CHAPTER 1 What is communication? Knowing your communication style

What communication is and what effective communication skills are

What exactly is ‘communication’? Depending on whom you ask, the answer may vary. Communication is:

  • discussion of ideas between one person and another;
  • talking to or socialising with other people;
  • interaction between people;
  • getting your ideas across;
  • talking and responding to someone.

Of course, it’s all of these things (and, interestingly, the answer each person gives provides a clue to their communication style – more about that later in this chapter).

The term ‘communication’ comes from the Latin word ‘communis’ which means ‘common’. So, ‘to communicate’ means ‘to make common’ ...

Get Brilliant Communication Skills, revised 1st edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.