Failure to Communicate: How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do to Right Them

By Holly Weeks

Book Overview

Drawing on her years as a consultant and coach, the author explains why we turn to ineffective tactics when the heat is on, how to avoid the worst pitfalls of difficult conversations, and how to pull yourself out if you fall in, ways to regain your balance and inject respect into stressful conversations, and more.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1578518997
• ISBN13: 9781578518999
• Release Date: August 2008
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.4" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

helpful situational guide to tough conflicts

In Holly Weeks' book "Failure to Communicate" I feel that she effectively addresses issues pertaining to how to handle a conflict situation. Everyone has been in the situation where communication breaks down and it is difficult to fix. This book successfully gives tactics that every person can use in the event of a conflict situation. I feel that this book was very organized and easy to read. It was also very beneficial whenever Holly used real life examples of communication conflicts. Then she walks the reader through ways to hypothetically correct these situations. I found this part most beneficial to the reader. I liked also that Holly based this book off of the premise that no matter how difficult communication seems to be, you can always work through it. She stresses the matter that you must have respect for yourself, respect for your counterpart, and finally respect for your situation.

Instructive guide to constructive conversations

You're leading a routine department meeting when all of a sudden you are under attack. Your first instinct is either to negotiate a withdrawal or to fight back with every weapon in your verbal arsenal. Destructive, winner-take-all word wars happen daily in conference rooms around the world, wiping out reputations, relationships and self-esteem. Communication expert Holly Weeks analyzes what goes wrong in these confrontational conversations and provides strategies you can use to converse productively without engaging in vocal warfare. Her generous use of real-life examples clearly illustrates where conversations turn injurious and how using her proactive tactics can help. If you've ever felt the sting of a poisonous barb or the slash of a cutting remark, getAbstract recommends this book as the perfect salve.

Good for all people: conflict avoiders and hardballs

What I liked most about this book is that touches very common situations everybody experiences and provides a framework to understand what is going on and how to prevent things from going wrong. This will be helpful to those who try to avoid conflict (most of us) by allowing them to see the situation from the outside, eliminating a lot of the anxiety involved. But it also will help people who do not care about conflict and even enjoy it since their usual approach is not generally the most effective to achieve the best outcome.

A "satellite perspective" on how to navigate through "a conversational landscape"

As Holly Weeks explains in her introductory chapter, "This book offers a system of strategies and tactics to help us navigate the treacherous minefields we may suddenly find ourselves in when we approach and try to get through - rather than avoid - prickly conversations. Strategies are the thinking part of these conversations. Balanced strategies replace the blanking out, gut reactions, and other horrors that slip in when conversations turn tough and ordinary thinking fails. Tactics are the handling part - what we do in the moment when our counterparts, or our own emotions, are giving us trouble." I wish I had a dollar bill for each time I have heard an obviously frustrated person complain that what someone else heard was not the intended meaning of what was said. This is perhaps the most common communication failure and perhaps one of the most common causes of what Weeks characterizes as a "prickly" conversation. The material provided in this book may help some readers to communicate their intended meaning more effectively or correct any misunderstandings. "But its true purpose is to help you handle conversations of an altogether greater magnitude." Weeks then goes on to say, "When people carry a combat mentality, as well as painful emotions, into a conversation with unseen problems, goodwill is not enough to prevent damage on both sides." That's why such conversations are -- or can unexpectedly become -- "prickly." In that event, skills are needed "that will make you a better colleague, a better leader, and a better human being." Moreover, these skills must be applicable to whatever the specific circumstances may be. Throughout her narrative, Weeks cites dozens of real-world situations in which various individuals (whose names but not circumstances have been changed) interact with varying degrees of mutual understanding. Some demonstrate the effectiveness of the skills she recommends; others demonstrate the consequences when lacking such skills. There are important lessons to be learned from each situation. For example, in Chapter 5, "Acting Unilaterally," she explains how to bring self-respect and respect for one's counterpart unilaterally rather than assume that that there is already an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect. In Chapter 8, "Out of Combat," she explains how to formulate in advance a strategy for more than the given topic or issue in dispute ("for how a tough conversation for tough conversation will [or could] play out") to avoid falling back into conversational warfare. On Page 106, she provides an "Emergency strategy for when we're on the receiving end." In Chapter 11, "Out of Emotion's Grip," she explains why finding a middle ground enables one to decide which way to move from the center rather than from emotional extremes. And in Chapter 11, "Out of the Breakdown Gap," she explains how to stop a slide into "disaster-prone patterns" in the situation with a balanced strategy "that is flexible enough to allow for differences