The number of untrained email users is staggering. Former Chief Solutions Officer of Yahoo! Tim Sanders estimates that 90% of business communication is email based and only 10% of email users receive adequate training. When this statistic is combined with data from a market research firm Radicati Group who say the 1.2 billion email users in 2007 will increase to 1.6 billion in 2011, an estimate of 1.44 billion people will be untrained in email by 2011. Your workplace and business likely suffers from poor email etiquette – and it isn’t going to get better anytime soon unless you doing something about it with the rules of email etiquette in this article.

Good Netiquette

Email etiquette, commonly referred to as “netiquette”, defines the rules of email communication. Netiquette is important because an email sent cannot be retrieved. You cannot reach through the computer cables to retrieve an email sent to your boss in a regretful emotional outlash where you swore to destroy his dictatorship.

Though you probably hate the thought of writing a grammatically correct email to a friend, netiquette in everyday email communication helps clarity, understanding, and productivity. Your emails will get the proper understanding they deserve. From having the right mindset when seated, to sending an email, here are the most important netiquette rules to follow so you’re one of the 160 million users in 2011 that know what they’re doing when they check their inbox:

1. Emotional emails. Do not send an email when you are angry. You could say things you later regret and the receiver of your little outburst will have a record of your email that could be used against you. Too many careers have been destroyed from angry emails. Your email may appear okay as you compose it, but let time clear your mind so you don’t regret clicking the “send” button.

I also recommend you reread your email to check for sentences, phrases, and words that can be interpreted another way to your main intent. You may come off as rude even though you try to be nice. A simple joke you think is funny may be offensive to someone else simply because they misinterpreted the joke. The lack of nonverbal communication in email makes it a poor medium to communicate emotion.

2. Unnecessary information. Most people waste too much time browsing their inbox the way it is without having to read long messages. Do people a favor by keeping your emails short. Provide the necessary facts and cut the fat.

Having said that, you still need to provide all the information upfront whenever possible. It is frustrating and time-consuming to ask questions for more information that could have easily been provided in the initial email.

3. HTML. You do not need to know exactly what is HyperText Markup Language (HTML), but basically it is used to make websites look pretty. Making text bold in email uses HTML. When you copy and paste emails from websites, you may also unknowingly copy the HTML code across. The HTML in the email you send does not always look like the email someone receives. Funny enough, the message sent is not the message received. Some email programs are not HTML compatible so when they receive HTML emails, weird HTML code might show and other formatting issues may occur.

Simply provide a website link if you are going to copy an entire web page. If you want to copy snippets of information, not only do you risk breaking copyright laws, but at your discretion you can copy the text across to a text file program (such as Notepad, not Microsoft Word) and then copy the text from there into your email program. Copying the text to a text file program, such as Notepad, removes HTML and prevents weird formatting issues.

4. Reply to all. It is frustrating to receive emails from group members who simply say “Yes, I can come” or “No” when you do not need to receive them. Stop being lazy. Please take the small amount of time to address your email to the specific people your email is intended for.

5. Forwarding to all. I am a big victim of this email mistake! When subscribing to my newsletter, I advise the person to add me to their address book or whitelist to ensure my emails reach them. Because of this, and having an email list that contains tens of thousands of people, I am in many people’s address book. Often, subscribers receive an email and forward it to everyone in their address book. The result for me is a daily cleanup of forwarded emails, which often contain attachments that clog data efficiency.

Chain emails are so annoying! The next time you get an email with a poem, story, or series of images you love, keep them to yourself. A lovely story about patience you forward to friends may infuriate them.

6. Making people’s email addresses known. It is considered rude to send out an email to several people making their email address visible in the “To” box. Unless the recipients know each other and are comfortable sharing their email addresses, avoid this bad mistake. You can use the Bcc (blind carbon copy) function of emails to hide recipients’ email addresses. The Bcc function will ensure everyone receives the email, but it looks like the email is addressed to a specific individual.

7. Removed message thread. Here is another email etiquette mistake that I am a victim of everyday: not having the replied message in the sent message. Not having the replied message in the sent message is almost the face-to-face conversational equivalent of being bashed across the head and forgetting what was discussed in the conversation. Based on the hundreds of emails I receive everyday, I estimate 10% of people do not attach their replied message. I easily forget what was sent in an email someone replied to because I frequently have discussions with multiple people at the same time.

