Harvard Business Review on Effective Communication (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series)

Ralph G. Nichols | Leonard A. Stevens | Fernando Bartolome | Chris Argyris

1 Breadth of articles that help business communication work
Though the collection of articles may at first seem sort of old (the oldest is from 1957), the content is very apropos for today. While building a Training Roadmap for our company, I found articles that I think will be extremely useful for a wide range of positions.

What first attracted me was the article on "Listening to People", where I found the clearest presentation on why our listening fails. Even better, it tells how we can improve our listening as a skill that has to be learned.

The next article on "How to Run a Meeting" was enlightening, almost literally! I rushed into my boss' office with new insights on why certain meetings had to be held and how they should run.

I haven't read word-for-word the whole book, rather I've read some others and skimmed some others. That sampling seems to indicate they're all of the same quality.

2 Good as almost always in this series
I already own five of the paperbacks in the Harvard Business Review series. The articles in it are really state-of-the-art in the field the book is about. And so it is in the case of the Harvard Business Review on Effective Communication. I appreciate the chance to read what the most important authors have to say in short articles, not in long books. The articles are long enough to understand and give many good ideas worth working on.