Speaking Up to a Stranger
Visit the Crucial Skills blog to read Kerry Patterson’s answer to this question: How should I respond to a stranger’s rude and impatient behavior? Should I forgive and forget?
Crucial Conversations for Accountability Posts
Before & After: Confronting Public Feedback
Visit the Crucial Skills blog to learn how Eric Crucial Confrontations skills to diffuse a hostile environment and address a meeting attendee’s feedback.
What Happened: Don't Pass the Buck
Visit the Crucial Skills blog to learn how Joseph Grenny’s advice helped a reader encourage his employees to solve problems without manager involvement.
Holding Clients Accountable
Visit the Crucial Skills blog to read the answer to this question: How can I help my friend hold a client accountable without damaging the relationship or losing their business?
Dealing with a Braggart
Visit the Crucial Skills blog to read Al Switzler’s answer to this question: Do you have any advice for dealing with a coworker who continuously boasts and brags about almost every aspect of her life?
What Happened: Time to Let People Go
Dear Al, Your advice, as well as the many cues I took from Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations, were extremely helpful to me as I sat down with the headmaster. I did dismiss him, but as you suggested, we gave him a more than generous severance package and I continue to be a reference for …
Motivating Strangers
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kerry Patterson is coauthor of four bestselling books, Change Anything, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, In Crucial Confrontations, you give an example of teens parking in your parking spot, and although you pleasantly ask them to stop, they don’t. Unless I missed it, the book …
Protecting Your Children
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ron McMillan is coauthor of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations. His fourth book, Change Anything, was recently published. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, My in-laws live six hours away, but frequently visit and stay at my home. They have a wonderful relationship with my three young children, but …
Confronting Workplace Sarcasm
Dear Crucial Skills, I work in a large international company and lead a team of eight experienced human resource managers. Several of the managers use irony and humor to downplay their colleagues, and I strongly feel that this creates a bad atmosphere because most of the colleagues do not appreciate this way of talking. Should …
How do you handle a crucial conversation with a really difficult person?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Todd King is a Master Trainer and Senior Consultant at VitalSmarts. READ MORE How do you handle a crucial conversation/crucial confrontation with somebody who is a really difficult, or even malicious, person? Great question! We should first define “difficult” and “malicious.” Likely we are talking about some form of silence or violence …