Talk Lean by Alan H Palmer
Are you tired of meetings that do not achieve anything, that have no objectives and have attendees who contribute little or even more likely nothing at all?
The Dutch have a word for this, Vergaderziekte, which means meeting sickness. The latest research shows that those who attend business meetings believed that only 38 per cent of the time they spent in them was productive. Ring any bells? If it does, then you may benefit from reading Talk Lean, a new book from Alan H Palmer.
Mr Palmer’s book is centred on the fact that, as a social species, we spend most of our lives dealing with fellow human beings in both professional and personal interactions and situations. We invest our time selling, influencing, requesting, procuring, transacting, persuading and resolving. Our personal happiness and success in life, love and business is, in large part, measured by how effectively we do this.
Mr Palmer has been heavily influenced by Philippe de Lapoyade, the originator of the Interactifs Discipline, which is a system designed to help people deal with each other in a way that produces esteem and trust while ensuring you get concrete results. It is based on a principle that great communicators do not possess skills the rest of us lack; they just manage to deploy those skills more consistently.
This is, in essence, what Talk Lean is about, explaining how anyone can use the Interactifs disciplines to have a significant impact in meetings, personal interactions and the effectiveness of overall communication, without being seen as manipulative or aggressive.
Each of the 12 chapters looks at a key element of the Interactifs Discipline and includes useful schematics to test your approach to common scenarios.
Much of what is discussed in Talk Lean is common sense and, as such, is useful and a timely reminder of how best to communicate with each other. However, its chapters on effective listening are well worth reading. The final third of the book was enlightening and is dedicated to this art and the danger of reacting to what we think we heard rather than what was said. Again, ring any bells?
For me, the best piece of advice was that “rigorous listening also involves listening to yourself, to the thoughts and ideas of the other people — and the ways in which they were said — generate in your head”.
Published by Capstone
John Joe McGinley is head of business at Brain Aegon
