Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time

By Susan Scott

Book Overview

Fierce Conversations is a way of conducting business. An attitude. A way of life. Susan Scott has spent sixteen years training clients in the art of fierce conversations, empowering them to achieve exceptional results through successful communication. Now she brings her expertise to readers everywhere. Fierce Conversationsilluminates the path to a new degree of authenticity, a new way of expressing who you are and what you believe, as a person and a leader. In it, Scott explains the keys to regularly engaging in frontier conversations with yourself, colleagues, customers, friends, family, and the unknown future emerging around you. Fierce Conversationsteaches you how to: *overcome barriers to meaningful conversation * master the courage and skill to interrogate reality-yours and others' * obey your instincts in every conversation * confront tough issues with courage, confidence, and care * inspire followers, attract believers, and build visions that become reality * leverage new skills for frictionless debate * handle strong emotions-your own as well as others' * operate from a base of authentic self-knowledge * enrich your most challenging relationships * build breakthrough relationships with colleagues, clients, friends, and family Having mastered the principles and practice of courageous, transformative dialogue, you will begin to change your life-one conversation at a time. "A rare and delightful blend of stimulating ideas and practical advice. Exciting and well written, Fierce Conversations is the perfect gift for anyone you care about, and above all yourself! This is a book you'll treasure and, I predict, will want to reread often." (Sheldon Bowles, co-author of Gung Ho! Turn On the People in Any Organization) "When the authentic conversations so clearly described in this book book catch on everywhere, it will be the end of gossip, corporate politics, bad marriages, and 360o feedback. Fierce Conversations is today's primer for success as well as for survival in our ever-changing world." (Stephen C. Lundin, Ph.D., Harry Paul, and John Christensen, co-author Fish!and Fish! Tales) "Susan Scott delivers a wealth of uncommon common sense in Fierce Conversations. Her warmth and skill as coach and counselor provide the healthy nudges we all need from time to time to jump in, get engaged, and manage ourselves and the world around us more directly, positively and productively. It's a reminder that 'the way out is through,' and she provides great techniques for navigating the passage." (David Allen, President of David Allen & Co. and author of Getting Things Done "If conversations are the lifeblood of our most important relationships, this book is a transfusion of ideas and inspiration. Susan Scott has written a life-affirming primer for moving us toward the conversations we need to have most." (Doug Stone, co-author of Difficult Conversations) "The path to a fierce conversation is lined with the velvet words of wisdom of Susan Scott. Her deep insights artfully show us how most life problems can be solved or dissolved with a fierce conversation." (Arielle Ford, President of the Ford Group and author of Magical Souvenirs: True Spiritual Adventures From Around the World) "I was captivated by this magnificent book right from the start. Fierce Conversationsinsightfully captures and clearly interrogates the heart of 'real' conversation. Spending time with Susan Scott's principles has the potential to make a significant difference in our work, our relationships, and in our understanding of ourselves." (Richard Carr, President & CEO, TEC International) "Susan Scott is the master teacher of positiv

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670031240
• ISBN13: 9780670031245
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 266 Pages
• Weight: 0.97 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.2" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Excellent book

One of the best books I have read on having meaningful conversations, tackling difficult interactions, building good relationships. Easy to read.

Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time

This is a worthwhile book for personal and leadership development. It contains practical tools such as: 1) The Decision Tree for delegation and professional development 2) A confrontation model 3) Questions for one-to-ones (fuel for discussion with colleagues and direct reports) 4) A Leader's Stump Speech: Where am I going? Why am I going there? Who is going with me? How will I get there? 5) The concept of our "Emotional Wake" - worth reading and pondering about. "An emotional wake is what you remember after I'm gone. The aftermath, aftertaste, or afterglow." 6) The image of the crucible to remind us that our job is "simply to hold, so that whatever needs to be said, what needs to be heard, can safely be said and heard." And much more.... There are also many fresh metaphors -- one is tempted to keep highlighting the book. Rich quotations, references to books, music, poetry.... good examples and stories. I also appreciated the "Assignments" and Brief Summaries at the end of each chapter.

