Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work & in Life, One Conversation at a Time - Hardcover

Scott, Susan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670031240 ISBN 13: 9780670031245

Publisher: Penguin Group / Viking Studio, 2002

Synopsis

An expert in corporate communication shows readers how to make the most of their conversations by communicating clearly and forcefully, offering helpful advice on how to overcome barriers to meaningful conversation, confront tough issues, inspire followers, and leverage new skills for frictionless debate. 100,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Susan Scott maintains an international consulting practice through her firm, Fierce Conversations Inc., which provides Fierce Conversations, Fierce Leadership, and Fierce Coaching programs to CEOs and company leaders. For fourteen years, she ran think tanks and seminars for business leaders through TEC International, an organization dedicated to increasing the effectiveness and enhancing the lives of CEOS around the world. Scott has extensive experience assisting companies with mission, vision, values, leadership development, cultural transformation, strategic planning, and executive coaching.

Reviews

An offshoot of Scott's international consulting firm, Fierce Conversations Inc., this book lasts as long as a Monday morning shuttle. Yet its thesis, that relationships both professional and personal hinge on how conversations go, and that the best conversations require determinedly gentle honesty and a willingness to listen, lingers long enough to make an impact. "It takes a certain fearlessness to make your private thoughts public. But if what you're thinking makes you squirm and wish to wriggle away, you are probably onto something," she says. On the book's Web site, a streaming-video talk feels fake and rehearsed. But Scott's written words contain substance and, as an author, she's levelheaded and funny. She quotes a wide variety of writers, from Ernest Hemingway to Maya Angelou to Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and clearly explains her key concepts, including "obey your instincts" and "let silence do the heavy lifting." Careerist marketing ploy it may be, but this cleanly written, if cliche-laden, book boasts enough psychological sensitivity to merit success. Those whose conversations with co-workers or family members aren't producing the results they want will find plenty of helpful tools and assignments in this succinct guide.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Scott maintains a consulting firm, Fierce Conversations, which provides leadership programs on creating positive change through powerful communication. The conversations she refers to may be the very ones that you have been avoiding in your relationships at work or at home. They involve bringing those brutally honest and sometimes painful subjects to the surface with your coworkers, your spouse, and especially yourself. The case studies from her consulting practice are very instructive. Typically, personal conflicts may be so destructive as to sabotage the day-to-day operations of a company and affect performance, morale, and income. In her meetings with coworkers, Scott attacks the issues head-on, getting everyone to speak up about the things that he or she has been thinking but dares not say. The result is a clearing of the air, a breaking of tension. Sometimes people are "made available to industry," her euphemism for being fired. The results are usually powerful, and Scott's workbook exercises will allow readers to have effective, life-changing fierce conversations of their own. David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Group / Viking Studio
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670031240
• ISBN 13: 9780670031245
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288