Crucial Conversations Summary

The concepts and ideas of the book are extremely similar to the ones that are taught in negotiations. It is all about truly understanding one self’s and others emotions, tendencies, fears, motives and etc. and how to use them to gain a common ground. A lot of human physiology is mentioned in the book, because our bodies have natural tendencies, for example: fighter flight. Not being able to acknowledge that when we feel unsafe, less blood is flowing into the rational part of the brain and then in turn triggers fighter flight mode. Being in the wrong state of mind can affect our behavior and the outcomes of crucial conversations. Our bodies have been evolving for years and we are programmed to fight when we sense danger. Imagine getting towed,

A crucial conversation can start very small, e.g. in the book they mention an scenario about a man whose neighbor is upset about a fence that is three inches on his property. This would not have escalated into a crucial conversation that involves threats and lawyers, but people lack communication skills and this causes most confrontations. The problem begins with the neighbor that is either scared or embarrassed to say anything about the fence, instead he makes smart-ass remarks about the fence when the opportunity arises and finally the fence owner is fed up and calls him out on the cheap shots. The argument finally ends terribly with threats of suing each other over a

Since these subjects go well together, it is easy to see that people are not only terrible negotiators, but also terrible communicators in general. It will not always be the case that a bad negotiator is a bad communicator, but the skills required for both of these subjects are extremely similar. Crucial Conversations took a lot of concepts discussed in negotiation and put them into every day dialogue. The idea of a long-term relationship can really be determined by one conversation you have with someone, whether it is a negotiation or a simple talk over what you think about a football team. A lot of the concepts taught require a lot of confidence; telling your CEO boss that he is wrong is not easy because of his intimidating title, but with the right content and dialogue; the end result will benefit you the most vs. not saying anything. Overall the book teaches the way dialogue should go in a crucial conversation and how to save yourself once you screw up dialogue in different