Crucial conversations –
Tools for Talking When the Stakes are High
By Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler
Foreword by Steven Covey
McGraw-Hill, 2002, Paperback $16.95

Reviewed by
Bill Willard

From my own work with organizations, including families, and from my own experience, I have come to see that there are a few defining moments in our lives and careers that make all the difference. –Steven R. Covey, from the Foreword

At home or at work, most of us dread having “crucial” conversations, but as Steven Covey says, we also know we can’t avoid them—or shouldn’t. So when the chips are down, as they often are in those situations, how do we say what needs to be said without shooting ourselves in both feet?

The authors of Crucial Conversations offer a seven-point strategy for achieving that goal, and they do it all with a wry sense of humor!

Make That, Seven Point “Time-Tested” Strategy!

You see, Crucial Conversations is based on the authors’ highly popular DialogueSmart training seminars, which feature techniques for getting people to lower their defenses, creating mutual respect and understanding, increasing emotional safety, and encouraging freedom of expression.

What you get: As do seminar participants, readers learn the four factors that characterize crucial conversations, and take away a powerful six-minute technique that prepares them to work through any high-impact situation with confidence, and come out the other end with their lower extremities intact.

What you don’t get: Don’t expect a bunch of touchy feely mumbo jumbo about keeping your head screwed on straight (I do like talking technical!). The authors mean business, identifying communication gaffes and detailing how to steer key business and personal conversations in the right direction to get results.

Want proof? Most books make promises. This one delivers. “These skills have . . . generated new techniques for working together in ways that enabled us to win the largest contract in our industry’s history,” proudly reports Dain Hancock, President, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics.

Bottom line: With the skills learned in this book, you’ll be ready to talk to anyone about anything, and never sweat the outcome of a crucial conversation again.

Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler are top international corporate consultants and cofounders of Vitality Alliance, Inc., and VitalSmarts. Together they have developed dozens of corporate training programs for dozens of Fortune 500 companies.

Bill Willard is a freelance writer and editor in Clearwater FL. He has been a high-impact writer and editor for over 30 years. He began his “faith journey” to Catholicism in 2008 at his wife, Sue’s urging. After putting up with him for 40 years, all she had to do was ask!

Visit his Website: www.writergazette.com/WillardAssociates.shtml. Or contact him at billw15@tampabay.rr.com to sign up for his popular eblog: Daily Grin.

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