Make it easy for people to know what you are talking about by ensuring their message you reply to is attached. Google’s email service, Gmail, is great at keeping track of past messages. Be sure to change your email settings so that messages you reply to get included in your reply.

8. Use of abbreviations. Friend to friend or family member to family member, abbreviations can be fine. It is entirely up to you. Problems arise when abbreviation usage in emails carries over into the workplace and other areas where professionalism is needed. Here is a useful video on email etiquette that I thought you might find interesting:

A three minute Fox Providence presentation discussing email etiquette. It focuses on professionalism by avoiding abbreviations.

9. Unknown abbreviations. AFAIK 404 but I’ll POAHF because I TILII. Do you know what that means? Very few people do. It means: As far as I know I have no clue, but I’ll put on a happy face because I tell it like it is.

Good email etiquette avoids unknown abbreviations. Though you can get away with abbreviations when emailing friends, for example – because it is an efficient technique for a slow typer – communication problems occur when the receiver is unaware of the abbreviation. What may seem apparent to you might confuse the recipient of your email. How would you like it if a friend sent you an email with ADO, YOOAD, WWMT, and other weird abbreviations? (I just made those last few ) You would feel annoyed at having to clarify something the person should realize in the first place.

10. Poor subject heading. If you leave the subject field empty or simply put “Re:” in the field, you avoid an important function of email communication. When someone receives an email, it is common for them to quickly scan the subject heading of each email to see what emails need to be firstly addressed. Your goal in personal emails is not to write the most captivating subject heading so people open your email. Write an honest and specific subject heading that reflects your email message. Instead of writing “HELP!!” to your telecommunications company, you could write “Help Needed With Phone Wires”. Sometimes, if I think a subject heading is important for personal emails, I can take up to a minute to come up with a good subject.

11. Poor sent time. Be weary of the time you send your email. This mistake is dependent on a few things. Firstly, with the worldwide connectivity and never-ending discussion available over the Internet, it does not matter what time you send an email to someone living in a different time zone. Secondly, some people could not care what time you send your email as they only care about reading what you have to say. You do, however, need to be careful of the time you send emails to some people such as coworkers, managers, and clients, for example.

A job candidate’s email containing a resume sent to the human resources department at 3am will not look good as it sits in the inbox. It may jeopardize the job candidate’s chances of working with the company. Send an email at another time if you think the recipient will judge you poorly based on the time you send it.

12. Excessive Capitalization. IT IS CONSIDERED RUDE TO TYPE IN CAPITALS. Typing in capitals is the digital equivalent of yelling in someone’s face. Hopefully, you would not yell in someone’s face so do not do it in the digital world. On the other end of the spectrum, do not type all your text in lower case. It is simple grammar.

13. No spell checking. I am guilty of this a few times and have been pulled up by the grammar police for teaching communication and misspelling words. (Apparently I am not allowed to misspell words!) Spell check your more formal emails. Most popular email providers should provide the option of spell checking. If your email service does not have a spell checker, you can copy your email into a word editing document to spell check it.

14. Poor use of attachments. Any email attachment over one mega byte (approximately 1000KB) is pushing email etiquette rules. Not everyone has broadband or cable, and these people do not want to spend 5 minutes downloading an unnecessary file. For large attachments, you are better off using file upload services such as Mega File Upload and 2shared. With these services, you upload a file to their website and they give you a link you can send to others where they can download the file.

Another rule for email attachments is to consider the format of your attachment. Not everyone can open a file with the .odt extension.

15. Requesting delivery and read receipts. Delivery and read receipts is a feature in all email programs (that I’m aware of). The feature lets you send an email and have the recipient confirm it was received. You are notified with an email that they received your email only if they confirm it. The feature is therefore an unreliable way to check if someone receives your email. It also adds more clutter to an already busy inbox. In most cases, you don’t need to know if an email was received because modern technology with email deliverability is good.

If you need to check whether your email was received, ask the person in your email to reply saying they got your message. If your message is really that important, which it rarely is over email, maybe you should phone the person. Do not blame the recipient of your email for a problem you can control.

16. Write. Send. Edit. That is obviously in the wrong order if you follow good email etiquette. We sometimes think about editing our email once we have sent it. Get this common email mistake in the right order: 1) Write, 2) Edit, and 3) Send. Wow! Submit. Done.

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Covey’s book has sold over 15 million copies for a reason: It ignores trends and popular psychology, and sticks with enduring principles of lasting change. His seven principles build a lasting foundation for truth, openness, and integrity. The principles are timeless – unchanging to events – which has made the book the personal development favorite of many self-help experts.

