How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work: Seven Languages for Transformation

How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work: Seven Languages for Transformation

By: Robert Kegan   Lisa Laskow Lahey  

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Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Why is the gap so great between our hopes, our intentions, even our decisions-and what we are actually able to bring about? Even when we are able to make important changes-in our own lives or the groups we lead at work-why are the changes are so frequently short-lived and we are soon back to business as usual? What can we do to transform this troubling reality?

In this intensely practical book, Harvard psychologists Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey take us on a carefully guided journey designed to help us answer these very questions. And not just generally, or in the abstract. They help each of us arrive at our own particular answers that can solve the puzzling gap between what we intend and what we are able to accomplish. How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work provides you with the tools to create a powerful new build-it-yourself mental technology.

Publisher: Jossey-Bass

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Remarkable work - Exceptional work on the nature of resistance to change and the way to break through. For organizations or individuals for that matter, the concept of conflicting commitments as thwarting our best intentions is as close to what stops us as anything I have encountered. I use it in my own coaching work and with the additional knowledge from this book, will surely find new ways to free people up. A must read!

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Mastering the Language of Engagement - Kegan & Lahey have compiled a remarkable study into the importance of mastering communication skills; both verbal & non-verbal; in order to be more productive with our work & our lives, for that matter.

An important, and largely misunderstood part of effective communication, is using an approach which values personal accountability, while diminishing finger pointing. This would be most beneficial for management to comprehend when faced with the challenge of getting employees to actively engage in the process of work. Certainly, by mastering the art of communicating in a non-threatening, engaging way, half the battle is won.

Another great book on the subject is Paul Herr's Primal Management: Unraveling the Secrets of Human Nature to Drive High Performance. It picks up where Kegan & Lahey left off with this particular gem.

Customer Review: 4 out of 5
A Book Covering Change and Transformation -- Kegan Distilled and Simplified - "How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work" is a book about change and transformation. More specifically, Kegan and Lahey (the authors) cover seven "languages" that can be adopted in the service of overcoming resistance to change.

For readers who might be familiar with Robert Kegan, the lead author of this book, "How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work" covers some of Kegan's insightful...and complex...thinking from one of his earlier publications, The Evolving Self: Problem and Process in Human Development. That point not withstanding, the publication underlying this review is a fairly basic and simple read.

"How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work," while somewhat simple and basic in design and content, is a worthwhile read for those readers interested in how language can influence and impact change and transformation. Given the rapidly changing nature of today's world, I found the content of this publication both insightful and useful.

I recommend this book to a broad base of readers...specifically those with an interest in how they might influence change. For those with a desire to learn more about some of the general thinking underlying this book, I recommend The Evolving Self: Problem and Process in Human Development.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Powerful process - The concepts in this book are simple to understand, simple to walk through and produce powerful results. I recommend this book to anyone wanting to make personal, professional or institutional changes. If you get the opportunity to hear Robert Kegan talk about this process, spend the time and money to hear him. An excellent resource that I use again and again.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Inner Change Comes First - This book is a treasure for anyone who has ever said "People don't really change". It gets us down to the store house where all the resistence lives. It helps show that no matter how much you can verbalize your willingness to change it wont really happen until you shine a light on the inner conflicts that demand maintaining the status quo.

In showing the power of our emotional immune system that targets self protection we can begin to gain some self observation of why we do (or don't do) what it takes for change to occur.

The authors, noted leaders in their field have given an excellent, readable book that demands personal accountability for our words and deeds.

Sylvia Lafair PhD author "Don't Bring It to Work: Breaking the Family Patterns that Limit Success".

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