Surrounded By Idiots: How Ineffective Communication Causes Chaos

This was a good read and easy to get through. Explains some of the issues I have understanding some different styles I work with! My gm recommended and I truly enjoyed it!

I loved this book. The author really captured how ineffective communication causes chaos. The book taught me how to navigate outside of my own perspective and to really understand what effective communication looks and sounds like. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to overcome ineffective communication in the work place or in your personal relationships

great book, nice read.

Sometimes the best things come in tiny packages. This book was an unexpected find and was chock-full of tid-bits that I’ve come across in life. This book puts all those ideas, and concepts in one power punch of a read. Well done to the author! And thank you!

Bravo Zulu! Great book.

Must Read Book! Promote to the top of your reading list now! Masterfully teaches complex interpersonal communication techniques in clear, concise, and enjoyable format. Charismatic & driven author clearly possesses excellent interpersonal talents necessary to articulate the sound communication & conflict management & avoidance abilities outlined in this book. Proven skills that will drive performance & facilitate successful change w/in organizations. Methods are applicable to all professional settings from staff meetings, project management, operations, and field work.

This book is passive aggressive and confrontational. It describes verbally abusive people in the first chapter, not poor communicators. It’s full of pop-psychology, pseudo-expertise, and platitudes. It even suggests that these “poor communicators” (verbally abusive people) should have a child in order to get in touch with their feelings. From the standpoint of a verbally abused child, this book feels very dangerous. Don’t even get me started on the perpetuation of the ridiculous arm crossing theory (that was debunked at least 20 years ago).I was looking for a book about expressing ideas clearly or dealing with social awkwardness. This is absolutely not about any of those subjects. As a teacher, this book is of no value. I work with teenagers, and there is nothing in that chapter you can’t learn by remembering how you did and didn’t like being talked to by adults when you were that age. This is a thesis length essay, but the reference list is not tied to any specific ideas, so it’s hard to read further from his sources or know which ideas are his and what came from those references. There is no “about the author” section and I can’t find anything about him on the internet (there are at least two other authors with the same name), so it’s hard to tell what his credentials are or why readers should trust to his advice.This book comes off as very judgmental in places. Goodwin seems to assume that if you’re reading about communication skills, you must be a “terrible communicator.” I under why Goodwin chose to make his book short, but it’s so short that everything is reduced to vagaries that tell very little, making the entire thing feel rushed.As a previous reviewer mentioned, this book has some grammar issues. Basic subject-verb agreement isn’t always followed. Punctuation rules aren’t always followed. There are plenty of incomplete sentences. Sentences are repeated. These are also important to good communication, especially written communication.Luckily it took me less than an hour to read. It really seems like Goodwin was just trying to capitalise off of the more popular book with the same title.

Saw this book and got very excited to read it. Just got it today, and found two typos on the back cover. Admittedly I'm anal when it comes to grammar, so I get hung up on things like typos. Hoping I don't find any others and I can get through the book and learn.