The first three principles are: 1) be proactive, 2) begin with the end in mind, and 3) put first things first. These first three principles deal with dependence as the author moves the reader through new paradigms.

The first principle moves people from blame and victimization to responsibility. The second principle moves people from destructive centeredness and obsessions to a healthy focus and clear values. While the third principles deals with the “fourth generation” of time management where you will learn to do what matters most instead of following to-do lists and doing frivolous tasks that contribute little to your life and other people’s lives.

The second lot of three principles (four to six) deal with interdependency. The second triplet of principles are self-explanatory: 4) think win/win, 5) seek first to understand, then to be understood, and 6) synergize. These three principles are more like communication skills as the first three principles provide you with the foundation to use them.

It is sad to see many people ignore these principles. As a result, their relationships suffer and people resent them. Any success they get is short-term, unsatisfactory, and often lonely.

Covey emphasizes that effective people are interdependent on others. While they are independent and strong in their own right, when they use the three principles for interdependence, the sum of people’s work is more than the individual parts.

The last principle is called “sharpen the saw”. It deals with renewal in the physical, mental, social/emotional, and spiritual dimensions. Just as a blunt saw becomes tiresome for a woodcutter, so does a failure to renew in these four dimensions result in unproductive – and sometimes destructive – living for the exasperated individual. When these four dimensions are renewed, the seventh principle of “sharpen the saw” is followed to encapsulate the other six principles. It is in such ways that all the principles feed off one another.

The last point I want to emphasize to encourage you to invest in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People if you have not already done so is the character ethic Covey focuses on. Most books these days focus on the personality ethic. A personality ethic deals with attitudes, behaviors, skills, and the techniques for human interaction. While the personality ethic is important, without the character ethic that offers courage, patience, and integrity, long-term success is inhibited. The establishment of a strong character ethic creates change from the inside-out.

Overall, you must get the book. I have heard so many personal development public speakers, authors, life coaches, and organizational trainers say the book is the best they have ever read. I highly encourage you to grab your copy of Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People now from Amazon right now by clicking here today.

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2. Review of The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking by Dale Carnegie
3. Review of Winning with People by John Maxwell
4. The Decision Tree of Effective Leadership to Create Freedom and Independence
5. Review of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

The telephone is a different medium to traditional face-to-face communication. What does this mean to you? Rules change and tips can be adapted to help you build your relationship. What does not change is the fundamental human psychology of the two individuals at either end of the phone.

Human psychology is about fulfilling needs and wants. You go to the grocery store to buy food to fulfill your need to eat. You buy an expensive shirt because you want to look good. You communicate with others to fulfill your social and identity needs. Attraction, intimacy, and friendship work on human psychological wants and needs. Because of this, you will see how these phone skills I am about to share with you can be adapted to your everyday conversations. Learning how to make someone fall in love with you is therefore neither manipulative nor deceptive as it is a matter of you fulfilling the person’s needs and wants through communication.

If you want others to literally fall in love with you and not just like you more, you must understand attraction. These tips are about building likability over a different type of communication medium – the phone – and do not act as a substitute for attraction. The tips I am about to give you to make someone fall in love with you over the phone, when applied with techniques to build attraction in women and men, can make the opposite attracted to you.

Learning these phone skills is a sure-fire way to build a strong relationship fast and have your new client wanting a business relationship, a friend staying connected with you, or a new acquaintance loving you. A stupid word of warning: do not begin avoiding people face-to-face once you realize the power of these phone skills!

They Need to Be Receptive

The first rule you must obey is checking the person you are talking to over the phone is receptive to you. Regardless of anything wonderful you say, nothing will matter if the person does not pay attention.

If the person has a young child howling louder than a wolf, you will be ignored. The person will hear, but not listen. Your messages will go no further than the other end of the phone line as the person’s mind is elsewhere, preoccupied with the distraction. When we do not have the time to talk, a distraction arises, or we need to do a task, the only thoughts running through our mind are similar to: “How long will it be until this damn person shuts up? I’ve got something to do!”

The first rule of receptivity over the the phone is to make it a habit of checking if the person can talk with you. Ask upfront if the person has time to talk. After the greetings, simply say, “Do you have a couple of minutes to talk?” This makes you courteous and unobtrusive on the person’s space.

