The master teacher of positive change through powerful communication, Susan Scott, wants her readers to succeed. To do that, she explains, one must transform everyday conversations employing effective ways to get the message across. In this guide, which includes exercises and tools to take you step by step through the Seven Principles of Fierce Conversations, Scott teaches readers how to:
Overcome barriers to meaningful communication Expand and enrich conversations with colleagues, friends, and family Increase clarity and improve understanding Handle strong emotions-on both sides of the table Susan Scott believes that interpersonal difficulties–at work and at home–are a direct result of our inability to communicate well. Fierce Conversations is based on principles from her international consulting practice, in which she teaches executives how to conduct such exchanges more dynamically and ultimately more effectively, thereby improving the relationships they enjoy with their various dialogue partners “one conversation at a time.” Using identifiable anecdotes from her experience to inspire and inform, along with a series of practical exercises designed to impart the requisite skills, Scott walks readers through the individual steps she’s developed to build better associations through more robust and honest discourses. Addressing all aspects of the process, from several methods for listening more attentively to specific ways she’s fashioned to confront and resolve issues “that stand between you and success,” Scott offers the type of concrete advice and confidence-building counsel that should help even the most reticent improve their communication skills dramatically. –Howard Rothman
Come out from behind yourself Fierce Conversations is a life-changing book. It brings to stark consciousness the weak, limp, lukewarm, and inhibited manner in which we converse with each other today. It reveals a style of “conversation” which we all have with others that simply is not working. The author encourages us to “come out from behind ourselves” and let people…in conversation…get to know the real us. It eschews the vapid, dead, superficial, lifeless way we talk to each other, and the abysmal results that ensue…
Excellent resource for subtle – yet impacting – change. This book, given to me by my boss, changed my approach to conversations with everyone in my life and it changed my internal converstions with myself as well. I highly recommend it as a tool to enhance relationships and communication practices within organizations where communication lacks authenticity and efficiency. All the better, its an easy read. I have my wife and my mentor reading it currently, too!
A great and useful read Substantive all the way through. Not about “how to go about fixing other people by telling them how they’re wrong,” but looking at a whole system, including one’s own contributions to a problem. And, it doesn’t pretend that the core personal issues that cause a leader to contribute to problems at home are different from those that cause that same leader to contribute to problems at work. And it’s not a self-help book or a therapy book. It’s a distinctively honest look at being…