These books have examples of poor communications and why things can go wrong with them. For me it was simply a matter of reading the examples and saying "Yup, I

These books have examples of poor communications and why things can go wrong with them. For me it was simply a matter of reading the examples and saying "Yup, I do this" or "Yup, my boss/coworker does this." Once you somewhat internalize the advice in the book, it's not hard to look at a conversation you had earlier in the day and start itemizing the "mistakes" you made. The hard part is to catch them live before they happen. A word of caution: Don't assume that just because people are turned off that the problem is you. I thought that way and after reading the book, I found out that about half of them were my problem, half with the other parties - and the important message wasn't that I should change my style, but that I should learn to handle it when the other party takes something I said poorly, and help them articulate what is bothering them.