Connect: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends, and Colleagues
by David Bradford Ph.D., Carole Robin (Author)
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Description
"A transformative guide to building more fulfilling relationships with colleagues, friends, partners, and family, based on the perennially popular Interpersonal Dynamics ("Touchy Feely") course at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. The ability to create strong relationships with others is crucial to living a fulfilled life and becoming a more effective manager and leader. Yet many of us find ourselves struggling to build solid connections at work, with friends and at home, or unable to show more handle challenges that inevitably arise when we grow closer to others. When we find ourselves in an exceptional relationship--the kind of relationship where we feel fully understood and supported for who we are--it can seem like magic. But the truth is that the process of building and sustaining these relationships can be described, learned, and applied. David Bradford and Carole Robin taught interpersonal skills to MBA candidates for a combined seventy-five years in their blockbuster Stanford Graduate School of Business course Interpersonal Dynamics (known to generations of students as "Touchy Feely") and have coached and consulted to hundreds of executives for decades. In Connect, they show readers how to take their relationships from shallow to exceptional, along the way offering time-tested strategies for giving feedback, negotiating boundaries, and navigating disagreements. Through stories of people navigating tricky moments in relationships--all based on real dynamics Bradford and Robin have witnessed or experienced--we see the six hallmarks of an exceptional relationship in action: authenticity, vulnerability, honesty, a willingness to ask for and offer help, a shared commitment to growth, and an ability to deal productively with conflict. Filled with relatable scenarios and research-backed insights, Connect will be an important resource for anyone hoping to improve existing relationships and build new ones at any stage of life"-- show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown
Thogek A somewhat different angle, but a lot of overlap in concept and approach.
Member Reviews
I came into Connect thinking "This is really powerful. This is really good." I came out of it wondering what exactly I'd learned. Robin and Bradford are two of the minds behind one of the most popular courses at the Stanford Business School, Interpersonal Dynamics, loving referred to as "touchy-feely".
The idea is that a lot of relationships we have are shallow and not particularly satisfying. We can have better ones by being authentic, vulnerable, and not making assumptions about what other people are feeling. The examples, using both invented dialog and the author's experiences, are quite good. Issues include being talked over at work, marriages that are floundering on changes in career and parenting, aging parents who prefer show more solutions to emotional openness, and friendships that are on the rocks due to life changes.
I think the key points are not to let emotional 'pinches' build into crises, and to stay on your side of the net and not make assumptions about other's motivations. It's good advice, but hard to apply in a real world where your own emotions are unclear, others can be predatory, and the need to save face is constant. show less
The idea is that a lot of relationships we have are shallow and not particularly satisfying. We can have better ones by being authentic, vulnerable, and not making assumptions about what other people are feeling. The examples, using both invented dialog and the author's experiences, are quite good. Issues include being talked over at work, marriages that are floundering on changes in career and parenting, aging parents who prefer show more solutions to emotional openness, and friendships that are on the rocks due to life changes.
I think the key points are not to let emotional 'pinches' build into crises, and to stay on your side of the net and not make assumptions about other's motivations. It's good advice, but hard to apply in a real world where your own emotions are unclear, others can be predatory, and the need to save face is constant. show less
A qualified "pick" for this one. It's better than most self-helpy books, and I appreciate how much variety they offer in their examples, including examples of relationships that maybe aren't destined to become "exceptional," but the example dialogues feel somewhat contrived and biased towards a particular way of living life (full-time career, going for drinks with friends) that feels a little limiting. And right now my difficulty is with establishing friendships rather than growing them, so the utility of the suggestions for me is less than it might be for someone else. There's also a misattributed quote at the very beginning of the book that felt sloppy to me and probably colored my experience of the book as a whole.
A small but quite a good read. Reinforces the VIEW (vulnerability, impartial, empathy, wonder) way of life deep and personal connect with people who matter to us.
A number of good points but could have been significantly condensed.
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2 Works 109 Members
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- Members
- 111
- Popularity
- 293,504
- Reviews
- 4
- Rating
- (3.89)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 7
- ASINs
- 3
