Week 16: Cookie Cakes and "Crucial Conversations"

WHY THIS BOOK?

Ok so we are 16 weeks in and I will be honest no one told me how much work this is going to be. Yes, that is my moment of wow 52 books is a lot. As well I may need to start repeating cookie recipes. So any recipes please send them my way.

Let's talk about crucial conversations…it is in its 3rd edition and I wanted to rip out every summary page at the end of the chapter and tape it to my wall in the office. Yes it was that good.

The book is broken down into 3 parts: what to do before you open your mouth, how to open your mouth and how to finish. I will share a couple chapters that really stood out for me. This was a difficult choice because every chapter had the “aha” moments of Steph please remember to do this next time or Steph please try never to do that again. The first chapter is significant as it talks about choosing the right topic. We typically choose easy over hard and recent over right behaviours. Meaning we choose an easier issue than dealing with the bigger issue because we don't like conflict and it's uncomfortable. To find the right topic you need to unbundle, choose and simplify. Unbundling means looking at what are the issues that need to be discussed. I suggest writing it down to help make it clearer. Choosing is deciding what is the most important topic and what do I really want to address. Simplifying means you need to articulate the issue clearly. Now remember this is done before you have the conversation. The chapter on Make it Safe is really important to me because in the EDI space you do not make progress without psychologically safe environments. You just don’t. The authors discuss 2 important conditions for safety: Mutual purpose (you care about their concerns) and Mutual Respect (you care about them). I have seen leaders who say all the right words around EDI and yet I have walked away feeling they do not believe it or something is off. When having crucial conversations around EDI you really need to care about the other person and really hear their concerns. If I could give this book 6 out of 5 stars I would. I truly believe we change the world when we learn how to communicate better and this book really helped.