Book Review : The Communication Book

This is a book review for Communication Book : 44 Ideas for Better Conversations Every Day by Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschappeler.

This book captures the work done by the authors in a number of important communication theories. You would definitely have come across some or most of them but probably did not label or categorize them as the authors have done.

The book style is a bit boring since it just lists each of the communication theory. Each theory is about 2 pages in length only, contains the overview and an example. The book is not going to make you a communication expert but is a good reference that you can go to repeatedly in any order and try to build mental models out of it. That is the main takeaway for me from this book i.e. can I build mental models that I can then use.

The theories are grouped into categories like Job & Career, Self & Knowledge, Love & Friendship and Words & Meaning. For e.g. In Words & Meaning, one of the communication theory is Euphemism — How we obfuscate with language. It is explained that Euphemism is a form of linguistic whitewashing. For e.g. use the words “enhanced interrogation methods’ instead of ‘torture’, ‘bargain’ instead of ‘cheap’, ‘negative cash flow’ instead of ‘broke’, etc.

I also like a brief paragraph at the end of each communication theory that summarizes it really well. For e.g. in the Euphemism chapter, it states and which I quote here:

Euphemisms are the mother tongue of manipulation. As a rule of thumb, if someone doesn’t use straight language, don’t act straight away — pause before acting.

I own the physically copy of the book and I give it 3.5 / 5 stars.

The authors have written several such handbooks in addition to the “The Communication Book” that I have reviewed here. Other books include “The Decision Handbook”, “The Test Book”, “The Change Book”. Get more information on that over here rtmk.ch