“Crucial Conversations skills are only applicable if you live or work with or near other people,” writes one of the authors, a statement I wholly agree with. The authors didn’t set out to write a book on communication, but they definitely highlighted how difficult it can be and how important it is to overcome those hidden obstacles to get the results we need. I’m confident that these principles can help anyone through those difficult and highly impactful moments, described as crucial conversations, regardless of career and personal circumstances. It is often as simple as asking ourselves the right question at the right time.

Crucial Conversations gets better as you progress through the chapters. The earlier sections of the book outline the tools and the later parts identify how to use them; it’s worth re-reading every year to brush up on the principles, or at least the last couple of chapters. During my first reading of Crucial Conversations, I noticed I was participating in meetings differently and more productively. I’m confident this book can help almost anyone get better results in difficult situations.

Chapter 1: What’s a Crucial Conversation and Chapter 2: Mastering Crucial Conversations

What makes a crucial conversation? Three factors:

1. Others may share varying opinions
2. People care
3. The outcome could have a large impact

Why do we care? Evolution has given us a ‘fight or flight’ mentality. Emotions get the best of us and our actions lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy. In short, we often do our worst communicating when it matters most. Those of us that are able to manage our emotions and skillfully hold crucial conversations will not only have a step up in our careers, but we’ll lead more fulfilling lives.

We have all fallen victim to The Fool’s Choice, thinking that there are only two outcomes to a conversation. Those that are great at having crucial conversations know how to avoid The Fool’s Choice by being able to facilitate a safe dialogue. The more dialogue we have, the more information that can be shared. That collective information is something that the writers call, “The Pool of Shared Meaning.” The more information that we can add to the pool, the better our decisions will be.

Chapter 3: Start with Heart – How to Stay Focused on What You Really Want

The first step is correcting our assumption that other people are the root of our problems; we are rarely the innocent party in it all. The only person we really have control over is ourselves, so that’s where we should start. When beginning a high-risk conversation, start with the right motives and then stay focused on them. It can be very easy to lose that focus because of our desire to win (we just have to point out how other people are wrong and how we know all the answers) or keep the peace (we get so uncomfortable that we retreat into silence). Stay focused by asking yourself questions like “What do I really want? What do I really NOT want? Would someone that really wants these things be behaving like I am?” By taking a moment to ask yourself these simple questions, it allows our brain to recalibrate and turn to problem-solving mode rather than survival mode.

Chapter 4: Learn to Look – How to Notice When Safety is at Risk

Noticing that you’re in a crucial conversation is the first major step. Keep an eye out for physical (e.g. stomach ache), emotional (e.g. anxiety, anger), or behavioral signs (e.g. raised voices).

Shortly after that, we have to focus on other whether everyone is feeling safe. The sooner we identify that people don’t feel safe to contribute to the conversation, the easier it is to get back to dialogue where true progress can be made. When we feel unsafe, we usually regress to silence or violence.

• Types of silence:
  • Masking – sarcasm or only selectively showing our opinions
  • Avoiding – moving on to less controversial topics
  • Withdrawing – altogether leaving the conversation
• Types of violence:
  • Controlling – overemphasizing our facts, cutting off others, etc.
  • Labeling – criticizing others’ ideas with non-value-added adjectives
  • Attacking – shifting the conversation from the topic to the participants in the conversation

We MUST keep an eye out for these types of behaviors and refuse to give in to them. The authors provide a brief assessment to help identify which of the violence and silence mechanisms we succumb to.

Chapter 5: Make It Safe – How to Make It Safe to Talk About Almost Anything

If you build safety, you can talk about anything. When safety is threatened, we have to restore it by taking a step out of the moment. The problem is the nonexistence, or the perception thereof, of either mutual purpose or mutual respect.

Mutual purpose is often derailed by the perception of malicious intent. Because of that, the first action towards building mutual purpose is to help others see that we are working towards a common outcome. Not only should they care about your goal, you should care about theirs. Without these perceptions we’ll never be able to have a dialogue and add to the pool of meaning. Start by identifying your motives, then be empathetic and look at the conversation from their point of view. Both of these will help bring them into a sensitive conversation.