The first rule of receptivity ensures the person is receptive at the start of the call and the second rule will make sure the person is receptive during the call. While talking on the phone, interruptions arise. Some can be undetectable, yet others can be heard over the phone. When you hear a baby howling, a door bell ring, or a loud bang, don’t ignore it! Say what sound you heard then ask if the person needs to attend it. The empathy you communicate by acknowledging potential interruptions will increase your likability and ensure the person is tuned in to what you say.

It’s You!

You’re going through a routine day walking down the street. The world is boring, people are getting through their day, and everything appears it would be the same without your presence. What happens though, if at the other end of the street you see a best friend you have not met for five years?

You see your best friend and your energy amplifies a gazillion times! Many memories, experiences, and feelings gush back to you in an intense emotional rush. You run up to the person. “It’s you! I can’t believe it!” Your ecstatic to stumble upon your friend!

The lesson you can learn from this is what I call the “It’s You!” technique. When you ring the person or the person rings you, say your normal greeting in an average mood. Once the person introduces himself, you become surprised, or rather energized, to talk with the person. Wait for the person’s introduction then amp up your energy as if you were talking to that old friend you saw on the street. This makes the person pleasantly thrilled to talk to you.

If you always talk energetically over the phone, your energy with the “It’s You!” technique will not have the sincerity and pleasant thrill because the high energy is normal for you. Only when you authentically convey happiness to be talking to the person more than you would with normal people does this technique work. The feelings of importance the person receives makes it a great technique to help them fall in love with you over the phone.

(In an article on how to be interesting without saying a word, I applied this escalating technique on smiling by gradually increasing your smile when you meet someone; instead of walking around smiling or instantly giving off a big smile. These two “escalation techniques” bring sincerity and warmth to your personality.)

Repeat Their Name

The fourth tip I recommend you whack into your new phone skills bag of tricks is mentioning the person’s name more often. As Dale Carnegie in How to Win Friends and Influence People writes, “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” Our names are a sweet tune of music to our ears. It is a fast way to build any relationship.

You need to know one warning about this technique. If you mention someone’s name too often, you come off as a try hard, needy, and desperate person – much like a poor salesman.

If you are like most people, you can comfortably increase the frequency you say the person’s name. You can get away with mentioning their name more often than in a face-to-face conversation because the phone is a different medium. The phone inhibits intimacy.

If the person begins to mentally drift away from you, hearing their name will reinvigorate their interest. The person can subliminally fall in love with you.

How to Make Up for No Body Language With Your Voice

Another difference you can take advantage of over the phone to enhance your relationships and make the person fall in love with you is countering the inability to communicate with body language. Our nonverbal communication is a large tower from where we broadcast strong signals. A simple message like “you’re funny” can be strengthened many times through body language. Some attraction experts even claim body language alone is enough to make someone fall in love with you.

Your nonverbal communication helps others understand you. Without the visual option to see one another over the phone, yours and their inability to read body language can hurt understanding, connection, likability, and attraction. Your voice is the only form of nonverbal communication over the phone, making it a powerful medium of communication.

You can improve your phone skills despite the lack of connection built through body language by communicating extra energy through your voice. I estimate varying your vocal tonality and energy an extra 30%. If you are happy the person did something well, put an extra 30% of energy in your voice when saying, “That is awesome! Congratulations!” If you are sad, lose 30% of energy in your voice by saying, “I’m… I’m sorry to hear that…” The change of energy communicated through your vocalics establishes empathy to build a connection with your partner. The person will have a feeling of being next to you, which will enhance your relationship fast.

Build Rapport

Rapport is being in sync with the person. It is the hidden key to make people feel connected to you. Establishing rapport ties in with mentioning the person’s name more often and compensating for a lack of body language via your voice because the two techniques build a connection that help the two of you get in sync.

Learning to build rapport over the phone is necessary if you want to build a strong relationship fast. Unfortunately, a complete guide to building rapport is far too complex to discuss in this article, yet the premise of it involves being like the person in as many ways as possible.

One particular characteristic of the person I highly advise you to match is their mood. Mood-matching helps you rapidly build a strong relationship and make someone fall in love with you.

To understand mood-matching, think back to a time when you were feeling unhappy and someone bounding with joy tried to cheer you up with their happiness. How did you feel afterwards? Most likely more annoyed! Their happiness did not relate to you because the two of you were at polarized emotional levels. The person was happy and you were sad.

