How to Say It For Women: Communicating with Confidence and Power Using the Language of Success

How to Say it for Women provides a comprehensive guide to all aspects of successful communication, an area which can be especially challenging for working women. How do we communicate powerfully, avoiding seeming too young, too girly, too weak, but also without "acting like a man"? Drawing on her extensive experience running seminars on language, power, and leadership, Phyllis Mindell shows how language conveys weakness or strength using Charlotte, the word-weaving spider of Charlotte's Web, as a model. The metaphor may be a bit stretched, but It's less gimmicky than it sounds--as Mindell points out, "Charlotte understood the power of language to change the course of events."The book begins with "the language of weakness," explaining how the wrong language and bad habits can undermine women. It goes on to cover how grammar works to convey power, how to avoid bad habits, how to choose the right words, how to organize writing and presentations, giving talks, presentations, and job interviews, body language, personal style, writing, reading, listening, leadership, handling and responding to insults and put-downs, all the way through managing and mentoring others. Because "the principles of the language of success remain the same even as the settings change," no aspect of communication is unaddressed--this is much more than a quick self-help book. Urging readers to "embrace complexity" and never oversimplifying, the author writes crisply and clearly and provides helpful anecdotes, examples, and practical tips.While I was reading this book, I kept wanting to urge people I know to read it. (And not just women! The advice on topics such as avoiding vagueness or preparing a talk would be useful to anyone.) Mindell excels at clear, succinct explanations of what works and what doesn't and why. How to Say It for Women is well worth reading even for those who are already good communicators, since there's always some room for improvement.

I purchased this book because of the praise of other Amazon reviewers and I was not disappointed!As a professional in a very male dominated field, this book truly hit home for me - so much so that a few of the points the author made were echoes of comments made previously by my boss about my own performance. Women fall into many traps that undermine their credibility and this book calls them out, one by one.I can't tell you how often I'm on a conference call and use the words "I think..." or "In my opinion...". Men don't use these words. Besides, they know that's what you think - you're the one saying it! However, justifiers such as these portray you as insecure, whether true or not. This is just one example of the ways women inadvertently tarnish their credibility.The author covers a vast array of topics and ways to become a stronger leader (and this doesn't necessarily mean you have to be just like a man!):Weak words and grammarPresentations and speaking in front of a groupBody languageStyle and dressReading for Power (what you read and how)ListeningLeadership and ManagementThe author includes many examples to illustrate her points and provides information that women can put to work to accelerate their careers. It is such a useful text that it was the recommended reading selection for a continuing education course a friend of mine recently attended. (She has already asked to borrow my copy.) The author has been conducting workshops on this topic for years and (sometimes humorously) includes her observances from those classes and participants in her book. Take advantage of her knowledge and invest in this book - you will not be disappointed!

Early in my career, I knew I was far more intelligent than my speech presented. One day, after listening to an admired friend say one of her gorgeously precise sentences, I asked her where she had learned to speak so powerfully, always able to find the most effective word, always able to form them into the most on-the-mark sentences. Her answer was this book.I would never have picked it up on my own. The "for women" part would have put me off. I wasn't thinking of my "weak" language as a gender issue. But, even if you don't look at things that way, this book will help you.Read it. Do the exercises. You'll think about language in a whole new way and find yourself being listened to -and believed- more than ever.

This is a useful book for young women just getting started in business or for any career for that matter. Like any took, it has its time and place; take from it those things that are specific to your needs. I buy it and give it to recent high school and college grads and have several copies in my 'lending library' for my work teams.

This book gets specific about how women can communicate better. I teach phone skills and I'm always correcting people on their choice of words so I appreciated this author's ideas and how she presented them. She gives so many examples of how women sound "wimpy" and recommends not only the suggested changes but exercises to do. I highly recommend this book if you need to spruce up your words at work, do presentations or if you are the lone female in a group of men who "don't listen to you."

This book really spoke to me. There are so many phrases and words that women used that weaken our language power. This book literally woke me up to that!The tips were spot on and this is a truly easy-to-read book. The mistakes mentioned on the book such as weak phrases, "I think...", "How do you feel..." are so real to me that it took me by surprise. I never knew that those phrases had such an impact.If there's one career book you are thinking of getting - get this one!

I've taught Women in Science courses and live in the male dominated world of scientific researchers. This has many useful tips. I particularly appreciated the writing format/help sections. I already knew about a lot of the language stuff (learned it the hard way mostly), but there were more things in this book. Good for any professional woman, regardless of field.

Very helpful and resourceful book. There are many examples inside and it seems that we women make these mistakes without even taking notice of them... At least for me, it was a revelation and have already started applying these methods in my everyday communication. The author actually treats every aspect of working and non working life, where language is used ( which is almost in every field of activities!!) and provides attainable solutions and proposals. Highly recommended on every entry of working life and maybe even more where there is this thin red line between actual position and getting promoted...

Great tips for women and 'nice' people in general. Men can get away a bit more with being 'nice' but women definitely have hard time even when they use the language of success let alone when they don't.

I was expecting a lot more from this book so was disappointed. I did not finish it and found the format not particularly user friendly. I dipped into bits and pieces of it but the content did not link together as well as I would have expected.

If you are looking into finding a book on improving your communication skills in a business environment, it's a great pick. Even though focused on women, many men could find it beneficial, too. There are many tips and examples and crib sheets that you can use/memorize to improve your communication skills. I must say I put it in the practice and it works. The only downside of the book is that "to me" it feels as written by a feminist. Additionally, some of the examples seem not to belong to our decade anymore and it's coming from and talking about the US environment.In any case it is a good read even for the people living in the UK.