Artful Persuasion: How to Command Attention, Change Minds, and Influence People [Paperback]

Even for those who don't often need to sell to or negotiate with others, there's lots to learn about how others try to persuade YOU.

Each chapter concludes with a handy bullet list of key lessons. Mills draws upon a rich and eclectic trove of witty, sometimes salty, real-world examples from business, politics, history, and elsewhere. To his credit, he reminds the reader throughout about the unethical uses of persuasion; there's a handy section on how people and organizations (like the media) mislead through graphics.

This is a book that will be on my desk, within reach - as long as I have clients. (And a husband. And a family. And neighbors. You get the point.)

Since rating scales are relative, and I'm not familiar with all the leading books on the subject, I can't rightly give the book 5 stars. So consider my 4 stars an absolute rating of "terrific."

It isn't.

Just 'having' knowledge merely qualifies you to play Trivial Pursuit.
Knowledge only translates into power, or in this case "persuasion", IF you know how to USE that knowledge effectively.

This book leans heavily on the "knowledge=power" misconception for it's appeal.
It is a typical example of what I call "sweeper" writing. That is to say, though it claims to be offering to tell you "how" to do something (in this case, "How to command attention, change minds, and influence people") it actually only tells you "what" to do. It covers the gap with a stream of brief stories of the "Wow, I never knew that!" variety, "swept up" from a whole slew of books on more or less the same subject.

It is my perception that *anybody* who has read the same set of source books, and has a reasonable grasp of written English, could have produced this book, regardless of whether they had any prior knowledge or experience of the subject.

For beginners (in any subject), especially those who set more store by what they "know" rather than by what they can actually "do", this "canned knowledge" approach can be very attractive. Indeed, it may well lead them to assume that the book itself is of some value.

For the more discerning reader - one who wishes to be able to put their knowledge to work - this favourable impression lasts just about as long as it takes them to find a more pragmatically-oriented text.

If you *really* want to be well-informed about "the new psychology of influence" I'd recommend Robert Cialdini's classic "Influence", and for an introductory handbook on the effective and responsible use of influence/persuasion, Andrew Bradbury's "Develop Your NLP Skills".

Both books are well-written (that is, easy to read) yet contain far more *practical* information than "Artful Persuasion".