Quick Review: Crucial Conversations – High Stakes Communication! |

Crucial conversations can be found everywhere unless you are actively avoiding other people, or life in general. Most people avoid crucial conversations or, if they have the courage to take them on, then they handle them poorly and suffer the consequences. It’s better to learn how to communicate effectively so that you don’t miss out on opportunities and by messing up important conversations.

What is a crucial conversation?

A discussion turns crucial when opposing opinions are raised, stakes are high, and emotions run strong.

Takeaways from Crucial Conversations

Safety.
Creating a safe environment for the discussion to take place. People don’t want to add to “the pool of information” unless it’s safe to do so.
Fools choice.
Avoid false dichotomies of “either/or” solutions and look for the “and”.
Narratives.
We make up stories in our head that help us make sense of how people behave and why. It’s important to not label these stories as truth. You might not know everything to get the whole picture.
Don’t cast the first stone.
“Lord, help me forgive those who sin differently than me”. When going into conversations that are spoken from anger it is important to see that your are now without flaws yourself. This helps you with being forgiving.

Book verdict and takeaway

There’s a lot of solid ideas in this book it’s hard not to come out of it a wiser communicator. Even if some ideas feel like common sense the are sure hard to execute in practice. What I didn’t like was the excessive use of buzzwords and acronyms in the writing. But well..

One skill I found extra useful is contrasting. Where you explain what you “don’t intend” before explain what you “do intend” with what you’re saying.