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

If your relationships at home or work could use improvement, then this is a must read book. The title is probably a little misleading and perhaps intimidating. After all, most people I know do not like confrontation. And the title sounds like you will be having toe to toe, screaming matches. But a fierce conversation is not about who can shout the loudest. The book is based on the fundamental truth that most of the time we have polite conversations rather than real ones. We talk about things that are safe rather than the things that really need to be talked about. Susan Scott has written a wonderful book that address the importance of having real conversations and then tells you how to make sure you can pull them off. For starters, she says the purpose of a fierce conversation is to interrogate reality, provoke learning, tackle tough challenges and enrich relationships." The last point is so important. Lots of people have tough conversations but often these cause the relationship to deteriorate. If you follow the steps, you will not only talk through the tough issues, you will build better relationships. This is true for work relationships as well as personal relationships. Scott addresses five different types of conversations. They are: team conversations, coaching conversations, delegation conversations and confrontational conversations. And she gives the model and example for each. Susan gives seven principles to guide a person in their fierce conversations. They are: Master the courage to interrogate reality, Come out from behind yourself and make the conversation real, Be here, prepared to be nowhere else, Tackle your toughest challenge today, Obey your instincts, Take responsibility for your own wake and Let silence do the heavy lifting. I do not know anyone who uses silence as they should. Most people are too eager to tell their story, show how much they know, they forget to let silence into the conversation. The book does a marvelous job of discussing how to truly have fierce conversations. But an underlying theme of the book is that most conversations are with your self. On occasions, other people are involved. If you want to truly master fierce conversations, you must master them with your self first. It is not a book to just read and file away. This is a book you need to keep handy, refer to often. The appendix has some wonderful worksheets and questions and there is a User's Guide at the end. The book is well written, easy to read with lots of helpful examples. If you implement just a portion of the wisdom in this book, it will change your life. The big lesson is to interrogate reality in all your conversations. What are you pretending not to know? What are you afraid to discuss with your boss/ co-worker or spouse? A polite conversation is a failed conversation because you did not talk about the issues that are crying to be addressed. Truly a life changing book. Susan has written a companion book that I also highly recommend - Fierce Leadership - check it out.

This awesome book by Susan Scott is a bestseller. It covers the 7 principles that are of the utmost importance to drive individual and organizational success. If you implement these principals you will have a better understanding of yourself, your business and personal life. Moving from an authentic conversation to a "fierce" conversation will give you the inner strength to make rapid and insightful decisions. Having a "fierce" conversation you are initiating change were needed. The book has practical assignments to do at the end of each chapter to help you put your ideas into action. Maybe your communication skills are excellent, but the person on the other side has a serious lack of this skill. One of the characteristics of leaders is their ability to deal with truth in a loving, gracious way. And, the leader is tasked to initiating those conversations when almost everyone else is fearful. It is a definite read for all leaders who have difficulty in communicating or who tend to shift problems. This book is part of my "Dantotsu" collection (Best of the Best.) Danita Bye Sales Growth Specialists

Susan Scott hit a home run with this book. The title is misleading, in that people may think every conversation has to be fierce! This is an awesome book on how to talk with others! How to lead, how to follow and how to get out of the way. Asking questions to help others discover areas that need change is a time tested great way of helping! Let silence do the heavy lifting is my favorite line in this book. If you are looking to improve your verbal communication skills, this book is for you. If you are a leader and have to deal with others, this book is for you. If you are looking to help others in any area of life, this book is for you. This is a long book and needs to be read slowly and often and with a notebook handy! I equate it to a college class on communication! I am on my second read and figured out that I missed 90% of the material the first time! Great book! Bravo Susan Scott!

