Can We Talk?

WINNER: Independent Press Award 2022 - Career

Are you avoiding an uncomfortable conversation at work? If you're an executive or a team leader, strengthening your organization's ability to have difficult conversations is necessary and worth the discomfort.

The key to successful dialogue starts and ends with changing the conversation. Recognizing that it takes two people to engage in meaningful outcomes, Can We Talk? outlines what each contributor needs to do to achieve the best possible result. Using examples from everyday work situations, this book offers guidance on how to create the right conditions for a meaningful discussion. The author identifies the seven key principles that enable both parties to gain a deeper understanding of what the other person may be thinking and will help establish their point of view more clearly: confidence, clarity, compassion, curiosity, compromise, credibility, courage.

Can We Talk? includes examples and advice from those who have been there and thrived, as well as lessons learned from conversation failures and example scripts of productive conversations. Readers will learn how to prepare, start and manage the potentially challenging exchange of words that typically occur at work, and come away with an understanding that for any conversation to take place, both parties must be engaged.

About the Author

Roberta Chinsky Matuson is based in Brookline, Massachusetts and helps leaders achieve dramatic improvements in employee engagement, retention, productivity and profitability. She's the president and founder of Matuson Consulting, where she works with Fortune 500 companies and mid-size, emerging companies to create teams that achieve extraordinary results. Known globally as "The Talent Maximizer®," she is a seasoned speaker and the author of five books and blogs for Fast Company, Glassdoor, Forbes and Thrive Global. She is frequently cited in national media including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Inc.com, WashingtonPost.com and NPR.