Book Description

The authors of the New York Times bestseller Crucial Conversations show you how to achieve personal, team, and organizational success by healing broken promises, resolving violated expectations, and influencing bad behavior

Discover skills to resolve touchy, controversial, and complex issues at work and at home--now available in this follow-up to the internationally popular Crucial Conversations.

Behind the problems that routinely plague organizations and families, you'll find individuals who are either unwilling or unable to deal with failed promises. Others have broken rules, missed deadlines, failed to live up to commitments, or just plain behaved badly--and nobody steps up to the issue. Or they do, but do a lousy job and create a whole new set of problems. Accountability suffers and new problems spring up. New research demonstrates that these disappointments aren't just irritating, they're costly--sapping organizational performance by twenty to fifty percent and accounting for up to ninety percent of divorces.

Crucial Confrontations teaches skills drawn from 10,000 hours of real-life observations to increase confidence in facing issues like: An employee speaks to you in an insulting tone that crosses the line between sarcasm and insubordination. Now what? Your boss just committed you to a deadline you know you can't meet--and not-so-subtly hinted he doesn't want to hear complaints about it. Your son walks through the door sporting colorful new body art that raises your blood pressure by forty points. Speak now, pay later. An accountant wonders how to step up to a client who is violating the law. Can you spell unemployment? Family members fret over how to tell granddad that he should no longer drive his car. This is going to get ugly. A nurse worries about what to say to an abusive physician. She quickly remembers "how things work around here" and decides not to say anything.

Everyone knows how to run for cover, or if adequately provoked, step up to these confrontations in a way that causes a real ruckus. That we have down pat. Crucial Confrontations teaches you how to deal with violated expectations in a way that solves the problem at hand, and doesn't harm the relationship--and in fact, even strengthens it.

Crucial Confrontations borrows from twenty years of research involving two groups. More than 25,000 people helped the authors identify those who were most influential during crucial confrontations. They spent 10,000 hours watching these people, documented what they saw, and then trained and tested with more than 300,000 people. Second, they measured the impact of crucial confrontations improvements on organizational and team performance--the results were immediate and sustainable: twenty to fifty percent improvements in measurable performance.


From the Inside Flap
"...revolutionary ideas...opportunities for breakthrough..." -- Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People "...unleash the true potential of a relationship or organization and move it to the next level...."-- Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The One Minute Manager® and The Secret: What Great Leaders Know--and Do "... the most recommended and most effective resource in my library."-- Stacey Allerton Firth, Vice President, Human Resources, Ford of Canada "...brilliant strategies for those difficult discussions at home and in the workplace..."--Soledad O'Brien, cohost of CNN's Morning Edition "This book is the real deal....Read it, underline it, learn from it. It's a gem."-- Mike Murray, VP Human Resources and Administration, Microsoft (retired) NEVER WALK AWAY FROM ANOTHER TOUCHY, CONTROVERSIAL, OR COMPLEX ISSUE--AT WORK OR AT HOME! Behind the problems that routinely plague families, teams, and organizations are individuals who either can't or won't deal with failed promises. Others have broken rules, missed deadlines, or just plain behaved badly. If anybody steps up to the issue, they often do a lousy job and create a whole new set of problems. New research demonstrates that these disappointments aren't just irritating. They're costly—sapping organizational performance by 20-50 percent and accounting for up to 90 percent of divorces. Crucial Confrontations teaches skills drawn from over 20,000 hours of real-life observations to increase confidence in facing tough issues. Learn to: Permanently resolve failed promises and missed deadlines Transform broken rules and bad behaviors into productive accountability Strengthen relationships while solving problems When you learn how to handle crucial confrontations, everything gets better.


From the Back Cover

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal Bestseller!

"Hey, if you read only one 'management' book this decade...I'd insist that it be Crucial Confrontations."--from the foreword by Tom Peters

"...revolutionary ideas...opportunities for breakthrough..." -- Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

"...unleash the true potential of a relationship or organization and move it to the next level...."-- Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The One Minute Manager® and The Secret: What Great Leaders Know--and Do

"... the most recommended and most effective resource in my library."-- Stacey Allerton Firth, Vice President, Human Resources, Ford of Canada

"...brilliant strategies for those difficult discussions at home and in the workplace..."--Soledad O'Brien, cohost of CNN's Morning Edition

"This book is the real deal....Read it, underline it, learn from it. It's a gem."-- Mike Murray, VP Human Resources and Administration, Microsoft (retired)

NEVER WALK AWAY FROM ANOTHER TOUCHY, CONTROVERSIAL, OR COMPLEX ISSUE--AT WORK OR AT HOME!

Behind the problems that routinely plague families, teams, and organizations are individuals who either can't or won't deal with failed promises. Others have broken rules, missed deadlines, or just plain behaved badly. If anybody steps up to the issue, they often do a lousy job and create a whole new set of problems.

New research demonstrates that these disappointments aren't just irritating. They're costly—sapping organizational performance by 20-50 percent and accounting for up to 90 percent of divorces.

