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Run right out and buy this book. You’ll read it to save (or improve!) your marriage, keep the door to communication from slamming shut between you and your child, you and a parent, you and a sibling, you and a friend. It’s good. It’s readable. And it’s memorable – by which I mean that it’s easy to remember the basics. Like this one for example – The Path to Action/ figure 6.2 found on page 98 where the following words appear inside a shaded arrow. See/Hear – Tell a Story – Feel – Act. The moral of that figure is this. When someone does something, says something – especially when that something irritates or angers us – we know exactly what we feel and even feel like doing. But what we overlook is that something else actually happens between seeing or hearing and the emotional response we feel. We tell a story. It happens with lightening speed, but we do it every time. We see/hear and the say to ourselves, “That son of a gun is trying to snub me. She’s so conceited. She probably thinks I’m not worth noticing so she just walks right by!” And so we feel hurt, lousy, angry and then we act according to what we think we know. But what if that wasn’t actually the case? For ourselves we know that all kinds of things go on in our heads, things that can’t be seen by others, that cause us to act in the way we do. But we don’t have the benefit of seeing inside another’s brain. What we see is what they get so to speak. We don’t give ourselves time to be curious, (they like that word, so do I) to find a way to ask the other person what might have been the cause for certain actions, certain words. (In the example above – drawn from something I actually experienced, I learned later, after becoming close friends with this particular woman, that she was terribly shy, assumed no one noticed her or would care to talk with her.) And so – we react, often “lose control.” But learning to inquire, to assume that the other person is hopefully as rationale as we are and so there must be some reason for words or actions – let’s us stay in control and avoids the kinds of statements or actions that harm, sometimes irreparably. The authors (most of them with experience or doctorates in psychology and/or business) offer other concrete, helpful questions and suggestions to steer us through the shoals of miscommunication and misunderstanding. They underscore the power of real dialogue and, in various chapters, show us concretely : how to make it safe to talk about almost anything, how to stay in dialogue when you’re angry, scared or hurt, how to speak persuasively rather than abrasively and how to stay focused on what you really want – making a relationship work. There’s a companion book to Crucial Conversations entitled Crucial Confrontations. I actually read that book first and recommended it as a family Board Meeting read. It was an excellent book for both management and employees who need discussions that deal with accountability. But Crucial Conversations deals with the lifelong dialogue in which we must engage if we are going to deepen and enrich our most intimate relationships. This one I’m keeping in the bedside table. I’ll need to reread – at least portions of it – often. <back to list |
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