By: David Grossman
Reviewed by: Glain Roberts-McCabe
The Premise: As the title suggests, this is the second book from consultant David Grossman on mastering the art of communication. Leveraging his first-hand executive experience as Director of Communications for McDonalds, Grossman peppers the book with stories from his days in the leadership trenches and ties them into the book’s tips. Laid out in 11 quick read chapters, the book provides a mix of “stage setting” background set-ups, key tools and self-reflection/put the tools to work exercises. Covering a broad mix of topics as well as more targeted ones – such as how to communicate with Millennials and connecting with hard-to-reach employees – the book refreshes some communication basics as well as adding some new ideas to the mix. Laid out in full colour and loaded with graphics and strong text treatments, the book feels more like a PowerPoint presentation on steroids than a regular business book.
The Bottom-line: Grossman’s book is one of those that you can bounce in and out of to target the specific help you need. I particularly liked the chapter on the 7 Deadly Sins of Leadership (Myopia, Hypocrisy, Sloth, Detachment, Materialism, Presumption, and Irrelevance) and the Try It Today endings of each chapter were simple, yet effective, ways to see how one could move to action. Grossman has captured a lot in the book and it provides a high level view of some interesting areas (such as touching on how typical North American gestures can be misinterpreted in other countries). That being said, in many places you get a “taste” but not the full meal which, is reasonable given the scope of the topic. My only beef about the book would be the overuse of graphics. Personally, I love visuals, but in this case, they just felt overdone. I found it hard to keep track of where I was in each chapter as pictures, fonts and dynamic layouts competed with the overall message of the book. Lovely to look at, but ironically, the flashy approach got in the way of the content for this reader.
Recommendation: Definitely a solid resource to add to your collection. The classic tools and approaches are timeless.