Crucial Confrontations teaches skills drawn from over 20,000 hours of real-life observations to increase confidence in facing tough issues. Learn to: Permanently resolve failed promises and missed deadlines Transform broken rules and bad behaviors into productive accountability Strengthen relationships while solving problems

When you learn how to handle crucial confrontations, everything gets better.


About the Author

Kerry Patterson has consulted with hundreds of Fortune 500 companies using his award-winning training program to teach development and maintenance of healthy organizations.

Joseph Grenny has 20 years of experience coaching thousands of corporate and government leaders around the world in the art of communication.

Ron McMillan cofounded and was the vice president of research and development of Covey Leadership Center.

Al Switzler is currently on the faculty at the Executive Development Center at the University of Michigan.

Together these authors have founded VitalSmarts and have trained more than 500,000 people world wide. They live in the greater Salt Lake City area.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Behind the problems that routinely plague families, teams, and organizations are individuals who either can't or won't deal with failed promises. Others have broken rules, missed deadlines, or just plain behaved badly. If anybody steps up to the issue, he or she often does a lousy job and creates a whole new set of problems. New research demonstrates that these disappointments aren't just irritating -- they're costly -- sapping organizational performance by 20 to 50 percent and accounting for up to 90 percent of divorces. Drawn from over 10,000 hours of real-life observations, Crucial Confrontations teaches skills to increase confidence in facing tough issues.

FROM THE CRITICS

Soundview Executive Book Summaries

Behind the problems that regularly plague families, teams and organizations are individuals who either can't or won't deal with failed promises. The reason is that they're afraid to talk face to face about difficult but important issues - and as their fear of confrontation prevents them from resolving these issues, simple problems grow into chronic problems.

By learning how to deal with challenging confrontations, you'll learn to avoid the typical, but unconstructive, response of slipping either into awkward silence or embarrassing violence.

Mastering crucial confrontations requires a skill set. In Crucial Confrontations, consultant Kerry Patterson and executive coach Joseph Grenny join forces with their fellow researchers and trainers Ron McMillan and Al Switzler to help others develop the skills it takes to resolve the most pressing problems, including quality violations, safety infractions, cost-cutting mistakes, and medical errors. The authors write that their research shows that most organizations are losing between 20 and 80 percent of their potential performance because they have not mastered crucial confrontations.

The skills for mastering crucial confrontations can be learned; the authors of Crucial Confrontations show you how.

What Is A Crucial Confrontation?
Sarah, the head nurse at the Pine Valley Medical Center in northwestern Washington, stands frozen as doctors discuss the treatment of an elderly patient. Years of experience have taught Sarah two things: One, the patient probably needed an immediate and large dose of antibiotics, and two, even though the doctors were discussing a treatment that didn't involve antibiotics, Sarah would keep her mouth shut.

Years earlier, fresh out of college, Sarah had cheerfully disagreed with the three doctors she had been assisting. They stopped dead in their tracks and looked at her as if she were a cockroach on a wedding cake. In one poignant moment that was forever burned into her psyche, the rules had been made clear to Sarah: Don't disagree with a physician - ever. Now, nearly two decades and hundreds of confirming incidents later, she stands by wondering: Will the doctors do what I believe they should do, or will they come to the same conclusion too late? She doesn't wonder if she should speak up. Sarah's expectations weren't met, and in response she has resorted to silence.

Silence and Violence
Staring into the face of a possible disaster, some people are caught in agonizing silence. Rather than speak directly and frankly about the problem at hand, they drop hints, change the subject, or actually withdraw from the interaction altogether. Fear drives them to various forms of silence and their point of view is never heard - except maybe as gossip or rumor.

Others break away from their tortured inaction only to slip into violence. Frightened at the thought of not being heard, they try to force their ideas on others. They cut people off, overstate arguments, attack ideas, employ harsh debate tactics, and eventually resort to insults and threats. Fear drives them to do violence to the discussion and their ideas are often resisted.

We all face crucial confrontations. We set clear expectations, but the other person doesn't live up to them - we feel disappointed. Lawyers call these incidents breaches of contract. What do you do when someone disappoints you? You could choose violence, or you could opt for another choice, like Sarah, and choose silence. But there is a method that falls somewhere between the polar worlds of fight and flight. Mastering crucial confrontations allows you to deal with failed promises, disappointments and other performance gaps.

Unless you step up to and master crucial confrontations, nothing will get better. It will be a skill set, not a policy, which will enable you to solve pressing problems.

If you can't effectively confront violated expectations, you eventually experience massive personal, social and organizational consequences. If you can't deal with performance gaps, you'll either fight or take flight. Productivity will run at half of what it should.

If you learn how to hold people accountable in a way that solves problems without causing new ones, you can look forward to significant and lasting change.

When you confront, you hold someone accountable, face to face. When confrontations are handled correctly, both parties are candid, open, honest and respectful. As a result, problems are resolved and relationships benefit. Crucial confrontation skills offer the best chance to succeed - no matter the topic, person or circumstance.