Book: Great Communications

Reviewing book.  Nice thoughts.  Podcast at the link.

The Secret to Great Communication: Be Like Aristotle

Author Carmine Gallo discusses his new book about how we can revive the lost art of persuasion.
As a best-selling author, Harvard instructor, keynote speaker and brand adviser, Carmine Gallo has spent his career focused on communication skills. He believes the ancient art of persuasion has been lost in the modern business world, and he wants to help workers bring it back. His latest book is titled Five Stars: The Communication Secrets to Get From Good to Great.

He visited the Knowledge@Wharton radio show on SiriusXM to explain why he doesn’t consider good communication a soft skill. (Listen to the podcast at the top of this page.)

An edited transcript of the conversation follows.

Knowledge@Wharton: Why has the importance of good communication skills come into such sharp focus in the last few years?

Carmine Gallo: Great persuaders are irresistible throughout all of history. But at no time in our historical record have interpersonal communication skills been as important as they are today, which is somewhat counterintuitive. That’s what caught my interest, and that’s why I wrote the book. Because today, anyone, anywhere in the world who is better at expressing their ideas can see a sudden massive increase in wealth that is unprecedented in human history.

In the agrarian age, a farmer who plowed the field a little better than their neighbor cannot acquire significantly more wealth. In the industrial age, a factory worker who assembled widgets faster than the person next to them would not acquire significantly more wealth. But the historians, economists, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists I talked to for the book all profess the same theme: In this age of artificial intelligence, globalization, automation — the one skill that can separate you not only from the technology that we create but from your peers is mastering the ancient art of persuasion. Combining words and ideas to ignite people’s imagination.  .... "