Talk Less, Say More (Audiobook) [Audio CD]

Connie Dieken (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2009

Attention spans are getting shorter every day. Are distracted, impatient people tuning you out before you can make your point?
This book solves the problem.
Talk Less, Say More is a revolutionary guide to 21st century communication skills to help you be more influential and make things happen in our distracted, attention-deficit world. It s full of specific tips and take-aways to ensure that you re fully heard, clearly understood, and ignite positive action in any business or social situation.
You ll achieve more with less. Less wordiness. Less tune-out. Less frustration. You ll gain more time. More positive outcomes. More rewarding relationships.
Whether you re a business leader, emerging leader, or salesperson, you need to persuade others to succeed. This book will get you there. It will help you cut through distractions, demands, and information overload to get real results.
Author Connie Dieken coaches leaders to communicate with purpose. She ll help you instantly gain more power and influence while spending less time being tuned out.
With this book s fast-paced, no-nonsense style, you ll discover Connie s Connect-Convey-Convince® methodology. These three powerfully simple habits will help you:
* Connect with anyone to instantly capture their undivided attention
* Convey and nail information without overloading or confusing
* Convince anyone to take the action you want and feel good about it
Communication is the single greatest challenge in business today. Talk Less, Say More will help you reach your A-game in interpersonal communication, giving you more power to change minds and inspire remarkable results while talking less.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Connie Dieken is a true communication virtuoso and a genuine phenomenon. She is on a mission to elevate our ability to communicate. Talk Less, Say More should be required reading for all leaders and emerging leaders. It can instantly transform the way people respond to you, giving you the power to deliver brief, clear messages that influence the world. --Robert Johnson - Managing Counsel McDonald's Corporation

Talk Less, Say More is packed with powerful advice to get your points across and make things happen in today's time-pressed world. Connie's forward-thinking, actionable communication shortcuts can elevate anyone's game. --Bruce Carbonari - Chairman & CEO Fortune Brands

Connie Dieken's three-step strategy is a smart, practical guide for business leaders and others who want to create a high-performance culture. It's an important, powerful book on how to master communication in the 21st Century. --Tom Swidarski President & CEO Diebold

From the Inside Flap

Talk Less, Say More is a revolutionary guide to 21st-century communication skills to help you be more influential and make things happen in our distracted, attention-deficit affected world. It's full of specific tips and take-aways to ensure that you're fully heard, clearly understood, and will ignite positive action in any business or social situation.

You'll achieve more with less. Less wordiness. Less tune-out. Less frustration. You'll gain more time. More positive outcomes. More rewarding relationships.

Whether you're a business leader, emerging leader, or salesperson, you need to persuade others to succeed. This book will get you there. It will help you cut through distractions, demands, and information overload to get real results.

Author Connie Dieken coaches leaders to communicate with purpose. She'll help you instantly gain more power and influence while spending less time being tuned out.

With this book's fast-paced, no-nonsense style, you'll discover Connie's Connect-Convey-Convince® methodology. These three powerfully simple habits will help you:

• CONNECT with anyone to instantly capture their undivided attention

• CONVEY and nail information without overloading or confusing

• CONVINCE anyone to take the action you want and feel good about it

Communication is the single greatest challenge in business today. Talk Less, Say More will help you reach your A-game in interpersonal communication, giving you more power to change minds and inspire remarkable results—while talking less. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: onPoint Press (December 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0979449030
• ISBN-13: 978-0979449031
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,090,397 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Connie Dieken is the nation's leading authority on influential communication in our distracted, short attention span world.

She's the founder and chief experience officer of onPoint Communication, LLC. She coaches leaders at organizations such as Apple, Olympus, McDonald's, Moen, Deloitte, Pacific Life, Bausch & Lomb, and American Greetings.

Connie guides leaders, emerging leaders and sales teams to be remarkably influential and raise their Communication Intelligence(R) in four areas: presentation skills, media savvy, executive presence, and high performance interpersonal communication.

Connie developed her expertise in the television industry. She spent more than twenty years as a television news anchorwoman, reporter and co-host of America's longest running television talk show, The Morning Exchange. Her broadcast excellence was recognized with her induction into the Radio/Television Broadcasters Hall of Fame. She is a multiple Emmy award-winning and Telly award-winning journalist and has represented more than 50 companies as their spokesperson, including Intel, Sealy, General Electric, Ernst and Young, and Goodyear. She's also the voice of Diebold automated teller machines worldwide.

It was in broadcast studios where Connie discovered the real reason she was put on this earth - to help leaders communicate influentially so they can make things happen.

Connie's contributions as a business leader have also earned top honors. Among them, she's earned a Leadership Think Tank Award, a Top Ten Women Business Owners Award from the National Association of Women Business Owners, and the elite Certified Speaking Professional designation which is awarded to the world's top speakers by the National Speakers Association.

