Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

In Review: Effective Difficult Conversations: A Step-By-Step Guide, M. Anne O'Reilly

Urban Library Journal

Having difficult conversations is, well ... difficult, but Catherine B. Soehner and Ann Darling make it a bit easier in their book, Effective Difficult Conversations: A Step-by-Step Guide. This text by ALA Editions does not claim to be a self-help book; rather it aims to “bring something new to the discussion while focusing on having ‘difficult’ conversations in your professional life” (p. xii). The authors give examples of difficult conversations: those dealing with hiring and promotion, performance, tasks that need to be done, and tasks or behaviors that may need to stop. They define which types of difficult conversations …