This week’s pick of the must read books for every capable intrapreneur and entrepreneur is Crucial Conversations. The concepts relayed in this book are, pardon the pun, crucial to any manager, family member, or human being who hopes to communicate effectively. The book outlines why high-emotion conversations seems to always devolve into shouting matches and what the able communicator can do to prevent that.
By breaking down the emotional leaps that the average brain makes once a conversation is important enough to trigger our fight-or-fight response, the authors show why your conversations are currently doomed to failing. Most importantly, they also provide tips and techniques to stop the adrenaline from overpowering our higher brain functions. By mastering your responses, you can stay engaged in these important conversations and see them through to their conclusion without arbitrarily blowing up.
The lessons within this book are valuable, easily digestible, and immediately usable. The chapters are broken down into both practical examples and related concepts that clearly build upon each other. Crucial Conversations is a fairly quick read that is ideal for short sprints on individual chapters.
This is the kind of book you keep and re-read once a year to brush up on the skills contained. This is required reading whether you already feel you effectively communicate or not. You can see an in-depth synopsis and buy the book with the link below:
Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition

Recently, I connected with dozens of corporate executives of large and small com