Ask HN: Fact based books on people skills | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Fact based books on people skills

2 pointsarijo4 comments

I'm trying to improve my people skills so I'm submitting to the community a request for good books, blog posts, videos, etc on the subject of people skills.

Bonus for resources created by someone who has demonstrated such skills in real life (I'm trying to avoid "theory" books :)

One such example - at least I found it useful - is Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss which is based on his real life experience as a hostage negotiator.

Thanks in advance for your help!

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"How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie [1] has some very interesting concepts, despite its terrible name, IMO. There are many takeaways but a couple are that people generally like hearing their name and enjoy talking about themselves.

Then there are two very similar, but IMO, complementary books, "Difficult Conversations" by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen [2], and "Crucial Conversations" by Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler, and Kerry Patterson [3] which helped me learn to embrace being genuinely curious and accept + explain different, sometimes conflicting, emotions. It was especially helpful to help me deal with people who were very confrontational and tried to create conflict, and really difficult situations while conversing.

There have been some more books I've read, which I don't recall the titles for and don't even have notes for, but these 3 and "Never Split the Difference" you've mentioned were certainly the most interesting and helpful in this "area", to me.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0...

[2]: https://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Conversations-Discuss-What-...

[3]: https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Talking-Stakes-...

I hope that helps!

Thanks for having taken the time to provide these suggestions. To be honest I must say that I have all of those books on my personal library though I appreciate you having shared your personal reading experience, one always gains a deeper insight from another person’s perspective and insights from reading the same books :)

Thanks! I rarely ever comment or post anything online, but this felt like something I'm frequently recognized for and have had a natural tendency to be good at (due to having to make new friendships frequently over moving every couple of years until my adulthood), while improving significantly after reading more on the topic.

For others reading this, who can't be bothered to pick up a book, I'd summarize that the core thing for improving your "people skills", is to practice empathy and compassion. They're not the same, and both are valuable. That alone should be the most important part in being genuinely interested in others and have others be interested in being around you.

Being genuinely interested in others seems like a life lesson many of us should internalize from an early age. Thanks for this deep insight :)

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