Magie in al je communicatie – Bas Mouton (2015)

A self-help book that promises magic in all our communication by getting rid of the well known tricks (where to put your hands, how to capture the audience with your eyes etc), and have the guts to show yourself and convey a genuine message. Bas Mouton has formulated 9 rules, ranging from “give compliments to a critical audience” to “show why this message is important to you”. From these we learn that the single most important element of effective and powerful communication is the call to action – what do I want the other to change in his or her behavior? And don’t shy away from exciting resistance; this means the message has value.
Furthermore, every speech needs to bring some excitement. Bas draws a parallel with the wolf from the ferry tale Little Red Riding Hood; without him the tale would be boring. In speeches there are three possible wolves: 1) the classic wolf: the enemy 2) the societal wolf: the taboo 3) the internal wolf: our own mistakes. Again, Mouton asks for our courage to identify and use one or all of the. Finally, the author, clearly intrigued by American politics (just like me), gives us the following evergreen definition of the key characteristic of great leadership: a leader is able to guide his audience to a place in the future.