Failure to Communicate

How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do to Right Them

Holly Weeks

• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781422137499
• eBook ISBN: 9781422166451
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Communication
• Index: Business

Your stomach's churning; you're hyperventilating -- you're in a badly deteriorating conversation at work. Such exchanges, which run the gamut from firing subordinates to parrying verbal attacks from colleagues, are so loaded with anger, confusion, and fear that most people handle them poorly: they avoid them, clamp down, or give in.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 intactUsing proven techniques paired with detailed real-life examples, Weeks equips you with the strategies and practices you need to transform even the toughest conversations.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• CHAPTER 1 - Introduction
• CHAPTER 2 - Anatomy of Hard Talks
• CHAPTER 3 - What’s Wrong with What We Do
• CHAPTER 4 - Rethinking What We Do
• CHAPTER 5 - Acting Unilaterally
• CHAPTER 6 - Conversational Warfare and the Combat Mentality
• CHAPTER 7 - Out of Combat
• CHAPTER 8 - Caught Up in Emotions
• CHAPTER 9 - Out of Emotion’s Grip
• CHAPTER 10 - Working Blind in the “Breakdown Gap”
• CHAPTER 11 - Out of the Breakdown Gap
• CHAPTER 12 - Conclusion
• NOTES
• INDEX
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR