Communicating at Work emphasized, as the title says, the importance of communication in the work place. The art of communicating is often lost in the workplace as everyone is very busy and occupied with their respective jobs. Moreover, the organizational ladder in an entity or an organization is a barrier that separates everyone. The lower level employees are too timid to approach someone that is holding a higher position. These are the usual observations in the workplace. The book has emphasized that understanding the meaning of the words is very important because these words or phrases or sentences may mean something else. Ambiguous sentences can cause a lot of interpretation errors. No one knows what these ambiguous sentences really imply.

If one of the employees or a supervisor tells "Let's get together sometime" how one can understand it or derive meaning from this sentence? It can mean a thousand things. For one, according to Dr. Alessandra, it may “mean your colleague wants to get together, maybe this afternoon for lunch, or is this just a superficial phrase for politesse?”

The author have emphasized that there is something heavy at stake. The lack of communication in the workplace may mean “botched plans, political in-fighting, lost productivity, lost profits, and, ultimately, lost jobs. This ambiguity is the foundation of errors, misunderstandings, and strained relationships.” Interpersonal skills that are effective are very important, both at home within families and at work within co-workers. These skills can either be through verbal or non-verbal, personal, written or by phone communications. Proper communication helps ease out tension between and among persons as well as improves their relationships to each other making them more efficient and effective in the workplace.

The book, overall is a great guide for everyone in terms of business communication. It tries to help readers in enhancing their communication skills and eventually making them a better communicator in the workplace.. Since the book have real-life illustrations, readers can easily relate to it. Furthermore, the book offers instructions in memo-writing, presentation-making and productive meeting guides. Finally, the book tackles some necessary telephone skills and etiquette, body language interpretations and on personal communications.

Reference
Alessandra, A. (2008) The Art of Communicating at Work. Accessed 16 May 2008 from