Businessmen who are concerned about their own communication effectiveness and the general communication practices of their organizations must first realize that attempts to improve communication take hard work and involve frequent failure. Although most businessmen believe communication to be ordinary and simple, they are concerned by the fact that they are frequently misunderstood by their associates. The misunderstandings cannot be resolved because communicators assume and expect understanding. When communication breaks down, they fix blame rather than seek solutions. The reasons employed for blaming communication failures on others are that the person who has misunderstood is either stupid, emotionally unbalanced, not motivated, or is of unsavory character. Effective interpersonal relationships can be improved with a sophisticated concept of human interaction. Books, consultants, and training courses in communication skills for businessmen that offer simplistic answers to the problem of human interaction should be rejected in favor of those that substitute the goal of understanding for gimmicks and formulas. (EE)