HOT READS FOR THE PRACTIONER
Title: Influencer: The Power to Change Anything (book)
Competencies: self-development, influence skills, oral communication, building relationships, interpersonal effectiveness
Who benefits: potentially anyone motivated to improve their effectiveness in interacting with others
Consultant Usage: background material for professional coaches and trainers
What’s it about? Let me begin with a disclaimer. I have not finished reading this book. I credit my local book club for this sage advice: “If you lose interest in a book, put it down and read something of more interest or value to you.” I am not going to finish reading this book.
Why then write this entry? Well, there is, at least for me, a valuable lesson here. And a caveat.
First, the lesson. The authors of this book have had two very successful books: Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations. I have enjoyed and recommended those books to others.
My “truth” is that this new book feels old. It is as if the authors said to themselves, hey, we got a good thing going here, let’s churn out another book.
I would like to stress that I don’t consider this an isolated case. In our and related fields it seems to me that there is a tendency to take a great idea and stay with it past its prime. Think of the movies you have really loved. If there was a follow up, was it as good and fresh as the original. Usually not… Think “Pirates…”, “Rocky…” “Indy…” “Star Wars”.
If fact, if any of you readers agree or disagree with this statement …about authors, speakers and consultants, not the movies, I would love to receive your comment(s).
Now, having said that, let me add the caveat. If you are a personal or executive coach or a trainer in any area related to communications, negotiation, influence skills, performance management, there is a lot of good background information here, especially if you are relatively new to the field.
Before closing, I would like to share a light-hearted moment. Early in this book I thought I might like to recommend it to Dr. Kroger, who in turn could recommend it to Mr. Monk. It has lists, i.e. “six sources of influence.” Adrian likes lists.
And trainers know lists make good training aids.
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