If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look On My Face?

If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look On My Face? :  My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating by Alan Alda        Audio Book: 6 hours  Paperback Book:  336 pages


The title grabbed me, then when I saw it was by Alan Alda I had to get it.   Really well done book.   You learn not only a lot about Alan Alda and his family that you may not have known but he also goes into some presentations he has done and classes he has taught that teach people how to relate to one another and how to speak to and listen to others in a way that is understandable.    He has worked with Scientists who are notoriously known for talking over the heads of most lay people.   Afterall, we are not all nuclear physicists nor MIT graduates who understand the jargon of the Albert Einstein science minded set nor are the scientists always able to relate to those of us who do not yet understand what a Hertzsprung-Russell diagram is.    Alan Alda uses improvisational acting games to create bonds of trust, levels of comfort and clear techniques to not only loosen up the individuals he is working with but to help them to find common ground with those they need to communicate with.   He uses a lot of the games designed by Viola Spolin that give the participants a situation, a scene and their character within the mix.    Then he may change it all around and as students go through the course they begin to become comfortable with speaking in front of groups,  give and take in the Q and A of varying opinons, even hecklers.    He teaches people to understand their audience be it a group or one on one.   He teaches them to pick up on the body language of the people they are speaking with, like how to tell when you are losing the other person or your audience just by the way they are sitting or standing or maybe if close enough by the look in their eyes.   A fascinating study in how we often communicate badly to others unwittingly when we think we are projecting familiarity but it is perceived as off-putting to someone we have not established a close relationship with or uncomfortably overbearing to someone who is skittish of close contact.    Excellent book of the many aspects of communication both audible and silent.   I highly recommend this one.