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Good Talk: How to Design Conversations that Matter
Life is built one conversation at a time. Learn which conversations matter, how to transform those conversations, and balance them all while leading change.
Human beings are conversational animals. Every day we're in constant communication with ourselves, other people and the world around us, and while not all conversations may seem important, they all have the potential to transform our personal, professional and cultural lives for the better. This book explains how conversations work and offers practical advice on how to improve the quality of our exchanges.
Take a moment and collect all of the crucial conversations in your work and life. Think of the big conversations you're building and the small ones. Gather up those happening inside and outside of your organization...and inside and outside of yourself. How many conversations are there? What are you focusing on? What's working? What needs to shift?
To lead change, make an impact, and communicate well with others, Daniel Stillman, a thought leader, consultant, podcaster, and speaker in design thinking, presents a framework to keep all of the important conversations on track and provides tools to reframe what's missing and confusing.
Human beings are conversational animals. Every day we're in constant communication with ourselves, other people and the world around us, and while not all conversations may seem important, they all have the potential to transform our personal, professional and cultural lives for the better. This book explains how conversations work and offers practical advice on how to improve the quality of our exchanges.
Take a moment and collect all of the crucial conversations in your work and life. Think of the big conversations you're building and the small ones. Gather up those happening inside and outside of your organization...and inside and outside of yourself. How many conversations are there? What are you focusing on? What's working? What needs to shift?
To lead change, make an impact, and communicate well with others, Daniel Stillman, a thought leader, consultant, podcaster, and speaker in design thinking, presents a framework to keep all of the important conversations on track and provides tools to reframe what's missing and confusing.
381 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 1, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
June 18, 2020
This book has a series of great insights, tips and methods you can start using right now to build rich conversations with your partner, family and colleagues at work. Daniel provides practical solutions but also acknowledges injustices, biases and unbalances in our society which helps to understand the power dynamics that often isolates us in our own Operating Systems.
March 31, 2020
It is a joy when I find a book that crystalizes a topic that plays on my mind in my day-to-day life. It feels like finding a truth hiding in plain sight.
This is what strikes me when reading Good Talk... Leadership through the art of conversation is an important topic. This book challenges each reader to consider how they lead in their everyday interactions.
Thoroughly looking forward to reading the final chapters when the book is released in May!
(You can sign up for the first 2 chapters here: https://theconversationfactory.com/go...)
This is what strikes me when reading Good Talk... Leadership through the art of conversation is an important topic. This book challenges each reader to consider how they lead in their everyday interactions.
Thoroughly looking forward to reading the final chapters when the book is released in May!
(You can sign up for the first 2 chapters here: https://theconversationfactory.com/go...)
Want to Read
May 17, 2020Individual´s interactions and especially in the workplace are more important than ever. Awaiting impatiently for the release day.
September 14, 2020
This is a remarkable book laying bare many of the things I found unsatisfactory about meetings and conversations in a business context and providing simple mental tools to recognise what's going on and to help do something positive about it. The language and layout make it all seem so simple - perhaps deceptively so - but the book is also very clear that no one tool fits all circumstances. You really do put the book down with the feeling that here is a toolkit to help you and you will be able to use it with immediate effect. It's fun too written in an accessible way with lots of drawings and graphics to illustrate the points in a memorable way.
May 28, 2021
Good Talk: How to Design Conversations that Matter - where has this been all my life? This book breaks down the fundamental principles behind all meetings/gatherings/workshops - and simplifies them down to conversations. Many of the principles are common knowledge while others such as Threading were really enlightening.
Certain things really resonated with me. Including these quotes:
- “Organizations are limited by the conversations they won’t have”
- “Building a sense of belonging, a feeling of community, should not be an accident - it can be designed”
- “Following complex threads is about asking about feelings instead of facts”
The concept of having Narrative Arc stood out a lot. That really helped frame how to structure the conversations.
I really liked the conversational tone of the book. It wasn’t professorial by any means, but it was still enlightening. Like talking with a sage mentor. I also liked the inclusion that showed a keen sensitivity to racial and social justice. Which as a black man was really nice to see.
My critique would be that at times the flow of the book felt like I was being pulled along rather than guided. Not sure how some of the sections were being stitched together. Not sure how one section connected to another. But it all made sense in the end and is still a great read.
If you have interacted with people (I hope no one’s a unibomber-like recluse) then you’ll definitely learn something from this book. Especially if you’re a manager of people, the insights in this book will do wonders for your communication efforts.
I also recommend tuning into Daniel Stillman’s podcast “The Conversation Factory” for some really insightful interviews.
Certain things really resonated with me. Including these quotes:
- “Organizations are limited by the conversations they won’t have”
- “Building a sense of belonging, a feeling of community, should not be an accident - it can be designed”
- “Following complex threads is about asking about feelings instead of facts”
The concept of having Narrative Arc stood out a lot. That really helped frame how to structure the conversations.
