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Rating: 
Summary: From the barren mind of a theorizing attorney...
Review: ...there comes a sheaf of 400 pages of nauseating corporate doublespeak diligently arranged as a collection of unlikely situational progressions. Here's how you go about "Correcting a Client's Behavior", you start by saying: "I need your help in restrategizing the way we approach this whole negotiation..." Er... restrate-what? What a joke. If you ever speak to anyone in that dry and phony, clicheistic language you're going to succeed only in making a fool of yourself; and I'm not even mentioning any of the offered logical progressions, that can only have emerged from a sterile mind of a lethargically lucubrating lawyer in process of being frozen so as to save himself for posterity. My counter-advice would be to remain straight and honest when dealing with people, to speak simply, and above all, to avoid at all costs the stolid, inhumanely politically-correct, excessively roundabout and formulaic droning that Mr Pollan recommends in his book as the acme of human communication.
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Summary: I offered this book to my son before he left home forever
Review: I will never forget that day. Before Charles closed his bag definitely, I gave it this book as a sacred testament. Everything is so well thought of; situations are so clearly described that you cannot make the usual mistakes: making confusions between symptoms and causes. Scenarios (scripts) are listed as alternatives one to each other. Solutions are clever and ethical.
Rating: 
Summary: useful for difficult situations
Review: I wish I'd read this book long before I had. The authors present you with some of life's stickiest situations and then tell you exactly how to handle it with words. What makes this book so invaluable is that the authors don't assume that the situation always involves bitterness--for example, their suggestions for leaving a job actually admit that it could just be a peaceful exit. If you want to know how to disentangle yourself from an employer you're sure is going to hold a grudge, they give you elegant ways of telling your future employer about it. Use their method, and you won't sound whiny, belligerent, or even disgruntled! If anything, their methods make the former employer's words about you look questionable and stilted. I did use their ideas on this, and THEY WORKED. To be brutally honest, this book is all about spin and the power it holds. So often in communication with one another, we forget that what we say is just as important as how we say it. In the age of emails and faxes, we're losing our manners and making unintentional enemies in the process. This book will re-educate you on the finer points of being nice and, dare I say it, being emotionally neutral. The authors clearly illustrate that our emotions keep us from being objective about a situation, and this is why Lifescripts is so helpful. They teach you how to distance yourself just enough to see the whole picture and then give you the words/actions necessary to properly deal with the problem. They also teach about a long-forgotten nuance of communication--take a pause and think before you say it/do it/write it. It's an excellent book that any manager, employee, or senior executive could easily benefit from, and I think it's even appropriate reading for high school age. Knowing when to say what can save you a lot of trouble...
Rating:
Summary: Need a graceful way to get out of a situation?
Review: I wish I'd read this book long before I had. The authors present you with some of life's stickiest situations and then tell you exactly how to handle it with words. What makes this book so invaluable is that the authors don't assume that the situation always involves bitterness--for example, their suggestions for leaving a job actually admit that it could just be a peaceful exit. If you want to know how to disentangle yourself from an employer you're sure is going to hold a grudge, they give you elegant ways of telling your future employer about it. Use their method, and you won't sound whiny, belligerent, or even disgruntled! If anything, their methods make the former employer's words about you look questionable and stilted. I did use their ideas on this, and THEY WORKED. To be brutally honest, this book is all about spin and the power it holds. So often in communication with one another, we forget that what we say is just as important as how we say it. In the age of emails and faxes, we're losing our manners and making unintentional enemies in the process. This book will re-educate you on the finer points of being nice and, dare I say it, being emotionally neutral. The authors clearly illustrate that our emotions keep us from being objective about a situation, and this is why Lifescripts is so helpful. They teach you how to distance yourself just enough to see the whole picture and then give you the words/actions necessary to properly deal with the problem. They also teach about a long-forgotten nuance of communication--take a pause and think before you say it/do it/write it. It's an excellent book that any manager, employee, or senior executive could easily benefit from, and I think it's even appropriate reading for high school age. Knowing when to say what can save you a lot of trouble...
Rating:
Summary: Your #1 Reference for People
Review: Take my advice and disregard any bad reviews of this book. First off, it comes with a CD that includes the entire book in PDF with every chapter and "people issue" listed for single-click access. That alone is worth the price! What I like most about the format is how the advice is laid out like a flowchart. It starts with what you might say. Then, depending on the person's response, your next response follows a certain path. And so on. It really is a great book; it's a shame that Amazon doesn't have the table of contents available for you to see the hundreds of different situations included. I learned more low-level information from this book that the $2600 Dale Carnegie course I took. Now that's a deal!
Rating:
Summary: useful for difficult situations
Review: This is an excellent book to keep in your collection for reference. You never know what difficult situations may arise, and this book gives example conversations for how to handle those situations.
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