Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behavior by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler ISBN:0071446524 McGraw-Hill © 2005 (284 pages) Use this book to learn how to step up to failed promises and deal with them in a way that both solves the problem and saves relationships. Table of Contents Crucial Confrontations—Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behavior Foreword Prefac - A Note to Our Readers e Introd - What’s a Crucial Confrontation? And Who Cares? uction Part One - Work on Me First—What to Do before a Crucial Confrontation Chapt - Choose What and If—How to Know What Crucial Confrontation to Hold and If You Should er 1 Hold It Chapt - Master My Stories—How to Get Your Head Right before Opening Your Mouth er 2 Part Two - Confront with Safety—What to Do during a Crucial Confrontation Chapt - Describe the Gap—How to Start a Crucial Confrontation er 3 Chapt - Make It Motivating—How to Help Others Want to Take Action er 4 Chapt - Make It Easy—How to Make Keeping Commitments (Almost) Painless er 5 Chapt - Stay Focused and Flexible—What to Do When Others Get Sidetracked, Scream, or Sulk er 6 Chapt - Agree on a Plan and Follow Up—How to Gain Commitment and Move to Action er 7 Part Three - Move to Action—What to Do after a Crucial Confrontation Chapt - Put It All Together—How to Solve Big, Sticky, Complicated Problems er 8 Chapt - The Twelve “Yeah-Buts”—How to Deal with the Truly Tough er 9 Appen - Where Do You Stand?—A Self-Assessment for Measuring Your Crucial Confrontation Skills dix A Appen - Six-Source Diagnostic Questions—The Six-Source Model dix B Appen - When Things Go Right dix C Appendix D Notes Index List of Sidebars Page 1 Back Cover Behind the problems that routinely plague families, teams, and organizations are individuals who either can’t or won’t deal with failed promises. Others have broken rules, missed deadlines, or just plain behaved badly. If anybody steps up to the issue, he or she often does a lousy job and creates a whole new set of problems. New research demonstrates that these disappointments aren’t just irritating—they’re costly—sapping organizational performance by 20 to 50 percent and accounting for up to 90 percent of divorces. Drawn from over 10,000 hours of real-life observations, Crucial Confrontations teaches skills to increase confidence in facing tough issues. Learn to: Permanently resolve failed promises and missed deadlines Transform broken rules and bad behaviors into productive accountability Strengthen relationships while solving problems About the Authors Kerry Patterson has authored award-winning training programs, labored on long-term change efforts, and served as an executive coach. He received the prestigious 2004 BYU Marriot School of Management Dyer Award for outstanding contribution in organizational behavior. Joseph Grenny an acclaimed keynote speaker and consultant, has designed and implemented major corporate change initiatives for the past nineteen years. He also cofounded California Computer Corporation and Unitus, a nonprofit organization that helps third-world poor achieve economic self-reliance. Ron McMillan holds advanced degrees in sociology and organizational behavior. He cofounded the Covey Leadership Center, where he served as vice president of research and development. His work ranges from unions and first-level managers to CEOs and corporate executives on topics such as team development, personal vitality, and leadership. Al Switzler is on the faculty of the Executive Development Center at the University of Michigan. He previously taught at Auburn University, the University of Kentucky, and Brigham Young University. He has directed training and management initiatives with hundreds of organizations worldwide. Page 2 Crucial Confrontations—Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behavior Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler McGraw-Hill Copyright © 2005 by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a data base or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 DOC/DOC 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 ISBN 0-07-144652-4 McGraw-Hill books are available at special discounts to use as premiums and sales promotions, or for use in corporate training programs. For more information, please write to the Director of Special Sales, Professional Publishing, McGraw-Hill, Two Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121-2298. Or contact your local bookstore. This book is printed on recycled, acid-free paper containing a minimum of 50% recycled de-inked paper. We dedicate this book to THE WORLD’S BEST LEADERS, Those courageous and skillful managers, supervisors, associates, team members, parents, colleagues, and technicians who stepped up to tough, even hostile, and crucial problems and dealt with them superbly. Thank you for your examples. Thank you