This book provided several great take-aways regarding the importance of having great, thorough and honest conversations that allow you to feel a remarkable sense of integrity and self-authenticity (i.e. being honest with and to yourself). These conversations can be change-agents. They can dig deep to core-issues that may manifest themselves all over a person's life and not just in isolated instances. This book instructs the reader to have the conversation that is needed and it does so by also offering great instructions for how to do so, even when the conversation is difficult. She does a great job of including both on-the-job and at-home stories and applications so that this material is relevant in all contexts, not just the business world. This book increased my understanding of the importance of being open to having the difficult conversations and also to receiving the difficult conversations. Some outstanding quotes include: * "...our very lives succeed or fail gradually, then suddenly, one conversation at a time." (1) * "The conversation is the relationship." (6) * "For some people, win/win translates to I win. I win again." (16) * "One of the goals in a fierce conversation is to get everyone's reality out on the table, so it can be interrogated. Everyone's!" (23) * "Ground Truth - what's actually happening on the ground versus the official tactics...You have to get at ground truth before you can turn anything around." (47) * "If your behavior contradicts your values, your body knows." (53) * "I may think I see you as you are, but in truth, I see you as I am." (83) * "The issues in my life are rarely about you. They are almost always about me." (83) * "When someone has a behavior at work that is causing a problem, it is inevitably showing up elsewhere in his or her life, causing similar problems." (161) * "The most valuable thing any of us can do is find a way to say the things that can't be said." (174) * "Recognize that everything you say creates an emotional wake." (207) The Appendix provide useful worksheets for using: Mineral Rights; Questions For One-To-Ones; The Decision Tree; Preparing An Issue For Discussion; The Confrontation Model. My critique of the book is that it could have been organized better. For instance, when she introduced Mineral Rights, I had no idea what it was or what it looked like until much later in the book. I figured she would expound better what it was, but instead, she gave an example that illustrated it but did not really set the boundaries for what it actually is. Also, I felt that her chapter titles did not align with the content of the chapters. For instance, chapter four, "Tackle your toughest challenge today" sounds like chapter to motivate immediate action and to reject procrastination. Instead, while it focused on tackling issues, the "today" aspect of it was missing. Overall, it is an easy read with many stories and illustrations that provides good guidance for having the tough, difficult, brutally honest conversations that need to happen for growth to occur.

This book was suggested to me by my excellent executive coach. It and Simon Sinek's Ted talk on difficult conversations has made a tremendous impact on how I run my company. However, I'm certain that if applied, it can benefit anyone that must have challenging or difficult conversations in any situation. This is the ultimate guidebook to do so with honesty, integrity, candor, and openness. Using the steps laid out and coming to the table with a curious mind, willing to arrive at whatever resolution made the most sense (but open to numerous outcomes), I've been able to diffuse many misunderstandings and coach some of my team from an entrenched defensive posture into one of enthusiastic and proactive high-value contributors. Great book!

How often do you walk away from a conversation having talked around an issue, but not about it? How often do you not fully share your thoughts? How often is this conversation with yourself? These questions form the heart of Susan Scott’s book, where she challenges us to step into Fierce Conversations with others and ourselves. At its core, Scott challenges us to interrogate reality and talk about the things that are most important, assuming (rightly, I believe) that we often avoid doing this to our own and others detriment. She outlines four key components that form the structure of this book. Interrogate reality. Provoke learning. Tackle tough issues. Enrich Relationships. Take one (of many) insights as an example of what you might appreciate about this book: Ground Truth. As Scott references, Ground truth is an old military term, referring to what is really going on on the ground as opposed to what officials are talking about back in the strategy room. As one might imagine, these are often different, sometimes vastly different! Think of this as the talk after the meeting around the water cooler, the things that are rarely brought up during the actual meeting. Stated truth and ground truth are often misaligned. In my own life I have to admit that ground truth can be hard to come by. How often do I really express fully what I’m thinking to friends or family? How often do I hold back my full thoughts at work or in meetings? How often do I have things that really need to be said, but avoid saying them for fear of safety or that the other person wouldn’t care. What I appreciate about Scott is she challenges us to have the tough conversations. Interrogate reality so you can get to ground truth. This isn’t easy, and by no means does she advocate that we shouldn’t be thoughtful about how we communicate this (cf. Chapter 6, which is a beautiful summary of how to note our emotional wake). But I think most of us, or at least myself, avoid many ground truth conversations and opt into not talking about the hard things. Scott inspires me to have more hard conversations, because often you have to go through those hard conversations to get to richer, fuller relationships. And, it is impossible to make the best decisions in work without ground truth. We’re literally shooting ourselves in the foot when we don’t show up with all of ourselves and our ideas at work. Other things you may get out of this book: Living life in personal integrity The power of shared vision at work Tips and outlines of how to effectively engage in difficult conversations The power of understanding our emotional wake Definitely worth your read. You won’t be sorry you’ve read this if you’re looking for something to inspire meaningful self-reflection on your life, work, and relationships.

This is a good read with lots of practical pointers. The problem for me is that is very top-down oriented. Mostly, it speaks to the leaders and helps them to listen more. This is great if you a Director or CEO in an organization, but if you are looking for help on how to have a Fierce Conversation with your manager, this book will only be mildly helpful (and won't reveal all that much more than you probably already know)...

Fierce can infur that you need to be tough, loud or bossy. In this book, she gives examples of being CONFIDENT in what you say and conveying your confidence. Kind conversations often gloss over the underlying issues and aren't very kind when you realize you're not telling the truth. If you're looking to have more meaningful interactions, you'll enjoy this how to guide on making it happen.