Crucial Conversations
The New York Times Bestseller!Learn how to keep your cool and get the results you want when emotions flare.When stakes are high, opinions vary, and emotions run strong, you have three choices: Avoid a crucial conversation and suffer the consequences; handle the conversation badly and suffer the consequences; or read Crucial Conversations and discover how to communicate best when it matters most. Crucial Conversations gives you the tools you need to step up to life's most difficult and important conversations, say what's on your mind, and achieve the positive resolutions you want. You'll learn how to:Prepare for high-impact situations with a six-minute mastery techniqueMake it safe to talk about almost anythingBe persuasive, not abrasiveKeep listening when others blow up or clam upTurn crucial conversations into the action and results you wantWhether they take place at work or at home, with your neighbors or your spouse, crucial conversations can have a profound impact on your career, your happiness, and your future. With the skills you learn in this book, you'll never have to worry about the outcome of a crucial conversation again.
Stats for nerds
90recommend
148mentions
101people
2009–2025years
85% recommend14% neutral1% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- > I am a professional problem solver, you described a problem, yet you do not want it solved?
This will be hard for you to believe, but I will easily wager good money that at times you yourself behave this way. You only become aware of it after both below are satisfied:
1. You've encountered someone as annoying as yourself :-)
2. You learn a bit more about the dynamics of conversations.
If there's any time someone got mad at you and said "You just want to complain and not fix the problem!" chances are this dynamic was in play. Or "I've given you so many suggestions but you don't want to fix the problem and just complain!"
Everyone acts that way to some extent. Some more than others.
Here's a typical scenario (common amongst spouses, but even amongst friends). You're annoyed/down due to problem X. Your friend sees you that way and inquires why you're down. You tell them, and they spend all their time giving you suggestions. But you never asked for suggestions!
It's not a big leap to go from there to someone simply telling you their problem because they want to get it out of their system.
Some books I've read that made it easier to understand all of this:
- Difficult Conversations
- Nonviolent Communication[1]
- Crucial Conversations
All of these will emphasize the role emotions play in dialogue. And when you read them, chances are very high you'll find yourself in them (i.e. they will give examples that you can relate to - on both sides of the conversation).
Once I read these, many, many "poor" conversations from my life earlier suddenly made sense to me. One nice outcome was learning that even though at times people were upset at me, it wasn't always "my fault". I had always taken for granted that because I didn't spend much time playing social games, that my social skills were poor and likely I did something wrong. Reading these made it clear how often the dysfunction was on the other side, and having good/poor conversations is not well correlated with "social skills".
[1] HN has as strong knee jerk reaction when this book is mentioned, but in my experience, everyone who complained had not read the book, and almost all the complaints were semi-strawmen.
- "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie [1] has some very interesting concepts, despite its terrible name, IMO. There are many takeaways but a couple are that people generally like hearing their name and enjoy talking about themselves.
Then there are two very similar, but IMO, complementary books, "Difficult Conversations" by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen [2], and "Crucial Conversations" by Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler, and Kerry Patterson [3] which helped me learn to embrace being genuinely curious and accept + explain different, sometimes conflicting, emotions. It was especially helpful to help me deal with people who were very confrontational and tried to create conflict, and really difficult situations while conversing.
There have been some more books I've read, which I don't recall the titles for and don't even have notes for, but these 3 and "Never Split the Difference" you've mentioned were certainly the most interesting and helpful in this "area", to me.
[1]: https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0...
[2]: https://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Conversations-Discuss-What-...
[3]: https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Talking-Stakes-...
I hope that helps!
- There's some nice ideas here but the reasoning / breakdown could be better "defined".
I highly recommend reading Crucial Conversations if you want to learn how to systematically have these conversations that seem "confrontational". As a recovering introvert, it was super useful to break down these social interactions and understand the mistakes that I (and most people) make. It was part of management training at Facebook; I found it also helped me in many contexts outside of work too.
- Very well said!
"Emotional Intelligence" is just a marketing term for awareness of other people's emotional needs/thoughts/behaviour/etc. and modulating one's interactions accordingly.
The trick is to do it effectively without allowing oneself to be manipulated/becoming a doormat/hurting the other person's ego.
The books Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations by Kerry Patterson et al. are useful in this regard.
- Not an article, but I do frequently recommend the following:
Multipliers - an excellent book on how to avoid becoming a stereotypical bad boss. Chapters are easy to read independently and have great summaries at the end.
Crucial Conversations - good for both professional and personal conversations. Learn how to have a difficult conversation without burning down the relationship.
Finally, look up SOON (acronym) for when someone you manage comes to you seeking guidance.
- I cannot recommend "Crucial Conversations" enough (https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Conversations-Third-Talking-S...), excellent source for everyone but esp. for managers. It will teach you how to broach difficult topics with reports and how to deal with difficult personalities, which inevitably you will encounter.
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