for helping us learn. About VitalSmarts A world leader in leadership training and organizational performance, VitalSmarts provides products and services to hundreds of companies, including over 300 of the Fortune 500. For over 25 years, and with over 10,000 hours of “in the trenches” observation, the authors have explored methods for bringing about systematic and lasting change. Services include training, keynote speaking, on-site consulting, and customized development. About the Authors This same team of authors previously produced the New York Times bestseller Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High. In 1990, they co-founded VitalSmarts, a consulting firm that delivers training products and services to clients worldwide. Sought after as speakers and consultants, the authors have worked with organizations and associations worldwide. Kerry Patterson ([email protected]) has authored award-winning training programs, labored on long-term change efforts, and served as an executive coach. He received the prestigious 2004 BYU Marriot School of Management Dyer Award for outstanding contribution in organizational behavior. Joseph Grenny ([email protected]), an acclaimed keynote speaker and consultant, has designed and implemented major corporate change initiatives for the past nineteen years. He also cofounded California Computer Corporation and Unitus, a nonprofit organization that helps third-world poor achieve economic self-reliance. Page 3 Ron McMillan ([email protected]) holds advanced degrees in sociology and organizational behavior. He cofounded the Covey Leadership Center, where he served as vice president of research and development. His work ranges from unions and first-level managers to CEOs and corporate executives on topics such as team development, personal vitality, and leadership. Al Switzler ([email protected]) is on the faculty of the Executive Development Center at the University of Michigan. He previously taught at Auburn University, the University of Kentucky, and Brigham Young University. He has directed training and management initiatives with hundreds of organizations worldwide. Page 4 Foreword As I read this book, my mind kept reverting to a particular image. Namely, J. D. Watson and Francis Crick as they relentlessly pursued the mystery of life . and finally struck upon the double-helix structure of DNA. The world has never been the same. Next stop . Stockholm in December. I don’t know whether the authors of this book will get the call that confirms a Nobel, but there’s a part of me that thinks it’s their just deserts for this magnificent and groundbreaking masterwork. An absurd claim? I think not. War and peace, wellness and extreme physical and mental malaise, marriage and divorce, abject failure and Olympian success . all these profound subjects at their core depend upon functioning—or malfunctioning —human relationships. Dyads: a couple. Little organizations: a 20-table restaurant or 20-person finance department. Giant organizations . an army or a Fortune 50 corporation. Nations on the brink of war and genocide. Enter our new Watson and Crick and the essential element of the organizational DNA: the DNA of effective “crucial confrontations.” Some renowned management experts have made careers out of their belief, “Get the strategy right . and the rest will take care of itself.” Others have said, “Strategy, smattergy . it’s the core business processes that explain the divergence between winners and losers.” And then there are those that claim that leader selection has no peer in explaining various degrees of organizational effectiveness. Doubtless there is truth in all the above. (I’ve held various of these positions over the years . each passionately.) But then again, perhaps all such “magisterial” concepts aimed at explaining differences in organizational outcomes miss the boat. Perhaps the idea of organizational DNA that makes for stellar outcomes is Absent Without Leave. Until now. Yes, I’m that bullish on Crucial Confrontations. (Perhaps because I’ve seen so many of my own brilliant strategies evaporate in the space of minutes—seconds—as I screwed up a confrontation with a peer or key employee. Again . and again.) So why did we have to wait until this moment for this book? Perhaps it’s the times. We used to live in a more tolerant world. Buildups to war could last decades. Smoldering corporate ineffectiveness could take eons to burst into flame. Lousy marriages festered for years and then more years. No more. The marketplace is unforgiving. One strike—whether new-product foul-up or terrorist with dirty bomb —and you’re (we’re!) out. Thus continual organizational effectiveness—which is, after all, nothing more than human- relations effectiveness—is of the utmost urgency, from CIA headquarters to Wal-Mart headquarters. Crucial Confrontations is an original and a bold leap forward.