“Crucial Conversations” was my book of the year a few years ago for a good reason. It helped me with some very difficult conversations at work and at home.
I was reminded of this resource when someone I work with was suggested that this was an area of growth for her. She was kind of annoyed, and then I reminded her that this is a great skill to develop. I have been working on this for years and I still can do with more improvement. So in my estimation, take any chance to develop communication skills since it pays off. Bigtime.
I am not going to summarize the book here. Instead you can check out a mind map I made up to summarize: Crucial Conversations – Summary map – shared on www.biggerplate.com I made the mindmap up to help the team I am working with. Feel free to share it with yours. Anyway, a few days later, I had an opportunity to use these techniques on my own crucial conversation and turned a very sticky situation into opportunity. Not sure if it’s a happy ending yet…
If you are in Toronto/GTA, and interested in improving your communication, then you might even want to consider a workshop with Innergize Training on Workplace Conflicts And Handling Sensitive Issues.