Say Something Real: Humanizing Communication is Today's Best Business Strategy

This is is not a book about the rules of business communications. For every rule, there are great leaders who completely ignore it. In spite of the rules, they communicate wonderfully, powerfully, irresistibly. So to worry about the rules is to play it small. We are afer something more. For the purposes of this book, we call that something more authenticity. The good news is that authenticity is not something you have to learn. You re born with it. It s who you are. The bad news is that old habits get in the way. The future of the American economy demands that we take responsibility for the way we communicate. The ability to inform, to inspire, to spark an idea in the mind of another is what makes us miraculously human. And the more that we use and understand this power, the more human we become. The more we divorce ourselves from Authentic Communication, the less human (and less powerful) we become. Leadership is not an exact or impersonal science. You use what you have. And, for many people, authenticity is the discovery that what they have is more than enough. Too many executives speak about an organization s vision with crowded slides, and bore everyone in the room. When given encouragement, these same executives can turn off the projector and inspire people by speaking from deep knowledge and humanity from the head and the heart. In the first section, this book explores the conditions that cause us to be less authentic. The second is a study of the more meaningful and effective ways in which we communicate. The third details the Seven Practices of Authentic Speaking; and the third, the Seven Keys to a Culture of Authentic Communication. If there is one thing you should take away from this book, it is this: the world doesn t need you to fit into anything but your own skin. What we need today is not only your deep knowledge, but your experience, insights and stories of what life has taught you. In an era of uncertainty, there is no better time to consider the way we communicate. To Say Something Real in our meetings, presentations and conversations. To fire up the overlooked force of Authentic Communication.

Lou Solomon is the owner of a development firm teaching Authentic Communication in Business. She founded Interact Skills in 2000, now located in a studio in the historic district near Uptown Charlotte, North Carolina. She writes the column Interacting in Business for the Charlotte Business Journal. She is a member of the National Speaker s Association and speaks on the topic of Authentic Communication in Business.