Our admin team has been reading this book together and it's extremely helpful! If you've ever found yourself in a conversation where opinions vary, stakes are high, and emotions run strong, this book is for you! Some difficult conversations are not that hard to have because you can stay detached and don't have strong emotions about the subject, or you're not friends with the person anyway so if they end up hating you it's not such a big deal. But more often than not conversations come up at home, among friends, or in the workplace where opinions vary (strongly!), stakes are high, and emotions run strong.

Each of us tends to react in these situations in one of two ways: silence or violence. In silence, we may stay in the room, but we're done contributing to the conversation or we may even leave the room. In violence, we begin to make snide remarks, to lose our temper, to slam doors, and maybe even go so far as the use of actual physical violence. The authors show how to recognize your default reaction, how to recognize when others are moving into their default reaction, and how to rescue the conversation so that all involved can continue to contribute to the pool of meaning.

There is a lot of information in this book and it would be nice to be able to flip through the book and find the right tools to use when having a crucial conversation. But as the authors say at the end of the book even if you only remember a few things and learn to use them you will have become a better communicator. I highly recommend this book!