I dreaded this book but there were really great things I learned and can’t wait to apply in my conversations.

5 stars because the book has a huge value for its size. The book is short and to the point, full of actionable recommendations without needless anecdotal stories.

I came across this book while working in India. I made a mental note to get it one day and read it. Since the book does not have a digital copy, it took me longer to get a physical copy and read it but now I finally manage to do it and it was worth it. Crucial conversations are conversations we all go through but not everyone is good at handle them. I identified my weak spots when having a conversation where stakes are high and things can go south rapidly, the book reinforce what I thought and it opened up a whole new dimension on how to identify, process and react to crucial conversations. I fully enjoyed the book and I think is a great tool to improve the way to handle delicate conversations with other people.

Everyone engages in crucial conversations -- where a decision is made, emotions are running, or there are many opinions. This book presents a framework and techniques for navigating this by first focusing on yourself, realizing that you control your perceptions and reactions. Engage in meaningful dialogue by adding to the shared pool of knowledge. If you encounter silence or violence, step back from the content to the condition. Establish a mutual purpose, eg, "we both want this to work and we both like each other" and then re-engage "how can we make it work?" One technique is to avoid the sucker's choice of either-or scenarios "either we do X or I'm out" and challenge yourselves with the 'and' scenarios "how can we do X and make it work?" I've read it twice. Even better the second time.

"Nothing in this world is good or bad, but thinking makes it so." (WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE) "Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret." (AMBROSE BIERCE)

According to the book crucial conversations are conversations with high stakes and that make people emotional. I was surprised how many conversations like we have almost on a daily basis. The language is a bit consultant-y at times, but I loved the structure and the advice is solid. I have managed to successfully use the techniques in few, not very high-stake, but definitely emotional arguments. Make sure to take note of the chapter summaries, they are great to re-read every once in a while.

This is not my usual sort of book, for two reasons: I don't often read nonfiction and when I do, it's not anything that could be classified even loosely as self-help. The first note I made in this book was bout its self-congratulatory tone, and the authors do throughout seem smug and confident. I can imagine them on a stage with fancy headpiece microphones throwing out air quotes around the various buzz words/phrases they introduce in the book and all but inviting people to do trust falls. In spite of all that, I did get a few useful things from this book, notably that it's good to find a common purpose when having a tough conversation rather than landing yourself in essentially an argument about who's right and that you have to be careful about inventing stories/motivations for how others address you. I'm bad about both of these things in my personal communication, and already I've found myself in conversations thinking about the actual information being given to me vs. the narrative I want to hear and be offended by. These are pretty obvious things now that I've read them, but I had never really thought of them in such plain terms, and I think I'll find them useful. I think I could have gotten most of the useful info from the book in a 5-page paper, though. Often enough, the book felt like basically a sales pitch for the consulting services I imagine the authors provide. So my rating for the book itself is pretty low, though a couple of the ideas I think will be pretty useful for me to keep in mind as I have even not-very-tough conversations.

I switched to the audiobook. This book is straightforward and if you're following the suggestions in it, it will improve your life, relationship and work life. I wish this would be taught at schools or work places in general. The only thing I wish it had more would be real life situations or example conversations.

The main idea behind the book is that we are at our worst when we have to be at our best. We perform badly in conversations that are crucial to our future. Using the techniques given by the book we can be improve on the required skills to hold a crucial conversation. The authors define a Crucial Conversation (as opposed to a vanilla conversation) as a conversation in which this criteria is met: - Participants hold different opinions. - Stakes are high. - Emotions run strong. The whole book revolves around the idea that we should be vigilant in our crucial conversations and try to Restore Safety when the other part goes silent or violent. The book gives us lots of techniques to bring back the safety to the conversation. We can be sincere and don’t lose a friend or a job over a conversation. We should control our Path to Action (see & hear, tell a story, feel, act) and don’t let our emotions held us hostage. Once we have restored the right conditions for a dialogue, we can use the STATE framework to help us in the conversation. I’d recommend the read if you have some spare time and you think you could have a high number of crucial conversations in the near future.