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 … 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
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This book reveals the amazing mind of Alan Alda. I’ve always thought of him as a great actor and comedian. But this book shows the side of him that loves science. It’s an easy read with practical advice. Some of it may be a “duh” moment to you. But he presents his material in a very interesting way. You can tell he follows his own advice.
In following Alan Alda the actor during my youth, of course I expected there to be plenty of humor within this book, and to be fair, there is, but I’d use the term “witty” instead of funny, simply because that’s his nature. This is not something I would classify as humor but rather educational, informative, and inspirational. As a teacher, it’s a work that I’d recommend to students studying sociology, psychology, and even English. The author goes through several autobiographical scenes of his recent life as a scientific scholar and how this motivated him to connect complex principles with improved communication practices. His insights and observations are on target more often than not, in how he uses specific examples from his own daily life as well as his associates to demonstrate how communication tends to break down and why, and proposes actionable solutions that we’d all do better to employ. In my opinion, anyone can benefit from the information in this book, no matter your profession or where you are in life.
Alan Alda’s perspective improved mine, so I enjoyed it and recommend it.
I grew up with Hawkeye Pierce, so a book written by Alan Alda really drew me in. When I started to read the book, I was just so amazed by how Mr. Alda could balance humor and observational science. As a UX Designer, my entire job relies on me being able to understand my users. Applying his techniques such as mirroring or leaning in, I found a more controlled way of communicating and observing the other person. This book helped me also write about characters who are really empathetic. I would recommend this book to anyone wanted to understand and communicate with others better.
Come on, Alan, I believe in the strength of the mind, but all the play acting to get there is a little to much. All of that is not needed to get to the same place. However, the book was informative and usually entertaining (sometimes a little repetitive).
Excellent book. Required reading for anyone who wants to communicate technical connect to others – our anyone who wants to communicate!
If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? by Alan Alda is a terrific addition to your writer’s bookshelf. Although the book focuses on scientific communication, it holds valuable lessons for all nonfiction writers about effective communication. Oh, and it’s fun to read as well.
Joy in learning to communicate, across seemingly unbridgeable gaps.
I wasn’t sure what to expect. After all, this isn’t Hawkeye, but a real person. But it was very witty and insightful, a lot like Hawkeye without the skirt chasing. The central premise that because we can talk and write, we are not necessarily great communicators. But we can improve through paying more attention to those we are trying to communicate with. A pretty novel idea. I only wish he had included contact info or links to where one might find resources. I am a long way from Stony Brook.