I've always preached the idea that communication is first and foremost something that everyone needs to do well if they want to succeed. It doesn't matter what business you are involved in or what you are planning on doing for a living, if you can communicate well, you will be successful.
Inc. Magazine has an interview with Peter Guber who has a new book out titled "Tell to Win". Here is a snippet from that interview:
OK, so how can someone in sales or marketing turn a garden-variety pitch into a purposeful story?
It's so simple, it's embarrassing, and yet a lot of people overlook the basics. First, when you walk into a room to sell a product or pitch an investor or whatever, you absolutely have to know what your intention is. What do you want from your listeners? You have to understand your objective and be transparent about it in order to establish trust. Second, you have to figure out a way to capture your listeners' attention. It can be a physical movement or asking someone about the pictures on his desk in a way that builds mutuality. Finally, the goal of your story must be to show what is in it for the listeners. The audience must win.
While there is more to it than that if you want to be good (figuring out what your listeners what takes some time, having a good presentation to capture the audience's attention, etc) he boils it down to the simple fact that communication is important, but most people don't realize that it doesn't take a great amount of time to get better at it. Also, the fact that if you want to succeed - you have to be good at communicating!
I'm glad more and more people are starting to realize how important communication and storytelling is in the business world. I've heard good things about this book and I plan on picking it up as soon as I can.