How To Become A Conversational Superstar

Each year, I select my pick for the best new leadership book released that year.

As published earlier on my blog, my pick for 2023, was When Everyone Leads.

Some years, among the many books about leadership that I read, there is another book that is so good, it becomes my runner up for the best new leadership book of the year.

That runner-up book for 2023 is, The Communication Code, by Jeremie Kubicek and Steven Cockram.

“Effective communication is the lifeblood of every healthy relationship,” explain Kubicek and Cockram, whether that relationship is at work or at home. And effective communication is essential for successful leadership.

Fortunately, the authors' book provides a proven series of easy-to-implement skills, techniques and powerful strategies via what they call the Communication Code that anyone can use to make their communication, relationships deeper and more productive.

“Using five simple code words, you can verbally reach people with what they are expecting from you,” explain the authors.

Those five code words are:

Care – being concerned for someone and desiring to do something for their good.
Celebration – to acknowledge (a significant or happy day or event) with a social gathering or enjoyable activity.
Clarification – to make (a statement or situation) less confusing and more clearly understandable.
Collaboration – to work jointly on an activity, mainly to produce or create something.
Critique – a careful judgment in which someone gives an opinion.

The more self-aware you are and the more you practice the Communication Code, the more natural it will be for you to understand the person with whom you are communicating. The Communication Code book helps you set up conversations and communication in a way that creates a win-win scenario for everyone involved.

More specifically explain the authors, you will learn how to explicitly prompt someone to respond in a productive and meaningful way, fostering successful and fruitful interactions. The Communication Code delineates how to set the parameters of a conversation from the outset, preventing misunderstandings and miscommunication, and highlights recognizing the power dynamics of interactions to help.

Finally, I selected this book as the runner up for best new leadership book of 2023, because there is no better time than now to improve one’s communication skills.

The book will help you:

Connect and communicate effectively with your team, your family, and your friends.
Define the parameters of a conversation from the outset to avoid any misunderstandings.
Understand the power dynamics of an interaction to eliminate the fear of honest conversation.
Offer constructive criticism without offending or disappointing the person on the other side.
Maximize your situational awareness and collaborate like a pro.

Today, the authors share this additional insight with us:

Question: Why is your book more timely now than in say a decade ago?

Kubicek & Cockram: We believe the deepest need of all human beings is, and always has been, to feel truly heard, valued and appreciated in the relationships they care most about.

However, the digital revolution has been rapidly changing the nature of how we communicate with each other, and this was only accelerated still further with the restrictions imposed during the Covid pandemic.

In a world that has never been as connected, we would argue that human beings have never been more disconnected, and the loneliness statistics are frightening. Learning to communicate effectively in the digital world requires a higher level of relational intelligence because attention spans have diminished, and most people are addicted to their smart phones.

Without increasing self-awareness and the use of tools like the Communication Code, relationships will continue to break down and the social, psychological and economic costs will be enormous.

Sadly, we have concluded that long term healthy relationships in the digital world are now the exception not the norm, so we wrote The Communication Code and developed the GiANT tools to play our part in helping to reverse this trend.

Whether you're a business professional looking to enhance your leadership skills, a parent striving to strengthen your family bonds, or simply someone who wants to navigate the complex world of human relationships more effectively, this book is for you.

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me a copy of the book.

Comments

10 Quotes From The 5 Levels Of Leadership -- John C. Maxwell

Soon I'll post my full review of John C. Maxwell's latest book, The 5 Levels of Leadership . In the meantime, here are some of my favorites quotes from the book that I believe should become a must-read book by any workplace/organizational leader: Good leadership isn't about advancing yourself. It's about advancing your team. Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others. Leadership is action, not position. When people feel liked, cared for, included, valued, and trusted, they begin to work together with their leader and each other. If you have integrity with people, you develop trust. The more trust you develop, the stronger the relationship becomes. In times of difficulty, relationships are a shelter. In times of opportunity, they are a launching pad. Good leaders must embrace both care and candor. People buy into the leader, then the vision. Bringing out the best in a person is often a catal...

Five Essential Principles For Sustaining Growth Through Innovation

Even though many companies strive for innovation, most struggle to achieve meaningful change. The largest reason for this disconnect? Playing it safe. Leaders and organizations want to implement new ideas, but too often they are held back by the fear of failure, even though setbacks are intrinsic to the innovation process. In the new book, No Fear, No Failure , by Lorraine H. Marchand (with John Hanc), readers will learn how to overcome the status quo that stifles creative thinking and how to create a culture that encourages innovation. Marchand provides a framework for sustained growth built on the “ 5 Cs ”: Customer First Culture Collaboration Change Chance She draws on more than 120 interviews with leaders across industries, real-world case studies, and her firsthand experience and shares step-by-step, field-tested strategies, tactics, and tools that practitioners can use to embed creativity within organizational cultures. Marchand is a former Big Tech and Big Pharma ex...

Teach An Employee Something New Today

Take the opportunity today to teach an employee something new. Nearly everyone likes to learn and is capable of tackling a new challenge. Teach your employee something that expands their current job description. Teach something that will help them to get promoted within your organization at a later date. Teach them a skill that uses new technology. Or teach them something that will allow them to be a more skilled leader and manager in the future. You can even teach something that you no longer need to be doing in your position, but that will be a rewarding challenge/task for your employee. The benefit to your employee is obvious. The benefit to you is you'll have a more skilled team member who is capable of handling more work that can help you to grow your business and/or make it run more efficiently. Be a leader who teaches.

How to Be a Leader – 9 Principles from Dale Carnegie

Today, I welcome thought-leader Nathan Magnuson as guest blogger... Nathan writes : This is it, your first day in a formal leadership role. You’ve worked hard as an individual contributor at one or possibly several organizations. Now management has finally seen fit to promote you into a position as one of their own: a supervisor. You don’t care if your new team is only one person or ten, you’re just excited that now – finally – you will be in charge! Unfortunately the euphoria is short-lived. Almost immediately, you are not only overwhelmed with the responsibilities of a team, but you quickly find that your team members are not as experienced or adroit as you. Some aren’t even as committed. You find yourself having to repeat yourself, send their work back for corrections, and staying late to fill the gap. If something doesn’t change soon, you might just run yourself into the ground. How did something that looked so easy ...

Best Reasons For Doing Employee Exit Interviews

Don't be the guy in the picture when an employee leaves your company. Instead, conduct exit interviews and surveys. Leigh Branham explains in his book, The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave , what the most favorable conditions are for conducting the interviews and surveys. And, if you need convincing to read the book, take a look at these 11 best reasons for listening and gathering the data when an employee leaves : Bringing any "push-factor" root-cause reasons for leaving to the surface. Alerting the organization to specific issues to be addressed. Giving the employee a chance to vent and gain a sense of closure. Giving the employee the opportunity to provide information that may help colleagues left behind. Providing information about competitors and their practices. Comparing information given with the results of past surveys and employee data. Detecting patterns and changes by year or by quarter. Obtaining information to help improve recruiting. Possibly heading off ...

Important Questions To Ask Your New Hires

In Paul Falcone ’s book, 75 Ways For Managers To Hire, Develop And Keep Great Employees , he recommends asking new employees the following questions 30, 60 and 90 days after they were hired: 30-Day One-on-One Follow-Up Questions Why do you think we selected you as an employee? What do you like about the job and the organization so far? What’s been going well? What are the highlights of your experiences so far? Why? Tell me what you don’t understand about your job and about our organization now that you’ve had a month to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. Have you faced any unforeseen surprises since joining us that you weren’t expecting? 60-Day One-on-One Follow-Up Questions Do you have enough, too much or too little time to do your work? Do you have access to the appropriate tools and resources? Do you feel you have been sufficiently trained in all aspects of your job to perform at a high level? How do you see your job relating to the organi...

29 People Who Taught Us Life Lessons In Courage, Integrity And Leadership

The 29 profiles you will read in Robert L. Dilenschneider’s new book, Character , are about people who are exceptional exemplars of character. They’re inspirational because they used their abilities at their highest levels to work for causes they believed in. Because of character, they influenced the world for good. The dictionary defines “character” as the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual, the distinctive nature of something, the quality of being individual in an interesting or unusual way, strength and originality in a person’s nature, and a person’s good reputation. “But beyond these definitions, we know that character is manifested in leadership, innovation, resilience, change, courage, loyalty, breaking barriers, and more,” explains Robert (Bob), “Character drives the best traits in our society, such as honesty, integrity, leadership, and transparency, and it drives others to exhibit those qualities.” Profiled in the book ar...

Book Highlights: The Pause Principle

Can you step back to lead forward ? That is the key question for you to answer as you start to read Kevin Cashman's book, The Pause Principle . Because, Cashman firmly believes that as a leader, you need to pause to lead forward . " What sleep is to the mind and body, pause is to leadership and innovation ," explains Cashman. He goes on to say: Pause transforms management into leadership and the status quo into new realities. Pause, the natural capability to step back in order to move forward with greater clarity, momentum, and impact, holds the creative power to reframe and refresh how we see ourselves and our relationships, our challenges, our capacities, our organizations and missions within a larger context. In his book , Cashman teaches you the value of using pause points to : Build self-awareness and clarity of purpose Explore new ideas Risk experimentation Question, listen, reflect and synthesize Challenge the status quo, within and aroun...

How To Be A More Human Leader

“To be most effective in today’s environment, leaders must be human leaders. Human leaders must be able to lead not only with their heads but also with their hearts and souls,” says veteran executive coach Hortense le Gentil , author of the book, The Unlocked Leader: Dare to Free Your Own Voice, Lead with Empathy, and Shine Your Light in the World . She adds, “In addition to being respected, seen, and valued, employees also seek leaders who feel human, not distant and perfect beings with whom they can’t connect.” Additionally, leaders need to put the collective interest before their own and work hard to make other people’s good ideas happen. “And although the book focuses on leadership at work, each of us is a complete individual, not a sum of separate, isolated parts. As such, the process presented in the book applies to all areas of your life,” shares the author. She further explains that becoming a human leader is a journey, not a desti...

Five Crucial Actions That Build Unity And Foster Performance In The Workplace

“Given the research-validated outcomes and demonstrated financial impact belonging offers, organizations should make cultivating belonging a personal leadership imperative across the world,” says Brad Deutser , author of the book, Belonging Rules: Five Crucial Actions That Build Unity and Foster Performance . Furthermore, belonging predicts job satisfaction, engagement, and effort over and above employee’s perceptions of organizational culture or strategy, explains Deutser. So, what exactly is belonging? It’s: Belonging is where we hold space for something of shared importance. It is where we come together on values, purpose, and identity; a space of acceptance where agreement is not required but a shared framework is understood; where there is an invitation into the space; and intentional choice to take part in; something vital to a sense of connection, security and acceptance. As you read the book, you’ll discover vital information about the...

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog