I recommend this book – Crucial Conversations, with the subtitle Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High. The authors are four men with extensive experience in this field – Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler.
If I were to give in to the impulse of my rising sign Aries, I would recommend it to you like this: “Get this book at any cost, read it, practice it, then read it again and practice again, because this book can change your life! It’s fantastic! It’s wonderful! One of the best books about human communication I have ever read!!!”
But since my enthusiastic and impulsive Ascendant stands close to the strict planet Saturn, I will continue with a more argued and restrained presentation, adding that I have relatively solid experience in the field of human communication. I have read quite a lot in this area, and during my teaching period in life I even taught on this topic. That is why I am now quite demanding and critical of what is published in this field. This book, however, is truly very good.
It is the result of the work of a team of highly educated professionals who have researched the main factors of success in life. They began by observing what distinguishes the most successful people from the less successful ones. Thus, they discovered that the main characteristic of the most successful people is their ability to communicate better than others. After this discovery, the focus of their research shifted, and they began to explore how these most successful people communicate. What is it that they can do that others cannot? And why is communication so exceptionally important for success in life?
In this book you will find the answers to these questions, as well as everything most important that its authors have discovered as a result of their long-term (a full 25 years!) research into successful communication. In addition, the way the book is written is exceptionally inspiring – very clear and well-argued, rich in examples, and with a great sense of humor. As you read it, you feel your power to change your life for the better growing. Only after I began reading it did I understand why Stephen Covey (an author I value greatly) wrote the foreword to it. And guess what – he uses exactly the same word to describe his impression of the book – inspiring! What is more, he calls it revolutionary.
They say that God knows His work. And sometimes it happens that even I know that God knows His work. That is exactly what happened with this book. I had begun preparing a series of publications on the topic of “the power of authentic communication,” which was the topic of my lecture at the festival Discover Yourself. Since at that time I did not manage to present everything I had prepared within the 45 minutes given to me, I decided that I would complete what was left unfinished by writing a series of articles here, on my website. I started writing them, presenting the perspective of systemic psychotherapy, thanks to which I had managed to understand most deeply the enormous significance of human communication for mental health.
At a certain point, however, I stopped. Something was preventing me from continuing. After reading this book, I understood what it had been – I was missing the transition from the abstract to the concrete, which would show how, in practice, the ideas of this psychotherapy can be applied in everyday life by non-specialists. While reading the book, I did not stop being amazed at how its authors (who come from the world of business) share views akin to those of systemic psychotherapy. Although the concepts they use are different, their understanding of the enormous impact of communication on a person’s psychological well-being (that is, on success) is the same.
In the past, after reading Marshall Rosenberg’s book Nonviolent Communication, I felt a similar inspiration. In accessible language, it presented the ideas of another psychotherapy (the humanistic approach) and its main therapeutic instrument (empathy). Crucial Conversations is the second such book in the field of human communication to which I respond in the same way. I believe that every page of it deserves the effort to be read, because it is written with wisdom, care, lightness, and insight. It is possible that my enthusiasm may mislead some people, and I apologize in advance if that happens. I do know, however, that true connoisseurs of knowledge in this field will recognize the power of the knowledge shared in it.
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
