Kinder Conversations: Talk it out, without falling out

by Tim Keogh

So practical and this transformed my relationships at work and at home.” Lisa, NHS Director.

The Kinder Feedback Method helps you have the conversations that matter most, in the relationships that mean the most.

We are told some conversations are just plain difficult. But what if those difficult conversations, could be easy? What if you could talk things out without falling out? Speak up without clamming up? Stop molehills of disagreement from becoming mountains of discord?

Packed with real-life stories and helpful examples, Kinder Conversations offers practical skills to make difficult conversations easy, with anyone and on any topic.

With Kinder Conversations you will learn to

- Master the unique BUILD structure to bring kindness to your vital conversations
- Start off on the right foot, to move past the issue to resolution
- Speak up confidently about behaviour, bullying, racism and many other topics
- Feel the fear and say it anyway
- Receive difficult feedback as a gift, not an insult
- Benefit from the surprising positive secret to thriving relationships you won’t find in other feedback approaches.

Tim is a globally recognised expert in creating kinder cultures and has developed and refined the Kinder Feedback Model in workshops with more than a hundred thousand people in pressure-cooker environments like healthcare, education, finance and technology.

Are you ready to learn to give feedback without the fear, the friction, or the fallout?

152 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 16, 2022

Reviews

[DrNiaDThomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is definitely not the book I expected it to be. Having read a few books over the last year I have become accustomed to business books being set out more like a story with a journey taking you from start, to middle, to the end. But this book isn’t like that. It’s actually a guidebook on a technique for giving feedback - the BUILD method (Behaviour, Understand, Impact, Listen, Do-Differently). 

The BUILD method is about giving feedback by describing your experience in a non-judgemental way, setting out the impact the experience has had on you and opening up the floor for the other person to tell you what’s going on. 

Back in 2012 I did a leadership course that talked about a feedback method very similar to this: withholding judgement, focusing on facts and sharing feelings, but it was definitely not packaged as well as this, because I can’t remember the mnemonic now! 

A few years ago I did some work on the NHS speak up agenda. I attended a course with the Cognitive Institute about their clinical safety programme encouraging people to speak up about errors and behaviours in a preventative way, with the aim of improving patient care and recovery. Some of the sentiments and ideas from this book resonated with what I learnt from that course.

Rather than for the writing style, I would give this book an awards for its helpful contribution to increasing workplace psychological safety. 

I’m now thinking about how I ensure others benefit from BUILD. Maybe I could share the technique with my team so that we can develop this helpful feedback skill for whenever we need it? Maybe I can start practicing it at home? Maybe I could ask Tim Keogh to join me on my podcast to talk about it some more? Maybe all of these things!

I give it a 4 out of 5 because of its very specific focus on a particular technique. 

[Helen Palmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I attended one of Tim’s workshops whilst working for the NHS and it was one of those things that has stayed with me since.

The book was a reminder of the tools and techniques contained within the workshop.

Nice short easy read.