You can better relate to people and build this “connection” I have been talking about when the two of you are communicating similar moods to one another. Mood is one of many communication factors you can match when talking to someone over the phone.

Rapport is slightly more difficult to create over the phone than in person because body language cannot be comprehended. You can, however, try to compensate for this with a 30% extra variance of energy in your voice.

When you combine all these tips to build a strong relationship over the phone with the ways to build attraction, you have the phone skills to make someone fall in love with you! Even better, these phone techniques are not limited to intimate love. You can apply these skills to potential clients, family members, and those annoying customers. The phone breaks geographic boundaries, but now you can break emotional boundaries.

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“Getting rid of a delusion makes us wiser than getting hold of a truth.” – Karl Ludwig Borne (1786-1837)

“Myth is an attempt to narrate a whole human experience, of which the purpose is too deep, going too deep in the blood and soul, for mental explanation or description.” – David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930), English writer who often criticized modern living’s negative influence on humans

“Few people have the imagination for reality.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), famous German writer

Lies, deception, misunderstandings, illusions, distortions, and deceit is easier to accept than the truth. We are creatures of denial. Ignorance has a cushioning effect to soften the harshness of reality.

While you may ignore the truth because it is uncomfortable to face, other times you accept myths over truth because you don’t know the difference. A relationship expert, counselor, psychologist, or even a communication trainer may have mislead you to believe a communication myth is truth. Whatever the case maybe, this article is sure to shake up your communication beliefs and shock you into reality, allowing you to communicate more effectively.

Originally I was struggling to complete 10 myths for this article, but after brainstorming, researching, observing people communicate, coaching people on their communication skills, asking tens of thousands of subscribers on communication myths, and picking out myths from my buried notes, 15 myths fitted surprisingly snug. I believe all these myths need to be revealed, cleared, and truth be told so we are better empowered to improve our personalities and relationships.

The greatest myths of communication are arranged in order depending on their frequency and strength in people’s minds. From lies, illusions, flawed teachings, and misunderstandings, it is time to debunk the top 15 all-time myths of communication:

#15 Myth: Logic makes communication effective

Logic destroys relationships. The next time you see two people in an argument, watch them focus on the logical level. Each person will give facts the other does not care about. The content and logical focus of a conversation has been the demise of many relationships.

When bland words and facts are focused upon, causing emotions to be overlooked, the relationship suffers. Intelligence, reasoning, and rationality are fine. Problems can arise when logic gets center of attention in a conversion – especially during conflict. The emotional content of conflict needs to be handled first before facts can surface.

Stop focusing on the content of conversations. Look beyond the words to see emotion. Start caring about people’s emotions beneath their content of a conversation because relationships are fueled by emotion.

Even in business communications you need to focus on emotion. We want others to understand how we feel instead of pointing out the facts or telling us how to feel. When you understand humans are creatures of emotion, and that we are predictably irrational, you enable yourself to have great charisma and persuasive power. (I recommend you read chapter 10 of my communication secrets program for full details on how to overcome this logical dilemma to communicate at an emotional level so you powerfully connect with people.)

#14 Myth: Effective communication is about the blunt truth

I know this myth will be interpreted by readers in a different way than how I intend it to be. A person who always tells the blunt truth is disliked by those who always get told the truth. Truth-tellers use the excuse of, “I tell it how it is” and “If people can’t deal with reality, it’s their problem.” They may even see their need to tell the truth as a virtue.

The truth we tell others often manifests itself into criticism that gets thrown back into our faces with defensiveness or arguments. Truth is hurtful when delivered in the absence of empathy. Productive communication is inhibited when people are too busy defending themselves from personal attacks.

I am not advocating you lie or give people enormous amounts of praise when they sucked at something or to live a deceptive life. Lies are unnecessary when you deliver the facts with compassion. You need compassion in a tell-it-like-it-is attitude.

Truth is not a virtue without compassion. “Our tendency is to choose up sides, valuing certain emotional skills while neglecting and even disparaging others,” write Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz in The Power of Full Engagement. “Take a moment to consider how broad a range of emotional muscles you have in your own life. In all likelihood you will discover that you have considerable more strength on one side of the spectrum than on the other. Notice, too, the judgment that you bring to the relative merits of opposing qualities.”

Loehr and Schwartz go on to write that “no emotional capacity better serves depth and richness more than the willingness to value feelings that seem contradictory and not to choose up sides between them.” Have you been limiting your array of emotional skills by valuing the blunt truth over compassion?

