Compelling People: The Hidden Qualities That Make Us Influential

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for this review.

I struggle with the issues in this book. The authors talk about strength and warmth as 2 competing things everyone needs to master. The book describes what they mean by strength and warmth, then goes into detailed examples of how these work in real life. We all have elements of each. The trick is to balance them out. Too much strength without warmth can leave people behind, while too much warmth without strength can leave people vulnerable. One area the authors discuss is public speaking, and how it can be difficult to practice. One thing they didn't mention was Toastmasters, an organization that allows people to practice public speaking in a controlled environment. I show more realize now why this book is required reading at Harvard. They also mention the 1988 presidential debate where Michael Dukakis answered a question about his wife's rape and murder as though he'd been asked the time of day. The problem isn't reading about this, the problem is putting this into practice. That's the part I struggle with. Overall, a good book. show less

My early 20s fixation with business wisdom sorta books has not aged well. I picked this up to finish after a few years, and in 2020 so much of the 'research' quoted by the authors has aged poorly.

Despite that - if I look back to when I first bought this book, I did it useful when moving into the professional world. The authors introduce two forms of being compelling - being warm and being strong - and seeing them disentangled like that was a real lightbulb moment when I was 23.