If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?
My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating
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- € 9,99
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Award-winning actor Alan Alda tells the fascinating story of his quest to learn how to communicate better, and to teach others to do the same. With his trademark humor and candor, he explores how to develop empathy as the key factor.
“Invaluable.”—Deborah Tannen, #1 New York Times bestselling author of You’re the Only One I Can Tell and You Just Don’t Understand
Alan Alda has been on a decades-long journey to discover new ways to help people communicate and relate to one another more effectively. If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? is the warm, witty, and informative chronicle of how Alda found inspiration in everything from cutting-edge science to classic acting methods. His search began when he was host of PBS’s Scientific American Frontiers, where he interviewed thousands of scientists and developed a knack for helping them communicate complex ideas in ways a wide audience could understand—and Alda wondered if those techniques held a clue to better communication for the rest of us.
In his wry and wise voice, Alda reflects on moments of miscommunication in his own life, when an absence of understanding resulted in problems both big and small. He guides us through his discoveries, showing how communication can be improved through learning to relate to the other person: listening with our eyes, looking for clues in another’s face, using the power of a compelling story, avoiding jargon, and reading another person so well that you become “in sync” with them, and know what they are thinking and feeling—especially when you’re talking about the hard stuff.
Drawing on improvisation training, theater, and storytelling techniques from a life of acting, and with insights from recent scientific studies, Alda describes ways we can build empathy, nurture our innate mind-reading abilities, and improve the way we relate and talk with others. Exploring empathy-boosting games and exercises, If I Understood You is a funny, thought-provoking guide that can be used by all of us, in every aspect of our lives—with our friends, lovers, and families, with our doctors, in business settings, and beyond.
“Alda uses his trademark humor and a well-honed ability to get to the point, to help us all learn how to leverage the better communicator inside each of us.”—Forbes
“Alda, with his laudable curiosity, has learned something you and I can use right now.”—Charlie Rose
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fans of the show MASH will enjoy just hearing actor and comedian Alda's friendly, quirky voice. Of course, there's humor here and there, but Alda's intentions aren't comic: his purpose is to help people learn to listen to each other and in turn to be better, clearer, and more empathic communicators. He shares his experiences teaching improvisation workshops at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University in New York, where he and a variety of other researchers have explored how to improve communication in all aspects of life. He relays tips from these workshops, advising listeners to pay attention to body language, for example, and to hear what is actually spoken instead of thinking about what we are going to say or ask next. Alda's charm, conversational style, and use of vocal cues will make the listener want to try the methods he describes. A Random House hardcover.
