Straight Talk: Turning Communication Upside Down for Strategic Results at Work

What makes one an effective communicator in today's fast-paced, ever-changing business world? How can people tackle tough issues and resolve them successfully? Whether you work in an office as part of a team or collaborate from home via e-mail, communication competence has become more important than ever.

Straight Talk shows how skillful communication can help people reach resolution for strategic results--even on the thorniest, most controversial issues. The key to becoming a master communicator, according to management consultant Eric Douglas, is to become expert in using new communication tools that enable you to think more clearly and communicate in a far superior way. The result? Productive conversations that bring shared understanding, mutual action, and breakthrough results.

In Straight Talk, Douglas provides these tools and the direction needed for effective use of each. It all begins with communication styles, says Douglas, who identifies and profiles the four different types--Director, Expresser, Thinker, and Harmonizer. The secret to identifying other people's styles is to ask questions, observe reactions, and listen actively, he says. "Watch how people interact with you. Do they engage in small talk? Do they cut to the bottom line? Do they tell stories? Each of these is a trademark of a particular style."

Using exercises, surveys, and corporate stories, Straight Talk describes each style in action and offers techniques for developing a repertoire of styles for different situations. Readers learn to identify their own communication style and that of others, and how to modify their style for strategic results. They learn new methods for decoding conversations as well as new skills for improving time management, problem solving, decision making, project management, conflict resolution, meeting efficiency, and organizational culture through competent communication.

Eric F. Douglas, an award-winning management consultant, is founder and CEO of Leading Resources, Inc. whose mission is to provide strategic thinking, vision, planning, and change management to companies worldwide. Clients have included Time Warner, American Public Television, and the University of California. Douglas entered the publishing business in 1974 and spent twenty years as an executive in the media industry spanning newspapers, magazines, and electronic media. He was formerly vice president of the Sacramento Bee and executive director of Baltimore Magazine. He was also associate editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and president of NeuroSonics, a media software company.