Hard-Knocks Communication: Thirty Six Timeless Rules for Success
This is a book which educates you on the ultimate relevance of oral communication through a collection of anecdotes, stories, fables and real life incidents, picked up from world literature and beautifully juxtaposed with the `thirty six timeless rules for success‘ in communication. The end result is that you understand the importance of these rules without having to read too much of theory.
As the title suggests, the book encompasses `thirty six timeless rules for success‘, which means that these rules are universal, have been relevant for centuries and still hold good. The collection, therefore, carries religious and traditional anecdotes going back to the era of kings and queens. The relevance of these anecdotes increase as they especially come with incidents that may have led to life or death situations, as a result of appropriate or inappropriate words or actions. The author, therefore, first narrates the various incidents and then conveys the implied message through one-liners.
The author chooses a style that does not moralize too much and yet finishes with a moral. The beauty of the book lies in its extensive research and the wide canvas chronologically as well as the broad spectrum from where they have been picked and then linked to rules of effective communication. The other attractive factor of the book is its hard-bound cover, almost in keeping with the title, Hard-Knocks Communication.
The book is divided into thirty six chapters and each chapter is dedicated to a rule of communication. Quite aptly, it begins with the importance of `silence‘ in communication, followed by the importance of listening. The subsequent chapters talk of understanding hidden agendas, reading between the lines, empathy, tact, tuning in, knowing what to say and when, time management, attitude, anger management, credibility, word power, communicating through proper actions, being specific and brief, importance of preparation and audience analysis, relationship building, feedback, body language, voice and face to face communication, perception and humor, and making an impression. It also includes a chapter on the role of money in communication.
The book also talks about the need to take tough decisions without having to please everyone. The title very obviously wishes to convey that though communication is a soft skill, not using the message, can hit you hard and knock you down in the process. The book can also be read as a simple collection of fables, very much like our moral science textbook in primary schools, which we read more for the love of reading than for learning the morals therein. You realize that all the stories that you read in your story books were about communication skills. It almost makes us nostalgic to read about those little stories picked up from the Panchtantra, the Bible, and Aesop’s Fables which impressed upon us the importance of values and morals. And yet, it is not a moral science textbook but one about effective communication and life skills.
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