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Summary: Get unstuck!
Review: More than just good advice, this book walked me through how to get unstuck in my personal life and at work. I learned how to step up to and handle well a few tough subjects that I'd avoided for years. Now, my relationships at home and at work have improved--and I'm getting better results. Thanks so much for writing this book!
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Summary: Crucial Conversations: Helping You To Be All You Can Be
Review: Most books deliver well on the "what." Crucial Conversations delivers on the "how." Those "how to skills" are helping my direct reports and me change the culture of our division. More importantly, it is helping me to generate useful techniques that I can use at work, at home, and during my volunteer work with community service organizations. It has assisted me in identifying what I really want as I dialog with others and lays out the necessary steps to achieve my outcome(s) while maintaining good and positive human relationships.This book is a "must read" for organizational personnel and individuals who have become casual communicators in high stakes conversations, thus missing out on valuable and collaborative resolutions to problems, assisting in negatively labeling others, and settling on mediocre business and personal relationships.
Rating:
Summary: Crucial Conversations: Helping You To Be All You Can Be
Review: Most books deliver well on the "what." Crucial Conversations delivers on the "how." Those "how to skills" are helping my direct reports and me change the culture of our division. More importantly, it is helping me to generate useful techniques that I can use at work, at home, and during my volunteer work with community service organizations. It has assisted me in identifying what I really want as I dialog with others and lays out the necessary steps to achieve my outcome(s) while maintaining good and positive human relationships. This book is a "must read" for organizational personnel and individuals who have become casual communicators in high stakes conversations, thus missing out on valuable and collaborative resolutions to problems, assisting in negatively labeling others, and settling on mediocre business and personal relationships.
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Summary: Best of the "Conversations" books
Review: Of the three books with similar titles: Difficult Conversations, Fierce Conversations, and Crucial Conversations, I find this the best by a longshot. Fierce Conversations is a great read and a real pick-me-up, but it was more of an oh-yeah-i-should-do-that "reminder" than it was a wellspring of new insights. I'm sure the author would be an outstanding 1:1 coach, but the book didn't leave me with as much of a useful/memorable framework as did Crucial Conversations. Difficult Conversations, by comparison, is heavy on frameworks, research, theory -- but it ends up reading like a dissertation. Though I'm an avid reader, I found it difficult to get through. I found the other Harvard Negotiation Project volumes much more accessible -- e.g., Getting To Yes, Getting Past No, etc. Crucial Conversations is for me the happy medium between the two. It has the right balance of analysis, frameworks, and coaching. It's very accessible yet deep where it needs to be. It also carries a Coveyesque tone that any Seven Habits fan will find refreshing. Certainly you can't go wrong reading all three of these books. But if I had to choose one, I'd go with Crucial Conversations.
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Summary: This Book is REQUIRED READING for my Company!
Review: PAY THE [money] this book costs and avoid costly litigation, improve your communication, better manage expectations, defuse pent up emotions, and let your company be more productive! I just finished Crucial Conversations and the first thing that I did as I laid down the book, was to log on to Amazon and order 30 copies to give to the managers within my company. I am the owner of my company of 600 employees and I am constantly searching for better ways to improve communication among our staff and employees. I am going to make sure that my HR team includes these principles into their training. As I read through this book, I found that so many of our issues within the company would have been eliminated or diminished if we had embraced and utilized the tools laid out within this book. I could have avoided a costly lawsuit if these principles had been utilized when we were disciplining and eventually terminating an unproductive employee. The authors have blended the humor of Dilbert, with the vision of Stephen Covey, with the practicality of consultants who have been down in the trenches of some of the biggest corporations in the US. It is an easy and enjoyable read. I also found as I read the book that I kept thinking about how to use these tools to improve the conversations in my personal life, with my wife and with my children. I would love to see a second book that focused on Crucial Conversations at Home.
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Summary: You may be better without this...
Review: Self help drivel! Some of the stuff in the book is common sense. However, other parts and proposals in this book, used incorrectly are quite the opposite of common sense, and would have to be used so carefully, it may not be feasible to use them in the REAL world. They can be down right dangerous. Unless you are independently wealthy and can afford to lose a job or two, friends, and maybe even a significant other read this book. Others who have any sense of self really don't need this book at all.
Rating:
Summary: Crucial Conversations - a welcome advisor
Review: Some months ago, I was given a copy of this book to read.
I thought my sons might like to read it and gave them each a copy of it. The younger one, Stephen, is commuting weekly between Georgia and the silicon valley, and travels to Europe twice a month.
On his short flights throughout Western Europe to meet with various company executives, he says, he always has "Crucial conversations" in his bag, and frequently refers to it 'in-flight'. He says the book is a valuable companion, and has been helping him in numerous situations.
Rating:
Summary: Crucial Conversations - a welcome advisor
Review: Some months ago, I was given a copy of this book to read.
I thought my sons might like to read it and gave them each a copy. The younger one, Stephen, is commuting weekly between Georgia and the silicon valley, and travels to Europe twice a month.
On his short flights throughout Western Europe to meet with various company executives, he says, he always has "Crucial Conversations" in his bag, and frequently refers to it 'in-flight'. He says the book is a valuable companion, and has been helping him in numerous situations.
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Summary: Really nice book
Review: Thanks for writing this book. Even just reading chapter 1 got my head in a new space and helped me begin to make changes in my life in areas that seemed so difficult before. Better than a book on conversation, this book really cuts to the heart of dealing with tough issues, what you can do about them, and how to get better results at work and at home. I want to meet these guys!
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Summary: Execellent and useful concepts
Review: The authors laid out some very good stpe-by-stpe approaches to deal with unexpected conversations that involve significant consequences and strong emotion. The few reminders, such as Make-It-Safe, are very useful tools when thorwn into a surprised "crucial conversation." However, the concepts are orgaized into a not-so-useful diagram. I assume the separate cue cards from the authors would be more useful, but I did not purchase them. A reader should summarize the ideas in the book into a more useful reminders.
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