Henry Cloud

I'm surprised to be giving this a full five stars, seeing as Dr. Cloud is an evangelical Christian - and writes like one! - and I'm agnostic/atheist. But it earns the full five stars. What he says about boundaries (and the way to sanity) is something pretty much everyone in the modern world needs to hear in some form. If you can deal with a bit of Christianity without it driving you totally nuts (and, really, it's not all that strong, doesn't sound like a Bible study or anything), then I'd show more highly recommend this book. show less

Modern leadership is often contrasted with healthy relationships. Leaders, we are told, have to be a lonely and isolated genius, like Steve Jobs. However, in truth, no one can lead without relying on other people. Getting things done requires healthy relationships, and most key advances just cannot be made without others’ influence. In this book, leadership psychologist Henry Cloud examines how to best take advantage of others’ help by identifying mutually beneficial show more relationships.

Cloud’s main idea is that relationships of respect and growth yield the most productive results. Key insights have only happened because other people have become involved in another person’s life. Other people can inspire us to do things that we simply can’t achieve in isolation. This trait is grounded in the neuroscience of how mirror neurons act in our brains.

Although this book is written primarily for the workplace, this central idea has contains a very religious, spiritual core. Not only does this work reference Cloud’s Christianity multiple times, but also it contains common insights of religion, that no one is an island and that humans do better in loving, respectful relationships. This motif goes against the grain that selfish jerks end up first. Indeed, Cloud speaks directly against such a premise in his conclusion and contends that these jerks could have had greater impact with better relationships.

This book still faces a few limits. He consistently uses the term “corner four relationships” to describe the healthiest, most generative relationships. This concept clearly refers to a chart in the book, but I was not able to view this graphic because I listened to an audiobook. This repeated abstraction is, well, a little too abstract for me. I wish he would have just coined a more descriptive phrase for it that wouldn’t be so vague and distracting.

Further, Cloud never discusses the area of difficult choices. He presumes that relationships should always come first. How do we tell if someone is, say, taking advantage of us? How do we psychologically balance our need for subjective trust with an objective evaluation? These and other confusing areas are simply not addressed in this text. That’s unfortunate because the values of any principles are most clearly seen in the required trade offs.

This book’s audience focuses on organizational leaders and those aspiring to grow. The message can encompass a wide variety of organizations and leaders. The book broadly addresses businesses, non-profits, educators, and family leaders. In particular, mentors can benefit from Cloud’s focus on cultivating synergistic relationships, and their mentees can benefit from figuring out how to make their other relationships yield more fruit. Throughout, he consistently reminds us that individual success always rests on the shoulders of other people, and the greatest leaders bring out the best in other individuals, not just their own greatness. show less

Have used this for bibliotherapy on several occasions. Starts with Bible references then what patterns can lead to the process of a dysfunctional family. Most useful has been the section of "How to Do It Right When You Learned Wrong." My personal earlier years were thrashed through the involvement with a pastoral dysfunctional family. Appendix B is one of the most powerful sections of the book: "Patterns Predicting Pastoral Infidelity." Reading and understanding the impact of such described show more behavior allowed me to heal from "sins of the father," which further inspired me in my doctoral studies.
A priceless book! A wonderful tool for the layman to the professional. A+ show less

How to Have That Difficult Conversation is a great little read for those looking to understand communication.

I was recommended this book and I have to say, it does a good job for what I needed it for. I wanted to read into boundaries and how to have difficult conversations (you know, the title). It was a very helpful book if you're looking for some more background information and to clarify some different techniques to going into potentially not so great conversations.

Personally, I found show more this book told me a lot about what I already knew. Despite that, it gives some great examples. I liked the application side of this book and how it gave many different options depending on the context of the difficult conversation. I can really appreciate how this book broke it down and made it simple. It's not the ultimate guide to conversations, but it will give you an excellent start.

It does have Bible verses everywhere, so I can already see some people not liking this book. I didn't mind them. I actually found it really interesting to see how the Bible was being referenced and used in a positive light. If you don't like the religious side of things though, it may not be for you. It didn't bother me in the slightest and I actually enjoyed seeing the Bible verses put to a practical and nice use. I had gotten tired of people using Bible verses for not so nice reasons.

Overall, this is a useful guide to help you on your communication journey.

Four out of five stars. show less