You can identify that mutual purpose is at risk if there is defensiveness, hidden agendas, frequent accusations, or often circling back to the same topics over and over.

Where mutual purpose is the starting point of a crucial conversation, mutual respect is what helps the conversation continue. Respect isn’t thought about when it’s there, but it’s the only thing people see when it’s missing. If you have a hard time respecting someone, it’s usually because we focus on how we are different from them. Counteract your own disrespectful behavior by instead trying to refocus on your similarities.

If mutual purpose and mutual respect are at risk, or even lost, recalibrate the conversation by apologizing. In order for apologies to be effective, your motive must change; stop trying to win and focus on what you really want.

If apologizing isn’t enough, try contrasting to clear up any misunderstandings. Say what you do mean and what you DON’T mean. “I’m not intending X, I’m intending Y” or, “I DO want X, I DON’T want Y.” The DON’T is the most important part of contrasting because it helps better define what you’re excluding from your DO statements. Contrasting is NOT the same as apologizing. It gives context and proportion, which can be important because people can often interpret our words bigger than we intend.

Instead of immediately compromising, use CRIB to create a mutual purpose:

• COMMIT to seeking a mutual purpose together. That means stepping outside of your side of the story and being open to the idea that there is more than one solution.
• RECOGNIZE that what we are asking for is often not really what we want, but instead the strategy for how we can get what we want.
• INVENT mutual purpose when it’s not possible to discover it. Start by focusing on long-term objectives rather than short-term compromises.
• BRAINSTORM strategies for how to accomplish your mutual purpose once it’s been discovered or invented.

Chapter 6: Master My Stories – How to Stay in Dialogue When You’re Angry, Scared, or Hurt

“Other people can’t make you mad. You make you mad.” The best at dialogue not only control their emotions, they choose them. Emotions are created by the stories we make up; we make up these stories from the facts that we’ve gathered at the time. Before we even realize it, we guess about motives and we add judgement. The good news is that “since we and only we are telling the story, we can take control of our own emotions…”

The flaws in our stories:

• They provide rationale;
• They’re interpretations and guesses to fill in the blanks.
• You’re telling yourself stories even when you don’t realize it.
• The facts you’ve gathered can be used to tell any number of stories but, in reality, there is only one story.

Our stories are normally built in a sequence, called the ‘Path to Action’. First, we ‘See and Hear’; we then immediately ‘Tell a Story’. Once we have a story, we develop certain feelings about that story. Lastly, we act on those feelings. To gain control of our emotions, we need to retrace our path. Ask yourself:

• Am I acting with violence or silence?
• What feelings are making me act this way?
• What story is causing these feelings?
• What facts do I have that support this story? Are there other possibilities?

When we need to justify our behavior, we typically tell ourselves three types of ‘clever’ stories:

1. Victim stories – “It’s not my fault!”
2. Villain stories – “It’s all your fault!” Watch out for labeling or name calling. It allows us justify our behavior because we are dealing with instead of our complex situation.
3. Helpless stories – “There’s nothing I can do!”

We tell these types of stories because 1) they are sometimes accurate (sometimes, but not often), 2) they justify our actions and 3) they let us escape all responsibility, even when we are almost always partially responsible.

Clever stories are incomplete. We can tell ‘useful’ stories by adding more facts, which is the next step of mastering our stories. More facts will help us turn victims into actors and villains into humans, which helps us be open. “What do I really want? What would I do right now if I really wanted these results?”

Chapter 7: STATE My Path – How to Speak Persuasively, not Abrasively

Maintaining safety comes down to:

• Having “the CONFIDENCE to say what needs to be said to the person that needs to hear it.”
• Being HUMBLE enough to know that you don’t know everything. Be open to new information.

