Customer Reviews

The Communication Catalyst

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4 star:		(2)
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Effective execution takes coordinated effort. Why is this seemingly obvious fact so difficult to experience? The authors do an excellent job of illustrating how effective listening provides the starting point for a level of interaction that allows disparate views to be heard and valued.

This book allows me to be more aware of and intentional about, creating converations that search for a meaningful launching pad for strategic and tactical execution.


Jim Canfield
President/COO
Renaissance Executive Forums
San Diego, CA

I was introduced to this book by a colleague at a former employer. If you feel like you are building consensus, driving decisions or winning arguments - only to learn later that nothing is sticking "because of the other guy" - then you owe it to yourself to read this book.

The authors do an excellent job covering the theory of creating an authentic dialog where truth is spoken, beliefs are shared, perspectives understood and alignment and consensus are built. One of the key points is that communicating at this level is not always easy or comfortable, but it is essential to constructive communication.

In terms of format, the authors combine theory with a running fictitious story that is more colorful and detailed than a typical case study. Some may think the story is hokey, but I found it useful and entertaining. It also makes the book a hybrid between the cutesy (and somewhat useless - IMHO) parable format that is raging across business publishing, and pure theory, which can become dry and pedantic.

This is a very helpful book if you need to facilitate meetings to produce business results. It has helped me immensely.

The authors have offered a refreshing and effective model for communicating. The search for an intersection of facts, views, and intent makes incredible sense. I am using this model in all of my work and making progress in creating more value and less waste. I love their vocabulary. Buy this book if you want to make a positive and significant difference in the manner in which you communicate to those you want to influence, inspire and transform.

Connolly and Rianoshek take the view that any issue, no matter how seemingly intractable, can be resolved through effective communication. The ideas and tools in this book back up that view. The writing is clear and the organization will make it available to a variety of learning styles. Excellent book!

I've been using the ideas from the Communication Catalyst for about 6 years now in running 3 different organizations within a Fortune 100 company. In each case it has served as a great reference for my folks to use in communicating with the many interfaces in a large organization. The concepts are practical and when applied make a big difference. The book in reasonably easy to read. I don't know how many dozens of copies I've bought but I'm sure there will be more.

This is an excellent book that gives a way for individuals to take difficult problems/situations involving people and use communication to resolve the problem. It is well written with good illustrations.

Like the sadistic prison guard in the movie "Cool Hand Luke" who told his prisoners, "What we've got here is failure to communicate," managers often attribute unrealized plans, missed goals and unsuccessful projects to a lack of good communication. Most don't recognize that even casual conversations around the water cooler have the power to affect results far down the road. Communications consultants Mickey Connolly and Richard Rianoshek advise you to use conversations to add value to all your interactions. Their points are useful, if fairly general and well known. The authors use extended quotes, examples and even a fictional running story to crystallize their book's messages. getAbstract sees their guide as a good refresher course about the power of the spoken word and recommends it to recent graduates, business-world newcomers, and those who want to boost their conversational skills and draw more out of every chat.

Conversation is like the air we breathe. It is all around, always present, and taken for granted. In Communication Catalyst Mickey Connolly and Richard Rianoshek create a communicate model that points to the fact that we are suffocating from lack of oxygen--meaning we are gasping for meaningful dialogue--in our lives, in our families in our work environment. Conversation is the most available and most underutilized resource that we have to create what we want in our lives. Through their model you can learn how to be mindful of the conversations around you and even more powerfully how to be mindful of the conversation you are having in your own head. Is this conversation creating "value"; therefore, empowering? Or is this conversation creating separation, confusion or fear, which equals "waste"?
"In organizational life the community is potentially much smarter than any individual. However, your ability to release the potential brilliance of the community depends to a large extent on to the quality of interaction between individuals. In today's business world, the ability to engage in high-quality conversations represents a real competitive edge."
To leverage this competitive edge, we must become masters of coordinating action. The more variables, the greater the need for clarity. We all know this. But how do you design for clarity in coordinated activity? The answer is lies within the Communication Catalyst's conversation meter. Just like Jack Welch says that you cannot manage what you cannot measure. This tool enables individuals to evaluate the quality of the interactions taking place within any given system. The meter is a dashboard with a horizontal axis from 1-100:
0-25 Pretense Focus:
Avoid Difficulty A direct conflict between what you say in one situation and what you say in another (lying, withholding information).
25-50 Sincerity Focus:
Be honest, defend my honest opinion An honest report of my point of view; includes thoughtless certainty that my view is accurate.
50-75 Accuracy Focus:
Reveal facts and compare explanations for value Separating mutually observable facts from explanation of those facts. Includes the recognition that my perceptions are not reality.
75-100 Authenticity Focus:
Clarify several essential purpose and reveal intersections for action Genuine appreciation of various views and factors, researching where they intersect for new insight and opportunity.
Most people communicate to either entertain, convince or advise. When you become more mindful to conversation you learn that the level of effectives is a direct result of the level of listening. According to Connolly and Rianoshek the true litmus test for listening is that learning has occurred. Learning? Yes, learning. How can you learn while you are defending a position? That is exactly the point.
In order to create progress and momentum in whatever goal you are coordinating through others, you must be able to create a pathway to action that includes the worries, concerns, and perspective of the others involved--this "pathway to action" is called the intersection. In order to design and intersection in conversation, one must internalize these core axioms:
All humans have purposes, concerns, and circumstances.
When people perceive you are unaware or opposed to their purposes, concerns and circumstances they resist, producing waste.
When people perceive you are aware of and sensitive to their purposes, concerns and circumstances they communicate and collaborate, producing value.
When we come to conversation with a mindset to learn and respect these axioms, we can reduce fear, confusion, and create authentic and actionable outcomes.
The Communication Catalyst is full of real examples that demonstrate not only the philosophy behind the communication model but application. Truly a breath of fresh air.

Jennifer Sertl
Co-author Strategy Leadership & the Soul
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