Review of "Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High" By Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzer Instaread summary

Review of

Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High By Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzer Instaread summary

Five out of five stars

 

 It is difficult to impossible to write a review of a book summary without commenting on the book, so I will not even try to avoid it. When reading this summary my thoughts went quickly to the quote attributed to Albert Einstein, “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice but in practice there is.”

 What the authors state is true, there is no question about that. People should be free to clearly state their opinions regarding critical organizational practices without fear of retribution. People higher up in the decision tree should encourage people to state their minds without fear of being exposed to negative consequences. However, this is a case where it is easy to state something in a book but a completely different situation to do so in practice. I was amused by the mention of the phenomenon of the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump. His success, despite saying things long considered politically deadly, is evidence that many people are very frustrated at “limp language” being the growing norm.

 At a time when there is an increase in complaints about microaggressions and public figures are castigated for how a single word is interpreted by a small segment of the population, one has trouble hoping that the authors’ recommendations will be acted on. Even though it would save billions of dollars in wasted time and effort.

 The summary itself is a clear, concise and understandable rendition of the contents of the book It was clear to me what the points are and that there is nothing new in the content. This is hardly the first time that real or virtual ink has been used to make these points. If you have heard of this book and are pondering whether to read it, examine this summary first. Very few people will not be able to make a decision whether to read the entire book after reading this one.

This book was made available for free for review purposes