Use STATE to help talk about sensitive topics:

• WHAT
  • Share your facts – Don’t start with the scariest story you’re able to imagine, start with the facts. There is no emotion in the facts. “If you aren’t sure what your facts are, take the time to think them through before you enter the crucial conversation.”
  • Tell your story – After you’ve laid out your facts, tell your story as one of the possibilities. Revising the facts will give you confidence in your story or help you see the flaws in it. Use contrasting if there is a risk of people reading past words you’re saying.
  • Ask for others’ paths – Once you’ve shared your facts and story, ask others to do the same. Be open to abandoning your story as new facts come to light.
• HOW
  • Talk Tentatively – Be careful as to not tell your story as fact. Do not assume your story is the only one possible. It’s not about lacking confidence, but being humble. “Speaking in absolutes and overstated terms does not increase your influence, it decreases it - the more tentatively you speak, the more open people become to your opinions.”
  • Encourage testing – Make people feel comfortable to express ideas. Encourage conversation and mean it; play devil’s advocate to get the conversation flowing.

“Remember: The more you care about an issue, the less likely you are to be on your best behavior.” Keep an eye out for others’ not feeling safe to discuss the topic at hand and be open to hearing from them. Before you enter into a monologue, use the STATE skills to allow all of us to participate in the conversation.

Chapter 8: Explore Others’ Paths – How to Listen When Others Blow Up or Clam Up

Explore Other’s Paths is another tool we can use to invite people to contribute to the pool of meaning.

It starts with getting ready to listen:

• We must be sincere and read cues in how someone responds to our questions. If you don’t, you’ll come off as trying to just make small talk.
• While the other party may be furious, we need to get curious. Find an opportunity to ask questions rather than subsiding to your adrenaline.
• Once they start to share, it can be easy to pull out our Victim, Villain, and Helpless stories out. STAY curious.
• Once you have gotten on the same page, it can still take a while to change strong emotions. Be patient.

We do all of this so that we can help others’ to retrace their Path to Action. We must keep in mind that, even though we are only now hearing these words for the first time, the person has a history that has led them to feeling or thinking this way. While we are joining a story already in progress, it can be easy to dive in and become defensive. However, we must break the cycle by tracing our steps back to the source of the issue. How do we do that?

Four listening tools that can help people realize it is safe to speak frankly are AMPP:

• Ask – Simply ask. It’s the most straight forward, but your questions must be sincere.
• Mirror – Describe how their body language may be inconsistent with their words.
• Paraphrase – Continue to build safety by paraphrasing what you think you’ve heard. Remember to remain calm and consider how a rational person gets to their current Path to Action.
• Prime – Priming is taking your best guess as to what someone else is thinking, hoping that they then confirm your belief. It can be used when you think someone will open up if you push them just a little harder. BE CAREFUL and only use Priming if nothing else works.

Remember, we are only trying to understand where the other person is coming from. Understanding does not mean we have to then agree or support it.

Now that you understand their point of view, the ABCs can help correct overcome disagreement or falsities in their story:

• Notice when you AGREE. We often fight even when we are in agreement, but end up turning minor differences into a raging debate. “Most arguments consist of battles over the 5 to 10% of the facts and stories that people disagree over. While it’s true that people eventually need to work through differences, you shouldn’t start there. Start with an area of agreement.”
• Avoid looking for trivial differences. Start with agreement but then BUILD upon where you agree. Use phrases that start with “Yes, and” or “In addition” instead of “But.”
• In the instance where you do disagree, COMPARE your paths to the story. You don’t know which one of you is wrong until hear both sides. STATE the facts/stories and invite feedback/comparisons.

Chapter 9: Move to Action

Through Chapter 8, the book has covered how to keep dialogue open, but what about when its time to ACT? There are two main reasons that people fail to convert ideas into action: 1) we often don’t know how decisions will be made and 2) once a decision is made, we are not good at acting on them.

Deciding how to decide is a part of leadership but can be especially challenging when the line of authority is unclear. There are four methods of decision-making, each with their own time and place:

• Command – There are two main reasons to use the Command method; first, if external forces require it (e.g. laws and regulations). In this instance, “it’s not our job to decide what to do. It’s our job to decide how to make it work.” The other way to use Command is to delegate the decision to someone else. Only give that power to an individual or group that you trust and only with low-stake decisions.
• Consult – Consulting is when we invite experts or other parties to contribute to the pool of meaning. The goal is to “gather ideas, evaluate options, make a choice, and then inform the general population.”
• Vote – Use Voting when efficiency and time is the most important factor. “This should never be used when team members don’t agree to support whatever decision is made.”
• Consensus – Consensus can either produce a very high-quality decision or can be a horrible waste of time. Only use consensus when decisions are 1) important and complex or 2) when everyone involved must support the final outcome.

