But dodging issues, appeasing difficult people, and mishandling tough encounters all carry a high price for managers and companies, in the form of damaged relationships, ruined careers, and intensified problems.

In Failure to Communicate, Holly Weeks shows how to master the combat mentality, emotional maelstrom, and confusion that poison difficult conversations. Drawing on her many years as a consultant and coach to leaders and executives, the author explains:

• Why we turn to ineffective tactics when the heat is on
• How to avoid the worst pitfalls of difficult conversations, and how to pull yourself out if you fall in
• Ways to regain your balance and inject respect into stressful conversations, even when you've been confronted, infuriated, or wronged
• Strategies for mitigating aggression and defensiveness, and for clearing the fog of misconceptions
• How to get through the hardest conversations with your reputation and relationships intact

Failure to Communicate provides a clear, persuasive, compassionate and concrete guide about how to think ahead of time, not in the heat of the moment. Learn how to figure out what you want to do and where you want to get in a sensitive and difficult communication. Know your own worst problems -the triggers that screw you up— know what to say the next time. Learn to recognize and avoid common tactics that work badly, even if you use them yourself, and replace them with better techniques. Expand your range of responses, and find the middle ground that changes the game, so that the issue is not about controlling or not controlling the situation, but of being who you want to be.

Product Details

Retail Price: $24.95 PMB Price: $16.00
ISBN: 978-1578518999
Publication Date: 15-Sep-08
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
Author: Holly Weeks
Binding: Harcover
Language: English
Pages:  256