Crucial Confrontations: Tools for talking about broken promises, violated expectations, and bad behavior (Paperback)

~ (Author), Joseph Grenny (Author), Ron McMillan (Author), Al Switzler (Author) "When two Stanford researchers pulled up to a plywood mill in the foothills of northwestern Washington, they were surprised to see an ambulance parked out..." (more)
Key Phrases: stay focused and flexible, consequence bundle, crucial confrontations, Mutual Purpose, What's Next, Groundhog Day (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

The authors of the New York Times bestseller Crucial Conversations show you how to achieve personal, team, and organizational success by healing broken promises, resolving violated expectations, and influencing bad behavior

Discover skills to resolve touchy, controversial, and complex issues at work and at home--now available in this follow-up to the internationally popular Crucial Conversations.

Behind the problems that routinely plague organizations and families, you'll find individuals who are either unwilling or unable to deal with failed promises. Others have broken rules, missed deadlines, failed to live up to commitments, or just plain behaved badly--and nobody steps up to the issue. Or they do, but do a lousy job and create a whole new set of problems. Accountability suffers and new problems spring up. New research demonstrates that these disappointments aren't just irritating, they're costly--sapping organizational performance by twenty to fifty percent and accounting for up to ninety percent of divorces.

Crucial Confrontations teaches skills drawn from 10,000 hours of real-life observations to increase confidence in facing issues like:

*An employee speaks to you in an insulting tone that steps crosses the line between sarcasm and insubordination. Now what?
*Your boss just committed you to a deadline you know you can't meet--and not-so-subtly hinted he doesn't want to hear complaints about it.
*Your son walks through the door sporting colorful new body art that raises your blood pressure by forty points. Speak now, pay later.
*An accountant wonders how to step up to a client who is violating the law. Can you spell unemployment?
*Family members fret over how to tell granddad that he should no longer drive his car. This is going to get ugly.
*A nurse worries about what to say to an abusive physician. She quickly remembers "how things work around here" and decides not to say anything.

Everyone knows how to run for cover, or if adequately provoked, step up to these confrontations in a way that causes a real ruckus. That we have down pat. Crucial Confrontations teaches you how to deal with violated expectations in a way that solves the problem at hand, and doesn't harm the relationship--and in fact, even strengthens it.

Crucial Confrontations borrows from twenty years of research involving two groups. More than 25,000 people helped the authors identify those who were most influential during crucial confrontations. They spent 10,000 hours watching these people, documented what they saw, and then trained and tested with more than 300,000 people. Second, they measured the impact of crucial confrontations improvements on organizational and team performance--the results were immediate and sustainable: twenty to fifty percent improvements in measurable performance.

From the Inside Flap

"...revolutionary ideas...opportunities for breakthrough..." -- Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

"...unleash the true potential of a relationship or organization and move it to the next level...."-- Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The One Minute Manager® and The Secret: What Great Leaders Know--and Do

"... the most recommended and most effective resource in my library."-- Stacey Allerton Firth, Vice President, Human Resources, Ford of Canada

"...brilliant strategies for those difficult discussions at home and in the workplace..."--Soledad O'Brien, cohost of CNN's Morning Edition

"This book is the real deal....Read it, underline it, learn from it. It's a gem."-- Mike Murray, VP Human Resources and Administration, Microsoft (retired)

NEVER WALK AWAY FROM ANOTHER TOUCHY, CONTROVERSIAL, OR COMPLEX ISSUE--AT WORK OR AT HOME!

Behind the problems that routinely plague families, teams, and organizations are individuals who either can't or won't deal with failed promises. Others have broken rules, missed deadlines, or just plain behaved badly. If anybody steps up to the issue, they often do a lousy job and create a whole new set of problems.

New research demonstrates that these disappointments aren't just irritating. They're costly—sapping organizational performance by 20-50 percent and accounting for up to 90 percent of divorces.

