Customer Reviews

Effective Communication Skills for Scientific and Technical Professionals

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

While dealing with scientific and technical professionals (STPs, he labels them) during his management career, Harry Chambers recognized that many of his colleagues were not able to share their expertise clearly enough, whether they were writing and speaking to their counterparts, or whether they were addressing people beyond their areas. So he wrote this book as a guideline for the STPs. I applaud Chambers' writing style--competent enough to please an educated audience, yet folksy enough to illustrate that stuffiness isn't required for explaining complicated ideas. The book underscores the widely accepted observation that people who get promoted because of their expertise may score very poorly when they try to manage a team. To equip STPs for management, Chambers offers advice about how to relate well to your boss, develop listening skills, serve customers, direct meetings, give and receive critism, and other vital topics. As a former university faculty member, I vote for placing this book in every campus library, and making it required reading for those pursuing the B.S. degree. To STPs who have their degrees already, I suggest that Effective Communication Skills for Scientific and Technical Professionals merits your close study. Although Chambers admits that "becoming a highly skilled communicator is not easy," this book makes the assignment easier.

In the past, I always believed I was a good communicator, yet many times I would get a "look" from others that told me they were not with me. So, I purchased the Communication Skills for Scientific and Technical People. Since I am a computer programmer and frequently find myself in situations that need very clear instruction this book fit right into my needs. It was great! What I learned cannot be counted in monetary value and I know that I will continue to use the techniques in my everyday enounters with my peers as well as on a personal level. Thank you Mr. Chambers for your insight and direction.

Mr. Chambers has put together a practical book that dissects many of the basic concepts of communication, and provides some insights about technical professionals. While I don't agree with all his points and believe he tends to over-generalize, the content is solid and easy to understand. For any technical professional looking to increase their overall mastery of soft skills, I would recommend they go beyond this book and find a good set of workshops that allow for testing and practicing the types of concepts outlined.

I found this book to flow well, giving a lot of good tips on how to conduct better communications in a business/commercial environment. The layout is fairly simple to navigate, and sections that are uninteresting can easily be skipped. For those with more constrained time schedules, the book contains notes in most sections that give highlights of the main points that are made. Reading just these notes would give a pretty good review of the material, or exposure that may or may not make a lasting impression.

There are quite a few lists and tables that sum up the "need-to-know" points, so I think that reviewing material after reading the full text should be an easy task. I highly recommend this text for anyone that has never been taught effective listening skills, and also recommend the book for anyone else that feels even a slight motivation to improve their inter-personal communication skills.

I gave copies of this book to everyone I managed at Microsoft. I can't say enough good things about it. There is nothing more important in the workplace than being able to get your point across and making sure you understand what is being said to you. The basic philosophy is, "all communication failures are your fault." It is your responsibility to make sure that what you are saying is understood, and it is your responsibility to make sure that you understand what you are being told. There is never a place for finger-pointing when communication breaks down. This book gives techniques, examples, and ideas to help ensure that information is transmitted and received properly. What's really interesting is that there is nothing that limits what he's talking about to the workplace. There are things to think about here that apply to dealing with family and friends, without the fluff you get in similar books in the self-help section.

This book explains the difficulties in the communication among technical persons as well as between technical and non-technical persons. From my own experience I know that talking to technical experts can be very painful. At times they just shout at you and don't listen to what you say. They think that their expertise gives them the right to treat everyone else bad.

The best chapter in this book is chapter 4 "giving and receiving criticism". In the past I had difficulties to convey my critical comments
to technical experts and software developer. As they are very proud of their own work you need to take a lot of care not hurt them. The best way is to explicity state what they have done good before you say what they could do better to even improve their work. I am sure that I can apply these tipps in my work place

This book ist must-read for everyone in a technical environment and for everyone dealing with technical experts.

It is estimated that 85% of job success is contingent upon social skills. Harry E. Chambers' book, Effective Communication Skills for Scientific and Technical Professionals, has illuminated the very essence of social skills that managers need in order to lead well. This book absolutely captures very specific skills that are necessary for technical and scientific professionals to lead well.

It is a fact that individual technical and scientific professionals have great intelligence. But without social intelligence, an intellectually gifted leader may fail. An organization usually cannot reach its highest potential when its individuals work in conflict and without interdependence. Mr. Chamber's book is THE book to buy for its specific, insightful, and pertinent information to assist technical managers in gaining a much higher level of leadership competence.

The seller was extremely quick in sending my book and I was very pleased to work with such professional and prompt people. Thank you very much!!! Would definitely buy from you again.

This book may have valuable content, but its tone is demaning and insulting to its target audience. Perhaps if the reader was a manager, a marketing executive, or a proffersor teaching communication, this book would reaffirm their beliefs on what a technical person ought to want. But if you are like me, a young engineer trying to become a better communicator, this book will serve to anger you and nothing else.
It fails to follow its own advice and makes use of many "you statements". Replaced quickly with refferences to "an STP" in place of "you". It tries to tell the reader what they should want and not want. It added to my "Us vs. Them" mentality (which I though I had little of before).

For a book that actually writes for its intended audience (not for people who wish the intended audience would read the book), try :
"Why Don't You Want What I Want?" by Rick Maur
or "How to Speak, How to Listen" by Mortimer J. Adler

For written communication there are plenty of books with more proffesional and less insulting styles.

I had to buy this book for a class and all I can say is that this book is common sense.

"Don't use demeaning language when talking to your coworkers".

It is also full of meaningless corporate buzzwords:

"Don't engage in postmeeting negative criticism frenzies."