‘Crucial Conversations’ by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler
By Ranjini Rao
Coach, Facilitator, Consultant, Author
Bangalore, India
‘Crucial Conversations’ by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler
I was never a fan of books until 2010 onwards. This is probably one of my first and foremost books in leadership and emotions management that I had purchased after the HBR Leadership Series – Managing yourself. I was facing challenges and was constantly concerned by the behaviour of some of my work colleagues and team mates. When I was discussing with my aunt, she casually mentioned this book – ‘Crucial Conversations’. She said it covered pretty much a structure to articulate and communicate your thoughts in a very constructive way and in an affirmative tone.
At first I laughed at her and said, “How can a book teach me how to communicate my thoughts as my learning style is experiential?” However being an experimenter, I felt there was no harm in trying it out and that’s when I purchased the Amazon kindle version of it. Probably also one of my first and foremost digital books to be added into the amazon e-library. After I started reading the e-book. I literally started writing down some key pointers and would outline my conversation starter and practice it time and again before I actually approached the team members whom I wanted to communicate in an assertive manner.
After a few trial rounds I started to feel more empowered about how I communicated about our web revenue targets, encouraged them to develop certain soft skills at work especially while dealing with stakeholders, ensuring that deadlines are met and sharing feedback in a non judgmental way.
They also appreciated the intent with which I communicated the facts with evidence and to meet the outcomes rather than focusing on them personally. I also realized it was never about them, it was what we were trying to achieve as a team.
This is not the only use of the book – this book can be used for communicating with family and extended relationships or people you interact with. It can change the way you look at conflicting situations too. Let me know your experience if you end up picking and reading the book!
By Ranjini Rao
Coach, Facilitator, Consultant, Author
Bangalore, India
A former IBM Digital Strategy leader and corporate veteran, quit her career after 23 years to transition into a career that’s focused on holistic wellbeing & wellness . She has been a recipient of several excellence awards in her career and recognised as Taj Innercircle Work-Life Champion. She redesigned & reinvented her career and envisioned living a holistically balanced lifestyle with Design Thinking & law of attraction principles. She has realised her dreams to becoming Life and Leadership coach.
She specializes in Business innovation & Problem Solving through Design thinking, Personal Growth and Development and Art based facilitation and mindfulness with Mandalas and other art forms.
Additionally, she has also been teaching self care practices Reiki and imparting holistic wellness techniques like visualization, crystal therapy and mandala art to individuals and has delivered over 600+ workshops in design thinking and other topics including mandala art, redesigning career / life balance strategies. She is also the creator of unique coaching 4 step applied framework “Discovery to Experience” the ‘blueprint of your life’s design’ (an integrated approach to holistic & balanced living)
And in her free time she volunteers as an Accelerator Mentor with Google Accelerator for Startups as a growth marketing mentor, a fitness enthusiast, educating kids on the knowledge of human values etc. Ranjini lives with her family in Bangalore – her spouse and mother. She is a believer that divinity & magic lies within each one of us and on to a mission to guide people on their journey to their true self.