#13 Myth: Communication solves everything

As someone who teaches communication skills, this myth is something I would like to believe! Unfortunately, communication does not solve all conflict and relationship problems. Sometimes the greatest charismatically persuasive communication cannot solve relationship issues.

Marina Benjamen, Ph.D. of Psych Central sees a frequent scenario in couples counseling. Couples have no “serious problem”. Both partners can vouch for no drinking, abuse, or infidelity. The problem? They do not communicate. A lack of communication can happen for many reasons, but by itself it rarely leads to relationship resolutions. “Good communication exposes conflict that when effectively dealt with,” says Benjamen, “can promote a more open and intimate connection.”

I have come to notice a transition point in people who adopt this myth of communication solving everything. The general public are vaguely advised that “communication is important in relationships”. Few people like yourself who go one step further by learning conflict management, emotional mastery, and self awareness, for example, come to realize how communication is greatly beneficial. The more we learn and develop ourselves, the more emphasis we place on communication. Eventually, we come to believe that any argument, relationship break up, or person who does not like us comes from poor communication.

Think of a worldly issue, like abortion or the death penalty, that you have a strong stance on. Do you think someone with opposing views who communicates well would change your mind? If you really believe in your stance on the issue, then communication is not going to change your mind. You and I have religious, political, and personal values that prevent communication solving everything.

Communication is the relationship, a shared connection between two points. Communication forms the bridge in a relationship so it makes sense to assume the problems coming and going must exist on the bridge. If either side has a serious enough foundational problem, however, the strongest bridge is not going to last.

People ask, “What things can I say and do to make people like me?” This is the wrong type of thinking! Most effective communication is doomed before you even open your mouth. Becoming charismatic and persuasive starts from within you. Changing people’s behavior starts from within you. And having intimate, sharing, and loving relationships starts within you. Change your life by changing your thinking. Good relationships happen with self development; not only through good communication.

I steer my focus away from telling people to say rehashed lines in certain situations because no magical line can effectively work when you are incongruent with your words. You can say one brilliant communication line, but how you feel and think is a greater influence on the outcome. My Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program is not about rehashed lines. It gets you deeply understanding yourself and other people so you can begin communicating more intimately, powerfully, persuasively, and charismatically.

#12 Myth: Learning communication makes you a better communicator

We are at a global health crisis. Doctors have repeatedly said that the large percentage of health problems in Western countries comes from choices controllable by those who suffer such health ailments. We are in control of drinking, eating, smoking, stressing, and exercising. The global health crisis is not occurring because we have failed to learn the implications of the evil five of health – we all know what happens when ignoring these – but the problem comes from our inability to change. (This is further proof that logic is weak.)

Learning about a health problem does not automatically make you healthier. We all know how to lose weight: you consume less energy than you put out. But the majority of us have health problems within our control, which we logically understand, yet continue to ignore.

Learning communication only makes you a better communicator when the lessons lead to behavioral change. Even failing at a new skill makes you a better communicator because you went out and did something. Stop trying to intellectualize everything and just give it a go. You will become a better communicator when you do it. (I recommend you read Alan Deutschman’s Change or Die for more information about this topic.)

#11 Myth: Communication is one-way

Radios, televisions, and many electrical devices in the home communicate one-way messages. It seems our relationships are often the same. At times it appears we communicate in a monologue. There is still two-way communication – just poor two-way communication – because we cannot not communicate.

Communication in human relationships is two-way. Even one-way communication like public speaking is two-way. We have eyes and ears that absorb people’s communication as listening or a lack of listening communicates a message. You can listen and not say a word to communicate. Whether you choose to do something with this gathered information to improve your relationships, increase your charisma, or boost your persuasion is up to you. It is up to you if you choose to empathize, laugh at, pay attention to, or ignore another person’s communication, yet two-way communication will always exist. Several other myths, as you will soon discover, nicely tie into this myth.

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5. The Heart of Effective Communication: How to Love People

Robert Cialdini is currently Regent’s Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University. His book Influence is a fantastic classic on persuasion as he transforms what most people took as hidden and unknown variables in decision-making into clear principles that you can use to influence people.

