Reading List for Sep-12

Helping: How to Offer, Give and Receive Help
Helping is a fundamental human activity, but it can also be a frustrating one. All too often our sincere offers of help are resented, resisted, or refused—and we often react the same way when people try to help us. In this seminal book on the topic—named one of the top five leadership books of 2009 by strategy+business magazine—Edgar Schein analyzes the social and psychological dynamics common to all types of helping relationships, explains why help is often not helpful, and shows what any would-be helpers must do to ensure that their assistance is both welcomed and genuinely useful. Using examples from many types of relationships—doctors and patients, consultants and clients, husbands and wives—Schein offers specific techniques and illuminating examples that help us determine what type of help to offer and how best to offer it in any situation. These techniques not only apply to all kinds of one-on-one helping in personal and professional relationships, teaching, social work, and medicine but also can be usefully applied to teamwork and to organizational leadership.


Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High 
The first edition of Crucial Conversations exploded onto the scene and revolutionized the way millions of people communicate when stakes are high. This new edition gives you the tools to:

• Prepare for high-stakes situations
• Transform anger and hurt feelings into powerful dialogue
• Make it safe to talk about almost anything
• Be persuasive, not abrasive

Crucial Confrontations
Re-read. Behind the problems that routinely plague organizations and families, you'll find individuals who are either unwilling or unable to deal with failed promises. Others have broken rules, missed deadlines, failed to live up to commitments, or just plain behaved badly--and nobody steps up to the issue. Or they do, but do a lousy job and create a whole new set of problems. Accountability suffers and new problems spring up. New research demonstrates that these disappointments aren't just irritating, they're costly--sapping organizational performance by twenty to fifty percent and accounting for up to ninety percent of divorces. Discover skills to resolve touchy, controversial, and complex issues at work and at home.