Customer Reviews

Mastering Communication at Work: How to Lead, Manage, and Influence

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a communications professional, I admit to being skeptical with each new Communications mastery book. A few pages in, I realized that I had stopped evaluating and started learning. What a delight it was to read this! Wortmann and Becker nailed the most important aspects of highly effective communications. Too often, aspiration titans of commerce focus more on the strategic and financial cirriculum within an MBA, without paying close attention to the "difference makers" contained within. Well worth the time to read and learn for this book.

This book is an excellent compilation of stories, activities and practices that the reader can begin to apply immediately. Unlike most books that serve as a reference and stop after providing basic theories, this book dives right in to the "how" and empowers you to begin bridging your communication gaps.

After reading chapters of "Mastering Communication at Work" I began practicing based on the suggested activities, and noticed that I was learning a lot more than I had expected. The true measurement of success started when others at work were taking notice and sharing their excitement in regards to our improved communications.

Since sharing these exercises with my teams, we know refer to the book for reference on a frequent basis. Well worth the time to read, but don't stop there...take action!

This is a great book for educators! Being an educational leader, I need to be able to lead, manage, and influence the people I work with. This book helped me improve my communication skills and develop positive relationships with the people I work with. This book is basically for anyone. There are tips and strategies that will assist people in all occupations as well as in every day life.

I look forward to sharing this book with my school district and possibly using it for some professional development. Thank you.

Every year my company assigns four books for its leaders to read. Lately, the quality of our little book club's selections has been a bit vanilla so, finding MASTERING COMM. AT WORK to be like chocolate fudge with mouth tingling strawberry syrup draping its edges, I put in a recommendation to have all our managers check it out. Your brain will get a great work out in these pages. Highly recommended.

Initially, I picked this book up for my husband as a gift for his birthday. He raved about how he was able to apply the techniques from this book into real life situations immediately. Being a part of a large team that was spread out over seas, it was important that communication between groups be clear and effective.

I was skeptical at first, but I have to admit this book has helped me round out my professional communication skills. I found the book very easy to follow and understand. I was able to apply what I had learned in the book immediately and it's already paid off for me

The book, Mastering Communication At Work by Ethan F. Becker and Jon Wortmann discusses and demonstrates different techniques and theories on how to lead, manage, and influence others in the workplace. Though the book touches on a lot of important aspects of how to perform excellent communication skills at work, there are a few critiques I would like to mention, in my opinion.
The examples mentioned in the book in every chapter seem to be more like stories. I am more of a deductive person however I can be open-minded while reading books. I found myself drifting off a lot while reading examples rather than picking up on specific criteria. I was able to get a clear picture and understanding of each chapter but I felt that there should have been more specific examples that got to the point instead of long drawn out examples that at times were more than 2-3 pages long.
Also, the examples and stories demonstrated throughout the book seemed repetitive. A lot of examples were long and that is ok if there is plenty of relevant information to get across. Not only were the examples extremely unfamiliar, they seemed to be saying pretty much the same thing throughout the example.
Finally, I noticed the use of "she" and "he" being used. I thought this to be a little unsettling because "she" and "he" was never referring to a person. When there were statements being expressed, instead of using a universal term, such as "they" or what not, sometimes "she" would be used and other times "he" would be used. I did not quite understand that unless I missed something.
I have just mentioned my critique of the book. Though it is my opinion, others may feel differently. I am a deductive communicator so that may be the reason for the way I feel about certain things about the book however, as far as the book in whole, it was very influential to me.

Latosha Henderson
April 21, 2010

This is a great read with some indispensable advice. It's one of those books that you want to share with almost everyone, for a million reasons, but I've done so much highlighting and note taking that I can't bear to part with it.

Becker himself is exceptional--in person and on the page. A great coach and writer, I am delighted to have more of his advice in print. Many thanks go to him and his team at The Speech Improvement Company for their help with my career.

BTW- Read chapter 13 as soon as your copy arrives. It truly is the most important section.

I received my copy of the book yesterday and read the first two chapters last night. I've already learned a significant amount of information and have picked up several tips and techniques that I was able to use right away.

I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking to improve their skills in the workplace.

I firmly believe no matter what industry you work in or your profession of choice, this book is a completely practical, comprehensive guide to becoming a superior communicator and, even better, self realization of your own communication tendencies -- plus, it's a quick, fun read. The true value of Mastering Communication at Work comes from applying the techniques and practice, practice, practice. And when you're done, practice more. My organization has also worked 1:1 with Jon and has seen huge benefits in our effectiveness through partnering with him and our organization's broad adoption of mastering communication. For fun, I've shared many of the techniques with family and friends -- inductive,defensive persuasion, and "the robes." They seem to be catching on and hopefully we're helping Jon meet his goal of helping create 1 million leaders.

Finally a book that deals with the real issue of communicating at work! This has helped me deal/communicate with some co-workers that I've ignored for years!