Customer Reviews

The Power of Positive Confrontation: The Skills You Need to Know to Handle Conflicts at Work, at Home and in Life

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Using the techniques I learned in this book, I was finally able to confront my mother in law and my co worker about things that have been bothering me without getting upset. It worked! I found out that I was using self-discounting statements and my body langauge was a problem too. The book explains the WAC'em technique for getting your words together. The "W" helps you define what's bothering you and why.

It's only natural for a popular self-help speaker with a truly great message to want to put it into book form. The Power of Positive Confrontation teaches a truly great technique for confronting others that will help everyone who has trouble standing up for him or herself. Too bad there's only about three chapter's worth of actual content in its sixteen chapters. Instead the author gets into telling us how to dress for success, how to convey the information that a friend or loved one is in the hospital, do's and don'ts of International Travel along with several chapters of warm-up before finally getting to her actual WAC technique. Don't get me wrong, I still recommend this book highly but an abridged cassette version would be a lot less painful.

I've never been very good at confrontation; I always feel like I've said or done the right thing in the wrong way. This book changed that for good. Positive confrontation is something we all aspire to but rarely achieve. I've used what I learned in this book to deal with issues at work and at home -- and it works! Now I handle confrontation in the "right" way, and things work out much better both for me and for the person on the other side of the issue. This is a great book!

With Susan Magee, Barbara Pachter carefully analyzes all of the skills anyone needs to resolve conflicts at work, home, and in life. Confrontation is inevitable. Think about it: What REALLY upsets you? How about "road rage" when someone else cuts you off, tailgates, deliberately forces you to the side of the road, etc.? Or how about "office politicians" who lie both to your face and behind your back, thrive on hurtful gossip, and in countless other ways try to advance themselves at the cost of others? Make no mistake about it: Negative Confrontation also has power.

Pachter has a specific objective in mind: To enable those to read the book to master the skills needed to resolve confrontation is positive, constructive, and beneficial ways. As indicated in the Preface, she wants each reader to be able to say "I don't feel frustrated any more..." or "In the past I would have sulked or complained until the person got the hint, now I can just say something..." or "Annoying things don't bother me as much because I know I can say something now."

The book consists of 16 chapters, ranging from "Positive Confrontation -- What It Is and How It Can Make Your Life Better" to "International Etiquette", with Chapter 16 followed by a "Final 12-Step Pep Talk." Over the course of the book, Pachter covers just about every conceivable situation in which conflict can occur at work, home, and in life. I think this book will be invaluable to individual readers as well as to senior-level executives who can use much of the material to help those whom they supervise to master the same skills.

I do public speaking and the topic of a recent talk was How to Have Difficult Conversations. The kind that you keep procrastinating, knowing all the while that the situation won't improve unless you deal with it.

In doing my research I waded through a mountain of books on the subject. The Power of Positive Confrontation is the one I kept returning to. It is well organized, easy to read, and full of realistic examples of tough situations and how to address them with both parties emerging unscathed. I've used several of the techniques recommended in the book (including a tough firing of an employee) and found that they're effective.

If you only have the time or energy to read one book on this subject, this is the one to choose.

You won't feel you are struggling to wade through the material in this book. It is well-organized and easy-to-read. It is also full of situational examples involving confrontation, as well as techniques on how to address each issue in a positive, constructive way. This includes expressing your position on the matter in a calm, concise, polite, yet powerful manner to achieve the intended result. As I read through this book I found myself remembering similar situations that I experienced.

One method, referred to as WAC'em, seeks to identify and analyze the source of conflict to better tackle the problem. Ultimately, the goal is to focus on what is bothering you? What do you want to ask the person to do or change? And finally, check-in with the other person to get his or her thoughts.

In addition to the abundance of scenarios, regarding how to deal with different personality types in a variety of situations, there are helpful checklists to evaluate you own verbal and non-verbal image. Pachter's book is definitely a practical resource in dealing with conflict.

great book and very informative... a must read for anyone in the workplace, management, etc. plus the book arrived with very fast delivery and in almost new condition

The book teaches an easy to remember and simple to apply formula that works with confrontation. Barbara includes real-world examples of how to apply this knowledge when faced with unexpected strife.

The book definitely makes good on the title. It teaches what to say, how to say it and what not to say that would sabatoge your good work. I can now formulate a quick response to confrontation where before I always felt attacked and unprepared.

This should be a standard textbook in every High School in America. I wish I had found it earlier.

I needed this because I oversee 30 women. I found myself getting angry a lot and this book gave me a better stance and correct way to speak to my people

The WAC approach to resolve problems and have a gentle and powerful resolution to a problem is very simple, but it works great, I bought this book 2 weeks ago and I began to use the advice in it almost immediately, the formula is very simple and easy to remember and it gives you confidence that you are asking the things in the right way, not in a wimp or bully way, I'm 33 and I accept that most of my life I avoid conflict because I didn't know how to behave without being rude or because I thought that maybe my words will became to harsh or could start a fight, but after reading the first chapters of the book I realize that is very simple to have a positive confrontation and get result you want in a very gentle way. 5 stars.