How to get to the heart of the matter through conversation

Susan Scott has written an outstanding book on how to use everyday conversation to cut through the politics of work relationships and start talking about what we are all "pretending not to know". I was consistently impacted while reading it, not so much that the material is brand new, but that it is presented in such a way that the opportunities and misses of my own interactions were obvious. One of the topics discussed is called "Mineral Rights", a type of conversation designed to get deep, past the surface and into the truth of what is going on. The approach accomplishes four purposes: Interrogate reality, provoke learning, tackle tough challenges, and enrich relationships. It has been my experience that this rarely happens in corporate America, and is rarer still where I work now. The book uses examples from various companies that have identified their core values and been honest enough with themselves and others to start acting on them. The many questions posed throughout the book, and the sections at the end of each chapter are a great way to start interrogating reality in your workplace. The answers usually are "in the room" if we can really get honest and start looking for them. In addition to some great business council, much of the book focuses on how we get honest with ourselves. Often we are the problem, and our own inability to truly understand where our own issues lie, is an essential journey to better facilitate the kind of change we want in our business or relationships. Another great approach used is the "Decision Tree" to help build empowerment in others. Communicate clearly what decisions can be made and what must be communicated to others. (Page 252). Her insights into how silence is an effective communication tool, both internally and in interactions with others, were right on. While this was all excellent, and perhaps the most well written summary of engaging communication approaches, what was the most powerful for me were the sections on our "emotional wake". We all leave an emotional wake behind us as we engage in conversations with people. The question is, what kind of wake do we want to leave? How do we want people to feel? This served as a great wake up call for me while reading. Overall, this book is so full of great wisdom and insights I couldn't begin to do it justice here. From the opening examples to the very useful questions in the back and the study guides throughout, I believe this to be one of the best books on business and personal communication I have read. It is both deep and practical, both academically sound and real world tested, and is written in such a way that it felt like a conversation itself. Highly recommended!

Packed With Knowledge!

This book offers numerous useful principles that will help anyone become a better conversationalist and a more responsive listener. Read carefully because gems of very valuable content are scattered through the entire book, a sentence here, a quotation there, buried in long, interesting digressions about the author's life, people she's known and clients she's worked with over time. A judicious editor could have made a very sharp and effective pocket book out of this material, which is about managing intense, strong discussions with skill. As it is, you'll have to do some digging, but you'll have a perfectly good time doing it, particularly if you are a fan of New Age mantras and can handle a little touchy-feely vocabulary. We assure you that the lessons you'll learn about conversations - including fierce ones - will stand you in good stead.

Fierce Conversations

"Fierce...robust, intense, strong, powerful, passionate, eager" - good words for real relating. Susan Scott puts it into her four purposes of a fierce conversation: interrogate reality, provoke learning, tackle tough challenges, and enrich realtionships. Like most really useful authors, she stresses individual responsibility. There are useful checklists and reviews. "Burnout happens, not because we're trying to solve problems, but because we're trying to solve the same problem over and over." This quote begins the 4th chapter - "Tackle Your Toughest Challenge Today," which has techniques for getting to the core of the difficulty in looking for a solution. It is one of many useful approaches in this book. I will share this book with others as well as continue to learn from it. Like all books of this kind (self help), only putting the ideas into action makes a real difference, however, the perspectives gained from reading are of value in and of themselves. The book is indexed, which I like, although not a great index. Occasionally, I felt the author introduced an idea without quite enough follow-through; still, I found a lot to value. Other books in the same vein that I value are the books from the Harvard Law School Negotiation Project (such as Difficult Conversations, and Getting to Yes), Tongue Fu by Sam Horn, and, to stretch the vein a bit, Everyday Ethics by Joshua Halberstam.