Authentic Conversations

In this book, we hope to create for you an awareness of how daily conversations create, reveal, sustain, or change organizational culture. We explore the significant role culture has in facilitating healthy relationships and creating business results. Our premise is that true and lasting changes to organizational culture cannot occur unless people understand how traditional conversations stymie growth and erode commitment....We explore the issues rooted in questions such as: How does the organization move from a parent-child culture to an adult-adult culture? How can you recognize the damage caused by manipulative conversations? How can you learn to engage in authentic conversations based on collaboration and partnership? How do you eliminate traditional leadership conversations aimed at caretaking and control? How can you engage people in ways that value their knowledge, experience, and contribution? How can you create an organizational culture that maximizes the potential of the entire organization? These questions and others addressed in this book are relevant to all organizations accountable for results today and in the foreseeable future. ----Preface