Talk to Me Nice offers a thoughtful approach to building trust in the workplace, highlighting the importance of understanding how colleagues prefer to give and receive it. Minda Harts provides practical strategies through the seven trust languages, which can be useful for improving communication and collaboration. While insightful, some of the concepts feel familiar and could benefit from more depth or fresh examples. Overall, it’s a solid read for anyone looking to strengthen workplace relationships, though not groundbreaking.

Trust remains the most important of aspect of any relationship. I was hoping for this book to go a bit deeper. If you are just starting out and truly clueless, this book is helpful with examples of what doesn't work and how to improve them.

Talk to Me Nice by Minda Harts, 240 pages. NONFICTION. Flatiron Books (Macmillan), 2025. $15.
Language: PG13 (16 swears, 0 “f”); Mature Content: PG; Violence: PG
BUYING ADVISORY: ADULTS - OPTIONAL
APPEALS TO: FEW
An employee since her teenage years, Hart’s résumé has given her lots of experience with various managers and coworkers. One thing she has learned is that trust is vital—but different people need trust shown in different ways. Hart introduces the seven trust languages that, when implemented, will make the workplace better for you and everyone else around you.
Admittedly, I only picked this book up because it reminded me of the five love languages, and I was interested to see this new take on the concept. While focused on workplace relationships, these trust languages can be applied to other relationships, though Hart goes into a lot of detail specifically for implementing them at work. Hart offers templates and examples to enable her readers to advocate for themselves and their needs at work—to gain, build, and restore trust with managers and colleagues. A very niche topic, but interesting nonetheless.
The mature content rating is for mentions of sexual harassment, and the violence rating is for mentions of school shootings.
Reviewer: Carolina Herdegen

“Trust is earned in drops and lost in buckets.”

This book was exactly what I expected it to be based on the description. It was a quick and easy read that I enjoyed. While progressing through the book, I found myself thinking of real world examples of these trust languages in my own life, some good, some bad. I could think of a few leaders in both my past and present that could benefit from a read of this book.

This is not a comprehensive guide of “here’s how you build trust” so much as a compilation of what different people value most when it comes to trust and what you can do both as a peer and a leader to help others feel seen and understood.

I would recommend that you read or listen to this book when you have time to sit with the questions at the end of each chapter and do think this is better suited to a read over an audiobook. I was listening while doing other tasks and couldn’t complete the chapter end assessments as a result. I was still able to absorb the stories, examples, and content but I definitely missed out on the assessments.

Talk to Me Nice: The Seven Trust Languages for a Better Workplace
by Minda Harts
1 out of 5 stars

Thank you to MacMillan Audio and NetGalley for a copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest opinion.

This is supposed to be a self-help book that encourages employees and companies to build trust with each other in order to build better workplaces.

In a review, we are supposed to start with what we liked about the book. I honestly searched for something positive to say, and there was nothing I could find. I guess I like the concept, and the seven trust languages make sense. But, the author did nothing to build buy-in.

I hesitated to request this book for review because of the horrible title. Grammatically, that is a wreck. However, the subtitle did intrigue me, and having left two companies fairly recently due to issues of trust, I wanted to hear what the author had to say.

At 20%, I chose to mark this book as DNF. The bottom line- the author did not build trust with me, the reader. First of all, she sounded incredibly bitter about her work experiences that caused her to write the book. Fair enough, since she is talking about broken trust. However, many of her examples led me to ask what was her role in the relationship not working.

In a professional book, an author should sound like an authority. Unfortunately, she sounds like a whiny 20-year-old trying to fit in with her peers. The use of informal, "cool" language just doesn't work. At some points, it sounded like a string of the most popular sayings from today's youth.

The author as narrator also doesn't work. She constantly ends sentences with a question tone when there is clearly a period.

Finally, when the author says, "Friends... Can I call you friends?" my answer was NO. I am not your friend. I, as a reader, am expected you to be able to offer something valuable from a professional standpoint. This is when the trust was completely broken for me, and I had so far only heard one of the seven trust languages.

I do not recommend this book to anyone for any reason. There are several other self-help books out there that will work just as well. The author herself references The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman and states that there needs to be one for business. Well, there is. It's called The Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace. I would recommend starting here rather than picking up Talk to Me Nice. I should have stuck with my gut thought that the title was off-putting.

While this book has valuable content, you really have to wade through a lot of gross internet speakers to get there. I don’t believe this one will age well, and was stunned to learn the author has written several books before this.

It reeks of desperation in trying to become “one of the youths” - especially because people don’t speak this way in a professional sense. Perhaps I’m too old for this?

I think the book would be much more valuable if all the slang and irrelevant pop culture talk were removed.