Book Review: 4/5 Impact On Me (Book By Kerry Patterson, Stephen R. Covey, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler)
Read more about the book here
This book is a classic, so I had high hopes for the content but low hopes for its format. I read it a few years ago but couldn't remember anything from it. So, I read it 3 times this year. I probably found fewer things that stood out to me because this book overlaps a lot with other great relationship and conversation books, like "How to Win Friends and Influence People," Stanford’s "Connect," Gottman’s research on marriages, and "How to Talk So Kids Will Listen."
Some of the valuable parts of this book include identifying the type of conversation you’re having. Another is that everyone enters a conversation with a purpose in mind. They want to achieve something (e.g. get a sale, go to cafe X). But when you don’t discuss that purpose, you might leave the conversation dissatisfied and unhappy.
I liked its recommendation of knowing the topic you’re discussing. For example, you are talking with a colleague. They bring up workplace harassment, IT outages, or trust issues. You need to know whether you want to park the new topics for a later discussion or if you want to pause the current discussion to move to one of these new topics.
It also suggested that sometimes, a seemingly simple conversation can suddenly become crucial. For instance, you might be discussing the timeline of a project when suddenly it becomes about your job at the company.
I am now more aware of the stakes in conversations. It recommends not just labeling someone, for example, as not committed to the project, but describing the actions you see someone make. Then, explain your perception of them based on these actions.