Her business communication insights have been featured in The Los Angeles Times, Crain's Business, The Chicago Tribune, Women's Day, and in dozens of publications across the country. In addition to Talk Less, Say More, Connie has also co-authored four other books - Communicate Clearly, Confidently & Credibly and the 303 Solutions book series.

Connie delivers her expertise through keynote speeches, coaching programs, workshops, leadership retreats, webinars, an iPhone app, the Daily Dieken Twitter tweets, and the Stay OnPoint with Connie blog.

She is also an active contributor to many charitable and civic programs and is a dedicated parent of teenagers who keep her on her toes about inter-generational communication.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

124 of 131 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Says a bunch of obvious stuff in superficial ways, August 24, 2010

By 

Brian Sharp (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Talk Less, Say More: Three Habits to Influence Others and Make Things Happen (Kindle Edition)

I do not think there are many people that will find this book useful. Most people will be in one of two camps:

1.) If you think about communication at all, probably nothing in this book will be new to you.
2.) If the information in this book *is* news to you, then its style will not be helpful to you.

The book is intentionally short and takes a very imperative tone. I read the whole thing in under 30 minutes. The problem is, with nuanced topics like communication, when you distill them down that far, you end up with recommendations like - I am not making these up, they are taken directly from the book:

"Be tolerant of different viewpoints"
"Contain the outbursts"
"Show respect"

Those are particularly egregious examples, but my point remains, as I read this book every page just felt blindingly obvious.

That would be fine, if the book were evocative and resonated. Plenty of books in this genre tell us what we already know but do so in an emotional way so that it really sticks, or speaks to us anew. Patrick Lencioni's "Five Dysfunctions of a Team" is a great example - the whole book is an evocative 'fable', a story, with well-developed characters that bring his points to life.

By contrast, Talk Less, Say More distills even the stories down. Here's an example, verbatim:

"Sharon learned the hard way that firing off an e-mail was not the right way to thank the vice president who interviewed her. The vice president chose another equally qualified applicant, in part because the other applicant took the time to send a handwritten thank-you note. Sharon lost the job by not noticing that the vice president valued a personal approach. If she'd scanned his desk during the interview, she would have noticed many handwritten notes."

That's not evocative at all. All of the stories are just like that - very matter-of-fact with no interesting characters or anything memorable. There's nothing emotional to any of them.

In fact, I found nothing emotionally compelling about the entire book, and that's why I say that if this information *is* new to you, I doubt you'll be able to meaningfully use it. Dieken provides checklists at the end of each section for what points you should work on, but if you have the self-awareness to fill out those checklists, then by definition you don't need them.

I'm sure when Ms. Dieken works personally with clients, they benefit immensely because she's able to observe them and give personalized feedback, but the value isn't just in the words she's saying but her demeanor, her engagement, her personal connection: all the things she talks dispassionately about in this book.

Some people might find this an entertaining read, but it's hard to imagine anyone reading this book and actually using it to become a better communicator.

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars NOT the Same Old Stuff - Totally Changed How I Handle a Jerk, October 24, 2010

By 

A.J. Anderson - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Talk Less, Say More: Three Habits to Influence Others and Make Things Happen (Hardcover)

I can't believe the difference this book is making in my life. It's NOT the same old, same old and it really resonates with me. For example, it's given me much more IMPACT with someone who's very egotistical and acts like he's more important than everyone else.

Here are some specific things I learned from reading Talk Less, Say More:

- How to "Frontload" to get his attention so he feels good at the beginning of our conversations and doesn't automatically cut me off or talk over me.

- How to "Stay in His Moment" to prevent him from dismissing my ideas or going off half-cocked like he normally does.

- How to apply "Goldilocks Candor" so I don't over-share or under-share and give him more ammunition to try to cut me down or use my words against me.

- How to alter my facial expressions and "Adjust my Energy" so that he'll reciprocate and be more positive.

- How to "Sound Decisive" and stop tagging my sentences which was undermining my ideas and causing me to sound like I needed his validation which I don't.

If you have a difficult person in your life, this book can totally change how that person treats you because you learn how to gain their attention, get to your point and get them on board. It's an easy read because it's not full of fillers like other books. Every page contains insights and tips to help you communicate much more effectively and gain anyone's respect. I really like the writer's style because it doesn't waste my time.

It even tells you exactly what page to turn to to solve specific communication problems you may be having, which I think is INGENIOUS. I refer to it frequently.

I can't recommend this book highly enough.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read Less, Learn More, October 15, 2009

By 

M. Kraft "TalkingMan" (Westlake, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Talk Less, Say More: Three Habits to Influence Others and Make Things Happen (Hardcover)

Talk Less, Say More gives valuable, real-world communications advice from a true communicator. I found this book to live up to its title, as it gets to the point clearly and quickly. If you have any contact with the public, or even with co-workers and clients, this will definitely help you get your points across with more impact.

MK