Christina Tangora Schlachter, PhD, is a Certified Professional Coach. She has created and taught courses on communication skills, crucial conversations for new managers, communication for professionals, and dealing with difficult conversations. She is the coauthor of Leading Business Change For Dummies and is the Chief Leader of She Leads.

Introduction 1 Part I: The Anatomy of a Critical Conversation 7 Chapter 1: Let's Get Critical! Making Conversations Count 9 Chapter 2: The Ins and Outs of a Critical Conversation 23 Chapter 3: Critical Conversations: Key Elements to Get You Started 43 Chapter 4: Delivering the Message with Impact 57 Chapter 5: Knowing When It's Time to Have a Critical Conversation 69 Part II: Making Sense of How You Communicate 83 Chapter 6: Building Effective Verbal Communication Techniques 85 Chapter 7: Grasping Nonverbal Cues 99 Chapter 8: Working with Different Communication Styles 113 Part III: Getting Down to Specifics: Creating a Critical Conversation 127 Chapter 9: Here's the Warm-Up: Getting Yourself Ready 129 Chapter 10: Keeping Challenging Situations Productive 143 Chapter 11: Closing the Conversation with Ease 159 Part IV: Putting It All into Practice 169 Chapter 12: Conversations in Good Times 171 Chapter 13: Conversations in Bad Times 185 Chapter 14: Dealing with Staff Disputes 199 Chapter 15: Identifying and Working through Workplace Complaints 215 Chapter 16: Resolving Difficult Behaviors with Critical Conversations 231 Chapter 17: Customer Conversations 249 Chapter 18: Hot Topics in Team Conversations 263 Part V: The Part of Tens 273 Chapter 19: Ten Benefits of Leading a Critical Conversation 275 Chapter 20: Ten Ways to Keep Your Cool No One Else Is 283 Chapter 21: Ten Ways to Manage a Conversation That's Going South 291 Index 299