When choosing one of the methods, consider these four questions

1. “Who cares? Do not involve people who do not care.”
2. “Who knows?” Who has the expertise to help make the decision?
3. “Who must agree?” Involve those that have skin in the game. It’s better to involve them than to surprise them.
4. “How many people is it worth involving?” The goal should always be to involve as few people as possible, while still striving to answer the first three questions.

Once a decision is made, put it into action! Make sure we’ve answered:

1. Who? “Assign a name to every responsibility… If you don’t make an actual assignment to an actual person,” there is a good chance that nothing will get done.
2. Does what? “Spell out the exact deliverables.” The more ambiguous the request, the more likely it will not meet your expectations. When possible, point to real life examples or describe what you do not want (contrasting).
3. By when? “Goals without timelines aren’t goals; they’re merely directions.”
4. How we will measure/monitor progress? Without follow-ups before the end deliverable, there’s a good chance the deliverable will fall behind or rework will be needed.
5. Document – “Don’t leave your hard work to memory… Record who does what by when. Revisit your notes at key times.”

Chapter 10: Yeah, But – Advice for Tough Cases

There are loads of reasons why people think this framework won’t work for their specific situation. The authors spend Chapter 10 going through more than a dozen situational examples, from marital issues to office teamwork problems, describing how to use the tools they’ve defined in previous chapters. A few themes:

• STATE your path
• Respect
• Privacy
• Know when to stand your ground
• Apologize if you’ve done something you regret.
• Trust
• “Work on me first”
• Start simple
• Be patient
• Clarify facts

Chapter 11: Putting It All Together – Tools for Preparing and Learning

Chapter 11 is a recap. There is a table that summarizes each of the principles and skills described in Chapters 1-9 and gives example questions for how you apply each to a crucial conversation. There is then an extended case which uses most of the concepts represented throughout the book.

Quotes and Other Key Takeaways

• “In truth, everyone argues about important issues… It’s how we argue that matters.”
• “When people purposefully withhold meaning from one another, individually smart people can do collectively stupid things.”
• “Don’t aim for perfection. Aim for progress.”
• “Words do matter. Knowing what you’re really feeling helps you make a more accurate look at what is going on and why… Expand your emotional vocabulary.”
• Always ask yourself, “What do I really want?” We often act in ways that are more emotional rather than the answer to the question.
• Dialogue “is the one thing that helps people make savvy decisions that, in turn, lead to smart, unified and committed actions.”
• Conversations are at their riskiest at the beginning, when we are trying to establish safety, and at the end, when we are trying to finalize decisions and conclude the next steps.
• “One dull pencil is worth six sharp minds. Don’t leave your hard work to memory”
• “Trust doesn’t have to be universally offered. In truth, it’s usually offered in degrees and is very topic specific. It also comes down to two flavors – Motive and ability.” You might trust someone to do an activity (are they motivated?), but you may not trust them to do it well (are they able?). Trust doesn’t have to be given over all issues; you can trust someone in one area and not another.
• “Clarifying the facts is the homework required for crucial conversations.”
• “People are far more likely to talk about the presence of a bad behavior than the absence of a good one.”
• Make sure you’re having the right conversation. If your concern is about a pattern rather than a specific incident, make sure to discuss the pattern, otherwise your concern will seem trivial and out of proportion.
• Allow yourself to go to bed angry. “Coming to mutual agreement to take a time-out is not the same thing as going into silence.”
• “Stories left unattended don’t get better with time – they ferment. Then, when we eventually can’t take it anymore, we say something we regret.”
• We often do our worst when it matters most, but be mindful to not do your worst when it matters little.
• “Crucial conversations belong to the first person to see them. I don’t solve the issues; II just make sure they are brought up in a safe way.”
• “Our emotions are incredibly plastic. In crucial moments they are almost always wrong.”