For the past few years, I’ve had the pleasure of assisting one of the pastors at our church in leading a NXTGEN Pastors Cohort, comprised of seminary students, through a series of soft-skill modules. These modules cover subjects that they would not normally cover in their classes in seminary.
Recently, we went through the module on Crucial Conversations. Some of the material in the module came from the best-selling book Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High by Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler and Emily Gregory. The original edition of the book was published in 2002 and it continues to be popular today, now in its third edition. I remember that it was the “hot” business book in the organization that I worked at not long after it was published, and participating in a Crucial Conversations book club.
The authors describe a “crucial conversation” as a discussion between two or more people where:
- The stakes are high
- Opinions differ
- Emotions run strong
- The outcome significantly impacts their lives and there is significant risk of negative consequences