CareerSherpas: Climbing the Mountain

I’ve recently finished Alex “Sandy” Pentland’s Honest Signals: How They Shape Our World, which I found quite difficult to put down once I got into it. Pentland puts his considerable wealth of research into a very consumable and revealing manner. His framework for judging future performance is a very clear and in some ways surprising viewpoint on common problems like groupthink.

Having finished it, I was struck by the comparison with “The Definitive Book of Body Language” by Alan Pease and how much of Pentland’s work supports many of the points Pease has been making for more than three decades. Certainly I have a soft spot for my countryman’s work, but my sense has always been that Pease provides practical tools and understanding on how to interact with people that are lacking elsewhere.

Where Pentland provides a frame of reference for the problems and opportunities available in measuring and understanding body language, Pease gives a practical, step-by-step approach to using body language. Both works have a great deal going for them, but if I were to choose one as the more approachable and immediately useful, I have to recommend “Body Language”.

Want to know how to connect, communicate with and influence someone say in an interview? You’ll learn a thing or two from “Body Language”.

Peter Fitzgerald is the founder of CareerSherpas.com and is currently working on his first book, conducting high-level business analysis, connecting individuals with ideas and opportunities, and attempting to learn the bagpipes.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 at 1:54 pm and is filed under General, Interviewing Skills. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.