The book discusses the following six principles of influence, which have a chapter dedicated to each:

1. Reciprocation – people have an inherent desire to return favors
2. Commitment and Consistency – people’s past decisions guide their future decisions
3. Social Proof – people look to others then follow what they are doing
4. Liking – people are more persuaded by those they like
5. Authority – people are more persuaded by those seen as holding authority
6. Scarcity – people are more persuaded when the resource at hand is perceived to be limited

These six principles I have briefly described are simple definitions that do not fully explain their respective principle of influence. Influence provides an in-depth look into the various situations each principle can be applied, when it is most effective, why it works, why it won’t work, and other variables that modify the principle.

Each of the chapters is split into two parts. The first part teaches you how to apply the persuasive principle. The second part teaches you how to defend yourself from the principle when it is used against you. While all the principles are naturally desirable to us, the second part makes you aware of when the influential principles cause you to make a decision you otherwise would avoid had the persuasive principle been absent.

Cialdini’s involvement in academic psychology has given him numerous and insightful research findings that he shares in Influence. The research shared within this book is what by far stood out for me.

One real example I’d like to quickly highlight for you to give you an idea of its fascination is how 1 leader, in the year 1978, managed to get 910 people to kill themselves with no coercive tactics – only by using the principle of social proof. The leader firstly influenced the individuals most likely to commit suicide and, from there, others began to follow simply because in times of uncertainty we look to see what others are doing. The lesson out of this example was that no leader can persuade every member of a group and, therefore, must create an environment that maximizes social proof. This ultimately lets the leader influence the entire group.

You may think research is only good for discoveries. The research in Influence is the author’s way of revealing, explaining, and investigating the principles of influence. I would go as far to say that every page of its 280 pages has at least 1 research experiment or real-life example of the relevant persuasive principle. You won’t get bogged down in details though as Cialdini gives you only what you need to know.

Influence is a leader in the business world. It is the default book of persuasion I hear recommended by experts in all fields, from seduction and business, to marketing and power. I feel it is a must-read for anyone who wants to improve his or her negotiation skills, leadership, parenting, sales skills, marketing communication, or business. I highly recommend this book to anyone, nonetheless, because we all use persuasion in someway to achieve our goals. You can grab your copy of Influence from Amazon right now by clicking here.

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1. Review of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
2. Review of The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
3. Review of The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz
4. Review of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
5. Review of Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

Why is it that urban legends, conspiracy theories, and public health scares can reach the other side of the world; while most businesses, teachers, and public speakers cannot get their ideas to reach a person two feet in front of them? The answer lies in Made to Stick.

Everyday we get pounded with information from people. Most of it slips straight off us like food sliding off Teflon. “What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients,” said Herbert Simon, winner of the 1978 Nobel Prize in Economics. “Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”

Chip Heath and Dan Heath’s Made to Stick shows you how to grab people’s attention in an information rich economy, get your ideas through, and make the message stick with a simple formula. The two authors use their first of six principles, “Simplicity”, in their stickiness formula by making their six principles form an acronym SUCCESs:

1. Simplicity
2. Unexpectedness
3. Concreteness
4. Credibility
5. Emotions
6. Stories

Reading a book about sticky ideas makes you hope the authors’ make their own principles sticky – and the Heaths do so using what they teach. Each principle contains many real-life, and not so real, examples of ideas stuck in people’s minds. The stories used are entertaining, most notably is the urban legend of Kidney thieves.

While Chip Heath is a Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and Dan Heath has conducted research for Harvard Business School, they don’t throw technical information at you – that would break their principles. Their book embodies many entertaining and practical stories. They also provide the reader with several exercises, and allow you to compare your answers with their answers, to practice the principles.

Teachers, public speakers, marketers, authors – anyone interested in improving their business communication – needs to read Made to Stick. The book’s ideas focus around the Curse of Knowledge, a principle that explains why experts fail to make their ideas stick in students’ minds. Business managers fall into the trap of thinking they have successfully presented their proposal, or convinced people to buy into their idea, when they finish a PowerPoint presentation. “What they’ve done is share data”, says the authors. Expressing your thoughts is one thing; it is an another thing to convince people and remember your words.

I purchased the book to help me better communicate the communication skills I teach in books and articles, but I found how important it is to use as much of the SUCCESs formula in your everyday conversations. Over the past few weeks, I’ve come to realize how most charismatic and persuasive persons naturally use the SUCCESs formula.

If you want you, and your ideas, to be remembered in conversations and presentations, then the New York Times Best Seller Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die is the book you need. Grab your copy now from Amazon by clicking here.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
2. Review of The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking by Dale Carnegie
3. Review of Influence by Robert Cialdini
4. Review of The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
5. Review of Magic Bullets by Savoy