To Sell is Human by Daniel Pink tells you how. Wow! What a great book. Daniel Pink does an excellent job showing how everyone sells whether they are in sales or not and he provides research-based advice on how to do it better. He starts off by sharing his observation that he was spending much (if not [...]
Failure to Communicate: How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do To Right Them by Holly Weeks. Holly Weeks writes an excellent book on having difficult conversations with others. In particular, she focuses on hard talks when the two parties may not be well-meaning and where there might not be an opportunity to clear [...]
Difficult conversation mistakes are as common as dirt. Sarah Green did a great job identifying 9 of the most common mistakes in Difficult Conversations: Nine Common Mistakes - Harvard Business Review. Sarah based her presentation on Failure to Communicate, a terrific book by Holly Weeks. This is an excellent slideshow that highlights some of the key points [...]
7 Tips for Difficult Conversations - Daisy Wademan Dowling - Harvard Business Review. One key skill that separates good leaders and others is the ability to have difficult conversations. Almost anyone can manage a group if everyone is performing well. It is easy to give raises and bonuses to strong performers. The harder part [...]
The Martial Art of Difficult Conversations - Peter Bregman - Harvard Business Review. Peter Bregman provides another outstanding blog post in which he describes the importance of giving the other party to a difficult conversation the experience of being heard. This is reminiscent of one of Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People -- seek [...]
The Right Way to Respond to Failure - Peter Bregman - Harvard Business Review. This is an excellent blog post by Peter Bregman. He tells the story of a friend's daughter's failure at a swimming meet and several adults' responses. Mr. Bregman identifies the key factor -- empathy -- that is so critical as [...]