Here are three new titles handling various aspects of corporate communication, a subject about which there seems more and more to communicate. Negotiation expert Brodow (Beating the Success Trap ) has put his popular corporate Negotiation Boot Camp seminar into book form, offering a 12-week course (a chapter a week) wherein "recruits" learn different skills until they can intrepidly tackle the trickiest negotiations. While his building blocks have relevance in the workplace with clients, staff, and management, Brodow's advice, garnered from the streets of his hometown of Brooklyn, NY, and his Fortune 500 clients, proves handy for everyday situations as well. Readers, for instance, will learn about buying a car or negotiating medical fees.

Professional facilitator Dressler (president, Blue Wing Consulting) offers up a simple formula to help managers implement a cooperative process of consensus decision making. He outlines the best conditions for attempting it and makes clear when his formula is unlikely to be the best tool. Dressler works through the preparation process, explains how to deal with disagreements, explores obstacles to consensus, and offers tips on the dynamics of meetings. He views consensus as an excellent method for motivating employees as they help to craft their organizations through the decision-making process.

We've probably all been guilty of exchanging sly looks with colleagues during an interminable meeting. But what happens when it's the boss rolling her eyes while you're doing the talking? Organizational guru Young (former senior VP, JPMorgan Chase) explores the nearly subliminal messages that managers send to their staff. Micromessages are those simple, subtle gestures and expressions that give away what we're really thinking. Malcolm Gladwell's Blink covered a certain amount of this territory, but Young is more concerned with workplace implications as he coaches managers on better and fairer ways to communicate. He explores "microinequities," i.e., visually or verbally telegraphed signals that make people feel rotten and contribute to underperformance. "Microadvantages," on the other hand, are gestures of praise or encouragement that give people a warm feeling and make them want to perform well. This is an engaging and enlightening work with implications not only for managers but also for anyone inâ€"or underâ€"a position of authority. Negotiation is recommended for larger public business collections; the slim but highly practical Consensus is recommended for academic and larger public business collections. Micromessaging is highly recommended for the same.â€"Carol J. Elsen, Univ. of Wisconsin-Whitewater Libs.