Crucial Confrontations teaches skills drawn from over 20,000 hours of real-life observations to increase confidence in facing tough issues. Learn to:

Permanently resolve failed promises and missed deadlines

Transform broken rules and bad behaviors into productive accountability

Strengthen relationships while solving problems

When you learn how to handle crucial confrontations, everything gets better.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 284 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (August 26, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071446524
• ISBN-13: 978-0071446525
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,769 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Re-Hashed but Good, March 17, 2005

By	NHansen www.thehappinessblog.com - See all my reviews

If you have read Crucial Conversations, then you are already very familiar with this book and its contents. The fact is, this book is a re-hashing of Crucial Conversations; however, this time, the principles shared seem more applicable than they were before.
I think that this book is the real and better application of the authors' main principles. It is an easy and quick read and the language is very simple and direct. The book discusses ways to have a confrontation in which results are gained and friendships are not lost. It is a win-win approach. I do believe that this book can and does help. I did not particularily like the Crucial Conversations because it wasn't real earth shattering and seemed to simple. This time, however, the subject of "confrontations" seems more open to the authors' intentions-- thus a better read.
This is a good book to read and a better book to apply.

67 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Peril or Opportunity? , October 14, 2004

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

As I read this exceptionally informative book, I was again reminded of the fact that the Chinese word for "crisis" has two meanings: peril and opportunity. As those who have been or are now involved in process simplification initiatives already know, every problem encountered offers a valuable learning opportunity. The same is also true when encountering "broken promises, violated expectations, and bad behavior" either within or beyond the workplace. The authors of this volume address questions such as these:

What's a "crucial confrontation"?
What to do before one occurs?
How to know when -- and when NOT -- to initiate one?
How to "get your head right before opening your mouth"?
How to begin a crucial confrontation?
How to involve and engage others to take appropriate action?
How to make keeping commitments (almost) painless?
What to do when others "get sidetracked, scream, or sulk"?
What to do after a crucial confrontation?
How to gain commitment and move to action?
How to solve "big, sticky, complicated problems"?
How to deal with the truly tough? (i.e. the twelve "yeh buts")

The authors also provide four appendices: A self-assessment for measuring confrontation skills, "The Six-Source Model," "When Things Go Right," and discussion questions for reading groups. Although any one of the appendices is worth far more than the cost of this book, their greatest value will be derived when the information and counsel are correlated with the material which the authors share in the nine chapters.

My own experience in the business world suggests that "broken promises, violated expectations, and bad behavior" really do offer both perils and opportunities. A careful reading of this book and then an equally careful application of the advice which the authors offer will, in my opinion, help reduce (if not eliminate) the former while helping to achieve effective fulfillment of the latter.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Speak up and maybe save your life, December 2, 2004

By	Mikel Cook (Northern California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I surprised myself by reading almost the entire book during a two-week trip to Thailand w. The authors do a great job of showing how NOT stepping up has allowed catastrophic consquences to result. For example, the co-pilot who chose not to speak up when the pilot was preparing to take off in freezing weather with ice building up on the wings. All that survived was the cockpit tape that has the copilot hinting at the danger and not taking a powerful stand with the pilot. Our circumstances are not likely to be that drastic, but it is really very serious business.

I like that the book recognizes that speaking up can be risky and talks about how to make reasonably sure that you won't hurt your career or relationship when you choose to speak up.

The keys to managing the conversation so you don't get off in the weeds and get a valuable result begin with stepping back for a moment and remembering how you got to your reaction. The authors say we start by seeing or hearing something, draw come conclusions, react and then take action. If you review what exactly are the facts you started with and what are the interpretations or conclusions you came to, you are free to share it as a story the other person can understand. If you speak as if your conclusions are facts, you can lose the rapport you need to have a good outcome.

I like the question the authors suggest asking yourself to get to how to start a conversation that doesn't amount to an attack: "What would cause a reasonable, rational and decent person to act like this?" Answering that question puts me in a frame of mind to begin with an attitude of mutual respect.

The other major key for me that I got out of the book is realizing that when someone does react badly during a conversation like this is that two key safety issues could be percieved as missing: mutual respect and mutual purpose. If you are ready to restore a sense of mutual respect and mutual purpose, then you can get back out of the weeds of someone reacting in ways you don't intend or that surprise you.

Providing a way of knowing what to do if things go wrong in the conversation is key to my being willing to take on having the conversation in the first place. Most people just keep quiet and there is a cost to that. Some people hold back until they blow up and that doesn't work very well either.

That is my three paragraph teaser about the book. I like that the book is based on over 20 years of studying people who excell at this type of conversation and distilling how they do it.