Crucial Conversations

"Good communication skills can be something we take for granted. If we work in an environment where everyone generally gets along and we don’t have a problem sharing our opinions or ideas, we may not see a need to improve our skills. Every once in a while, however, a conflict arises which requires us to communicate at our absolute best. Often, these are the situations we either avoid, or we fail to reach the outcome we want. These are “crucial conversations,” which is a conversation where opinions vary, the stakes are high, and emotions run strong." The Slate

"Relationships are the essence of life. Through them we interact with the world around us and find meaning. Considering the importance of relationships, it is essential to develop skills in navigating them. By nature we are relational, but positive relationships require effective communication skills that must be learned and developed. Although we have been learning skills for positive relationship development our entire lives, we have also developed behavior patterns that are destructive. These destructive relational behaviors seem to surface most frequently when we are trying our hardest to communicate something that we feel strongly about. Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler define these highly emotional, high-stakes conversations, which reflect a difference of opinion, as “crucial conversations” in their recent book Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High." FFCI

"According to Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler — the four co-authors of the international bestseller Crucial Confrontations — how people habitually handle crucial conversations is one of the most reliable predictors of both organizational effectiveness and, conversely, organizational disaster. NASA, WorldCom and the other organizations cited above are cases in point. In each instance, leaders allowed a “culture of silence” to flourish, which made the consequent disasters all too predictable. Yet none of these disasters happened overnight. And the precursors to each of them were witnessed by hundreds — even thousands — who noticed but said nothing. Why? For Grenny and his colleagues, the answer is very simple. Utter silence in the face of potentially crucial conversations (conversations in which the stakes are high, emotions are running strong, and there are sharply opposing viewpoints) is typically the path of least resistance in any organization. Unless leaders go to extraordinary lengths to counter the tremendous natural pressure that people feel to remain silent, disaster is inevitable." Gulyani.com

"Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler is book filled with strategies for communicating in difficult times. The authors have gathered conversations from a variety of settings to help those working with others to master conversations with tips on what to look for in a safe environment. In the forward written by Steven Covey, he assures the readers that “what you learn is that ‘crucial conversation’ transform people and relationship.” Due to my familiarity and knowledge of the results driven work of Covey, I decided to add Crucial Conversations to my active book list." EDWorks

"What I learned from Crucial Conversations is that most of us are letting our emotions and past experiences and stories drive our actions. This doesn’t leave a lot of room for rational or strategic thinking at times that matter most. Use Crucial Conversations as a tool to help you prepare for that next big conversation. In fact, you may want to start practicing each chapter a week at a time so that you’ll be prepared the next time someone says 'Can we talk?'" Small Business Trends