I really liked the conversational tone of the book. It wasn’t professorial by any means, but it was still enlightening. Like talking with a sage mentor. I also liked the inclusion that showed a keen sensitivity to racial and social justice. Which as a black man was really nice to see.
My critique would be that at times the flow of the book felt like I was being pulled along rather than guided. Not sure how some of the sections were being stitched together. Not sure how one section connected to another. But it all made sense in the end and is still a great read.
If you have interacted with people (I hope no one’s a unibomber-like recluse) then you’ll definitely learn something from this book. Especially if you’re a manager of people, the insights in this book will do wonders for your communication efforts.
I also recommend tuning into Daniel Stillman’s podcast “The Conversation Factory” for some really insightful interviews.
February 15, 2021
I came about Daniel Stillman’s work on a podcast sometime back and found it very illuminating. I’ve mostly been interested in group facilitation, which I’ve had the occasion, more than often for whatever reason during the pandemic online via video conferencing. While I found a comfortable fit in leading these conversations, Daniel’s ideas asked me to consider things from several different approaches. They gave me ideas on how to solve some problems that come along with getting everyone’s voice in the room and making them feel heard. The author’s website has some valuable tools, and the book is good too, but I have to say that a lot that’s shared in these ideas are geared more towards corporate, which I find mostly uninteresting.
February 15, 2024
Talk about a book that could have been written in a 1/3 the size. I know my man wanted to help us understand conversation, but he sure did a lot of FLUFF work in this book.
He repeated a variation of the same strategy serval times. He wasn’t breaking new ground after the second time. When he did have a decent design for his large group conversations, he spent 2 pages or so at most to talk about them. It’s sad, he should have expanded on the diagrams like 1-2-4-all that could actually bring about change in a company.
If you do read this book, skip to page 200 and read from there. Otherwise you’re not getting that much useful information
He repeated a variation of the same strategy serval times. He wasn’t breaking new ground after the second time. When he did have a decent design for his large group conversations, he spent 2 pages or so at most to talk about them. It’s sad, he should have expanded on the diagrams like 1-2-4-all that could actually bring about change in a company.
If you do read this book, skip to page 200 and read from there. Otherwise you’re not getting that much useful information
Read
May 19, 2020 An essential read for the essential task of talking to people!
Daniel Stillman’s Good Talk gives us a powerful framework that unpacks and makes explicit all of our choices when interacting with other people across many contexts. The wide-ranging material provides a practical reference and an essential playbook.
Daniel Stillman’s Good Talk gives us a powerful framework that unpacks and makes explicit all of our choices when interacting with other people across many contexts. The wide-ranging material provides a practical reference and an essential playbook.
June 14, 2022
Listening to this on audible and enjoying it a lot after downloading some of the freebies around the Conversation OS on the Conversation Factory website...
Really like both the practical value and simplicity of the OS and also the depth of conversation it helps you get into with colleagues and clients around what supports teams to have conversations that matter...
Really like both the practical value and simplicity of the OS and also the depth of conversation it helps you get into with colleagues and clients around what supports teams to have conversations that matter...
January 29, 2023
I did not enjoy this book.
You know that trend of adding a long story before a recipe that you don’t care about and won’t remember in five minutes? Most of this book feels that way.
Made me feel like reading a very corporate booklet on how to plan meetings that should’ve been 20 pages long but instead it’s a whole book.
You know that trend of adding a long story before a recipe that you don’t care about and won’t remember in five minutes? Most of this book feels that way.
Made me feel like reading a very corporate booklet on how to plan meetings that should’ve been 20 pages long but instead it’s a whole book.
April 8, 2023
A very interesting book, that needs to be read slowly, and re-read. It breaks down the elements of a conversation and how to make the most out of it, in a professional and personal settings as well. it provides a few exercise or reflexion points, and I definitely need to go back to them in a couple of years and see how I have improved in my communication skills.
September 5, 2023
Powerful resource for any leader, change agent, or human wanting to have meaningful and positive impact in the spaces in which they reside.
In this Book, Daniel Stillman unpacks frameworks, tools, and approaches that leader to more generative and productive conversations.
In this Book, Daniel Stillman unpacks frameworks, tools, and approaches that leader to more generative and productive conversations.
March 20, 2021
A user-friendly, design-approach to conversations--both internal and external, professional and private. I found this to be a helpful, mindful way to up my connection skills.
August 21, 2021
READ AUG 2021
This is a useful resource for anyone serious about designing conversations that matter.
This is a useful resource for anyone serious about designing conversations that matter.
December 12, 2022
Interesting way to look at conversations - that they are designed, we design them everyday, and how our lives are affected by the conversations we do and don't have.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews