This is a short book on effective writing and speaking in business and workplace situations. The content is fine, but the vast majority of the material covered concepts with which I was previously familiar. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with that (and there were a few new ideas as well), especially if the material is good and accurate, but I am always a bit troubled by books on communication that are not particularly interesting. If the author really wants me as a reader to absorb, accept and even adopt their principles, shouldn't they work to make this a more engaging and persuasive book? Wouldn't their ideas carry more weight if I saw the author as a great communicator?
The book is written almost in outline format, with high-level charts to guide the reader through various ideas about verbal and written communication situations. It comes off as a bit clinical and more as a reference book than as anything one is meant to read cover to cover. And perhaps that is the problem.
It is also a book built around "best practices," and in communications, a lot of these practices presuppose time. You need time to research your subject, time to organize your material, time to understand your audience and so forth. This is great, except that so often in the workplace, we don't have ideal situations or the extra time that we would like. We are faced with a communication challenges that happen "in the moment" and must be dealt with quickly.
Someone should write a field guide to that kind of managerial communication. And they should make it interesting.