The Art of People: 11 Simple People Skills That Will Get You Everything You Want Hardcover – March 15, 2016

Kudos to Dave Kerpen on his book the Art of People. Many of you have read his other books in “Likable Series” where he reminds us that at the core of everything, we can never forget we are human. He is a consummate story teller who shares with us his intimacies and experiences in his life and development as a leader. In his latest book, Dave connects us back to who we connect with each other as “People” and reinforces through the use of stories the skills necessary to make and augment those connections.The book starts off with the most important principle in forging relationships - getting to know yourself. As a lecturer/researcher on Leadership I can’t stress how important self-knowledge is in understanding how we behave with others. From there he explores meeting, reading, connecting, influencing, teaching, and inspiring - People. Whether you are selling, managing, or leading - It’s really about connecting with others.Each chapter is concise, usually containing an entertaining and representative story from his life of the principle he wants to convey, and always ends with a short list of skills for the reader to practice. Each chapter builds on the previous chapter to reinforce the previous work/skills and then moves further along into the “Art of People”.What I like about this book the most is that it helps the reader realize that Social Skills are like any other skill - they can be practiced and developed. We always look at other who have what we perceive is an incredible People Quotient. Dave’s work helps you realize that we can all develop into that person with hard work and practice.I think this book can be approached in several ways. First it can be read straight through or by choosing chapters that are most applicable to the reader. On a different level, one could take the book and work through it over a period of time - reading each chapter, practicing and mastering each skill before moving on to subsequent chapters.Dave has lots of great tips for aspiring leaders and influencers such as “hand-written” thank you notes. I can’t stress the importance of this one enough. I tend to over use emails and suffer from misspellings and poor grammar because I don’t proofread enough before I hit that “send” button. That is not something you do when you take the time to write by hand. I also enjoyed “Send a Bonsai” as a thank you. I like the whole concept of sending gifts that have a meaning beyond the material. I have used that idea (in fact I send Bonsais) for years. To date people still have them in their offices several years later.I’m in healthcare and as I am always reminded - that is really two words: Health and Care. We don’t care enough about people and Dave brings back into the business literature the concept that its really all about the People. Learning how to connect, interact, relate and inspire is really about learning the Art of People.Well worth the read and highly recommend

I really enjoyed this book overall. The skills and advice it gives are fantastic, albeit not profoundly deep (as others have pointed out). This book will make you a more likable person in life and in business if you build the skills it covers. My main takeaways were:- Always talk to the person next to you on a plane or if you are waiting for something together. You never know how that connection will play out and could be beneficial. This actually was very relevant advice because I was on a plane at the time I read this chapter. I put my book down and started talking to the person next to me who ended up getting me a free ride to my home after landing.- Hire slow, fire fast. Not just in business, but in life. Don't quickly pledge devotion to people you don't know well and if someone's values aren't lined up with yours and you don't often get along, move on. There's always someone else out there.- You (almost) never get what you don't ask for. So ask! You either end up in the same position or much better off.- Promote and recognize others as much or more than yourself. This way you avoid being the constant self promoter that nobody wants to listen to. People will love the recognition and will often return the favor.- Teachers are just students who've been doing it a little longer. This is one of the deep moments in the book where you realize that not everyone is inherently better than you just because of their title. You can get to whatever point they're at with time.- When someone asks you how you're doing answer with "Fantastic!" instead of the usual "fine" or "good." Fantastic just sounds better and will really engage the person you're talking to and others around you.- Inspiring an audience or a person is about helping them see THEIR vision. Not yours.- Praise will always motivate people more than criticism. Praise those doing well and those who aren't will likely change. If they never change, refer back to the philosophy of hire slow, fire fast.- Send handwritten thank you notes to anyone who helps you or goes into business with you. It will make you stand out significantly and make the recipient feel muchAs far as the structure of the book it's well laid out and contains anecdotes relating to the message for every chapter. The "11 simple people skills" are broken down into bite size chapters that are only 2-5 pages long which makes this book very easy to read, set down, keep reading, stop and read again. I liked that aspect of the book as I don't always have the time to read very long chapters found in similar books all at once.Overall, I liked the book a lot. I would recommend it to others and will likely reread it in the future to remind myself of these very useful people skills

Ben strutturato. Ogni sottocapitolo fornisce dei suggerimenti utili, con esempi della vita reale dell'autore, per migliorare le proprie soft skill in leading e influencing people applicando anche concetti della intelligenza emotiva. Linguaggio semplice. Non ripetitivo.

Well done Dave on writing a book with lots of great gems of wisdom. It was simple and easy to read and digest. Lots of great takeaways that are simple and easy to implement. To your continued success.

I really enjoyed this book. The author reminds the reader of several basic courtesies extended to people that have been overlooked in this day and age. Courtesies that help build better business relationships. Paying attention to them will not only help you in business but will help you with relationships outside the workplace.The book was interesting to read with a good mix of information, personal stories and humour. I would recommend it.It is a book I will definitely go back to in order to refresh in my head several key points.

In my opinion this book is a modern version of "How to win friends and influence people", and the author himself provides references to some of the concepts used by Dale Carnegie. I personally enjoyed reading it, and I can recommend it to just anyone who wishes to improve his or her skills related to human relationships. The book is easy to read, down to earth, and very practical, I would say. Prior to reading this book, I already have read the works of Dale Carnegie and Les Giblin, so this book fitted quite well... in short: this book is an investment which you won't regret. Thanks Dave!

After reading "The art of people", I just felt natural to act as Dave is advising. It felt so normal to be implemented and easy to be understood. This book brought to the sunlight some native skills that just needed a little boost and training and that turned out to be some of the most useful skills, in terms of building and maintaining good relationships. We have to realize that we can not build a successful career in no matter what without having to interact with people and Dave makes this interaction much more natural and easy to understand.