Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes Are High.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Bookshelf

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes Are High. By Kelly Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler. McGraw-Hill, 240 pages. $16.95.

More than anything, Crucial Conversations belongs squarely on the managerial self-help shelf. This paperback reissue of the 2002 best-seller aims to provide good touchstones for executives in their careers, and to ask them to tap into their emotions. In fact, noted self-help guru Stephen Covey wrote an introduction.

The four authors are colleagues at VitalSmarts, a Utah-based company they founded in 1990 offering resources such as videos, assessment skills, self-study courses, Web training and more. But the book isn't a commercial for their products. It offers an easily digestible...