Business Book Review: If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? by Alan Alda
The art of acting meets science. With wit and workable techniques, Alda highlights how to better communicate and relate with others.
My Rating: ★★★★
Length: 240 pages
Publisher: Random House Group
Released: 2018
Key Takeaways for Personal Branding
Alan Alda’s If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? is the best of acting and science. The iconic M*A*S*H star uses his experience in theatre, improvisation and storytelling to propose better ways to communicate clearly.
Alda's fascination with science led him to host the award-winning Scientific American Frontiers for over a decade.
The book opens with George Bernard Shaw’s words:
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
Alda uses witty recounts from personal experience to demonstrate the problem he’s trying to help solve. Like dentists who think they’ve communicated a procedure, or accountants who think they’ve explained the tax code. He offers practical solutions for relating better to others.
The book contains many concepts useful for personal branding. But here are some top-level takeouts and hidden gems:
Head and Heart Communication
Alda discusses communicating both emotionally and rationally, and highlights the two different states of mind involved:
Empathy
Theory of the Mind
Like in improvisation acting, as much importance lies with listening with your eyes as your ears.
Mirroring
In the 1980s-1990s, scientists discovered an interesting phenomenon in monkeys. When a monkey saw another monkey grasp something, certain neurons would fire in their brain. For the observing monkey, the same neurons would fire as if the monkey was grasping something itself - this became infamously known as mirror neurons. It suggested that just by watching, neurons mirror each other.
Mirroring importantly gives you insights. By internally simulating the intentions of the other person, you better understand what they are planning to do.
Three Rules of Three
Alda reminds you to be emphatic in your audience’s processing. He offers a small snapshot of the practical method he applies to his presentations. This includes lengthy discussions around the importance of storytelling and being present with your audience. Also among them is his Three Rules of Three:
Make no more than three points (as it’s all your audience will likely remember).
Explain difficult ideas in three different ways.
Make an important point three times so it sticks better.
Reading the Mind of the Reader
Alda emphasises the need to try to read the mind of the reader. He shares insights from George Gopen of Duke University. Gopen proposed that your reader expects things laid out a certain way and this impacts how they react. This includes:
Sentence Expectations: At the beginning of the sentence, the reader expects to hear what the sentence is about. Otherwise, they’ll have to go back to the beginning later to better understand what the writer was talking about.
Stress Position: Readers assume what comes at the end of the sentence is most important. It’s a place of emphasis - the stressed point.
Favourite Quotes
“Real conversation can’t happen if listening is just my waiting for you to finish talking.”
“If I tell you something without making sure you got it, did I really communicate anything?”
“Listening begins before you even start trying to communicate. You picture an audience and think, What are they already aware of? Where should I start? How deep should I go? What are they actually eager to know? If I start too far in, will I be using concepts they don’t really understand?”
“It’s not necessary to tell the audience everything you know in one gulp. Sometimes, telling us just enough to make us want to know more is exactly the right amount.”
“An authentic tone of voice is produced deep inside the brain, not in the voice box.”
“Probably the least useful reason for using jargon is that it makes us sound smart. If the other person understands the jargon, then he or she is just as smart as the person speaking, so there’s nothing gained. And if the listener does not understand jargon, then it probably doesn’t sound all that smart to be unintelligible.”
If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? is a unique way to view the art of communication. Using the best of science and acting to make yourself understandable to your audience.
If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? by Alan Alda: Available on Amazon.
