting people's names, and dealing with nay-sayers and how to get beyond the motor-mouthed customer or co-worker. Booher doesn't belabor any of the points, and that's a plus. She moves right along. You can pick this book up and put it down and pick it up again and not lose anything. You can read it 3 or 4 times and still get good advice. If you're able to put her suggestions into action, your communications skills should be substantially improved.

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Summary: Wait a second
Review: This book is very handy, but one should not underestimate the impact that the lack of structure has. After reading the book, you will be overwhelmed by the redundancy and repitition. Yes the book is filled with handy tips, but in the end, that is all they are tips, which treat the symptoms of bad communication; NOT THE CAUSES. Without a structure, explaining the root causes, some tips are contradictory, some say the same thing in a different way and in the end one is stuck with a huge volume of data, but little information. I am afraid the scope of this book works against it, not for it.

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Summary: How did we forget the mostly overly obvious?
Review: To me communicating with confidence means: subject, verb, satelites(objects)...BUT, here we have Booher give us a laudry list of "behavioral" dos and dont's. I felt almost like I was reading commandments. Thou salt not pout!! (really I'm not making that up as that's one of the tips) Probably more suited for a younger audience, as I felt Booher "talked down" to me througout. I wish I could find a better book on the subject. This was not it. I felt quite unsatisfied having purchased Communicate with Confidence.

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Summary: Essential for anyone
Review: While this book has a business focus, there are many techniques shown that can be used in all facets of life - in the family, with friends, or in organizations and sports teams. It's a huge (1000+) list of tips for various situations. How do you deal with someone who's not pulling their weight? You don't have to be a manager at work - you can have unresponsive kids, friends who take much more than they give, and committee members who are just along for the ride.

All the points are obvious, but in real life we forget, communicate badly, and then make a bad situation worse. This book has the sort of information that someone gives you when they say, "In that situation I always do . . ." and you could hit yourself for not thinking of it at the time. If you read and re-read this book you'll begin to have these ideas when you need them, not afterward.

The tip formula is excellent. Too many books try to put ideas across in ordinary text and become confusing and unclear. Each tip and its supporting text is complete. You won't be left wondering what the author meant.

I teach people to make presentations and there is plenty here I intend to pass along. My order is in for Booher's forthcoming "Speak With Confidence," because if it's even half as good as this book, it will be invaluable.

One last thought. Think about the times you didn't communicate that well. Think about the stress, the bad relations with other people, and all the negative things that resulted. Now look at the price of this book. Isn't it worth that price just to communicate effectively one time, let alone all the times this book will save the day?